Empower your team with pipeline integrity data management for personnel

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hello this is carl baker supervisor of the gas pipeline safety unit at the public utilities regulatory authority today i'm going to give you a brief overview of the gas pipeline safety unit and discuss a little bit about distribution integrity management gas pipeline safety unit is responsible for rigorous oversight of natural gas operators in the state of connecticut and also the enforcement of our underground damage prevention program better known as call before you dig the companies we regulate are connecticut natural gas eversource gas southern connecticut gas and norwich public utilities we regulate these utilities by looking at their design construction testing operation and maintenance emergency response instant investigation employee qualification and integrity management we do this by not only reviewing the plans procedures and standards that operator has created and the records that come out of it but also we go in the field and watch the work being done to ensure it's complying with the plans they put together with respect to distribution integrity management it's a holistic look at everything that a gas company has and does with respect to their system they need to have a full understanding of their system both things that were put in many years ago plus stuff today how they used to operate how they operate today they need to identify threats that could affect their system such as corrosion excavation damage maybe employee errors they need to then take those threats and rank the risk by looking at both the probability a threat could happen on their system and the consequence if it were to happen they need to implement measures to address those risks from then we measure performance monitor results and evaluate effectiveness we use all that data to continuously improve the program one of the highest risk items that come out of this evaluation is aging infrastructure all the utilities have cast iron and bare steel that was put in many years ago and they have replacement programs to deal with that risk that those replacement programs cost tens of millions of dollars per year and obviously have an impact on customers gas bills it's imperative that the public utilities regulatory authority look closely at these replacement programs to ensure that we are only replacing the pipe that needs to be done and that the pipe that is being replaced is being replaced effectively and efficiently thank you