Vol. 11 Released August 2015
The Common Ground Alliance (CGA) has issued its Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) Report for 2014, providing a summary and analysis of the pipeline damage, near miss, and downtime events that occurred in 2014. The DIRT Report identifies the importance of calling 811 as most critical to safety.
The number of events submitted for 2014 increased by nearly 50,000 over 2013, due to efforts of the Data Reporting and Evaluation Committee to promote data entry by existing and new submitters. The total number of US damages increased in 2014 over 2013.
The DIRT Report is a summary of utility damage data submitted anonymously from facility operators, locators, one-call centers, and regulators. The report gives us the opportunity to not only understand the root causes of damages, but to measure the effectiveness of damage prevention efforts and campaigns. DIRT offers insight on equipment used, type of work being performed, one-call notification, the effects of one-call exemptions, and regional differences.
The complete DIRT Annual Report for 2014 is available for download at the CGA website.