SEUFPC Meeting
June 19, 2003
9:00am
Birmingham, AL

Attending: Mike McCrary – BellSouth Annette Reburn – AL One Call
Bill Buchanan – MCI Fiona Bowen – Ga UPC
Brad Martin – FL One Call Jim Allen - MS One Call
David Lewis – BellSouth Michele Dory – AL One Call

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS

Mike McCrary called the meeting to order at 9:25 a.m.

REVIEW OF APRIL MEETING MINUTES

The minutes were distributed from the April 17, 2003 meeting and Mike McCrary reviewed the items that were discussed and the main focus of the April meeting.

Mike reviewed the mission statement from the SEUFPC website.

The election of the officers was discussed and it was again suggested that the officer positions would be represented by one of the facility owner representatives and not a one-call representative. David Lewis has been asked to serve as Chair and he will see if he can get approval and support from his management to do so and let Mike McCrary know. Bill Buchanan also stated that he would be interested in serving as an officer as well.

OLD BUSINESS
Meeting Structure

Mike McCrary suggested that we look at the number of meetings that are held and look at options to alternate meetings such as conference calls. Several options were discussed.

It was agreed that it would be a good idea to hold two meetings a year instead of four and have one in conjunction with NTDPC and one as a unique group. It was agreed that there were strengths in building the alliance through attending the NTDPC meetings.

It was asked if SEUFPC could have access to NTDPC meeting minutes which have now password protected through the website. Mike McCrary said he thought a member of the SEUFPC could get access to that information.

Mike McCrary suggested that at the Tulsa meeting in July he would include on the agenda to have a representative from SEUFPC join via conference call and ask for the NTDPC’s support and participation at the local level.

UPDATES
Three Digit Dialing

Mike McCrary gave an update on three-digit dialing (#DIG). The NTDPC website has a map showing #DIG coverage per cellular provider. CGA has issued a letter to Stacey Gerard, Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety – Research and Special Programs Administration explaining the #DIG number and requesting funding.

International Locate Rodeo

Fiona Bowen stated that an announcement rescheduling the International Locate Rodeo to a one-day event instead of the original two-day program would be going out soon. With the revision to a one-day program, the registration is up to approximately 65 participants and they are expecting nearly 70-75 by the end of registration. Last year attendance was 59.

The dates for the Rodeo are July 31st (Vendor Showcase) through August 1st (Rodeo).

Locate Excellence

Brad Martin asked about the content from the Locate Excellence website. He stated that FL wanted to pull information from that site to hold consistency between the two programs when Florida gets their program underway. Fiona Bowen stated that the Locate Excellence name and logo has been copyrighted and not available for wide usage without permission and he would need to check with someone at the GA UPC about use of that logo.

Fiona Bowen also suggested that in conducting this type of program it is vital that the nominations are provided by the locate companies and continued participation in the program so that the information is updated to ensure participants are awarded properly.

Federal Grant Funding

Mike McCrary brought up the federal funding from the Department of Transportation available to one call funding.

A discussion was held concerning the federal grant funding availability to the one call centers and the verbiage in the legislation that prohibits funding directly to the one call enter unless they are designated as a state agency and other restrictions. Some state one calls have been successful in receiving funds and others have not. It was suggested that NTDPC could write a letter in support of the provisions of the monies being restructured for easier access to one-call systems for program enhancements.

SOCS Meeting May 8-9, 2003

Annette Reburn updated the group on the Spring SOCS meeting, which was held in Orange Beach, AL.

NTDPC Meeting April 23-24, 2003

Copies of minutes were distributed for review.

The next meeting is scheduled for July 16-17 in Tulsa, OK.

HDD

The HDD Rodeo was canceled due to lack of participation.

R&D Committee put out a white paper on obstacle protection and a copy of this was distributed requesting comments back by June 27, 2003.

The backreamer migration tape was mentioned and an extra copy was provided to the GA UPC. Planetary Utilities produced this video. Its purpose is to disprove the theory that the backreamer usually takes the path of least resistance rather than following the original path of the bore.

Other

Mike McCrary distributed hardhat stickers and mentioned the NTDPC calling cards. He stated that handouts are available for approved events upon request.

NEW MEMBER SOLICITATION

Michele Dory agreed to lead the new member solicitation committee.

LEGISLATIVE SUBCOMMITTEE

Brad Martin agreed to lead the legislative committee and keep in touch with industry sources for legislative updates. The Southeast group will also supply Brad with any changes in their legislation as they are made.

CALL CENTER UPDATE

Alabama

Alabama is seeing a reduction in ticket volume of approximately 7% for the year. A large portion of this decrease is due to the amount of rain that the state has experienced this spring.

With the implementation of the GeoCall software and the combination of the mapping interface and the members providing shapefiles of their facilities, Alabama has experienced about a 17% reduction in outbound transmissions year to date. Monthly, since the conversion, it has been about a 28% reduction as compared to 2002.

The Remote Ticket Entry program is proving to be very successful. After changing over to the new system in February, due to the added feature of the mapping interface, the remote ticket entry program has increased from 8% in January to over 18% in May.

Alabama is looking to hold meeting to discuss changes in the legislation beginning next month with hopes to have proposed legislation drafted and a sponsor obtained prior to the beginning of the 2004 session.

Alabama is also looking at the feasibility of conducting the pipeline safety training for its pipeline members as is being done in Tennessee and Ohio. This has been at the request of its pipeline members.

Georgia

The UPC has begun hiring CSR again due to increase hold times.

They are in the process of implementing the new I3 communications system.

Call volume is down slightly in Georgia as well.

There is an AGT Users Group that has been established to address some software changes needed. And the Positive Response program is being reviewed as well as to ways to improve its interactions for those who use it.

The Liaisons are beginning to conduct a 4-hour training for individuals who are in violation of the law as an option to paying the monetary penalty.

Florida

Florida has seen some increase in call volume in 2003.

The marketing department is working on damage prevention program with the state licensing board and extending the education program to a more inclusive training program than the current one being conducted. Florida is also beginning a law enforcement education program.

There is a strategic planning session for the marketing department scheduled in June and Board of Directors planning session scheduled for July.

Florida is working on the program for design tickets and positive response and their polygon registration for their member facilities is underway.

Mississippi

Mississippi has been updating its members to a spatial database for the last year. In doing so they have experienced a 3% decrease in transmissions as compared through May 2002 since working on the database conversions for their members. Of the 385 members of MS One Call, 74 have completely converted over to a spatial database. For those who have not converted yet, they are sending pdf files of maps to members to mark up and return to update their database.

Mississippi’s mapping project has digitized all the counties using the ortho quads maps. Of the 82 counties, 47 have been field researched and 43 of these have been placed online. Of the 43 counties online, 7 of the counties have had address ranges added.

In May 2003, MS One Call has processed 11,655 voice tickets (57% of total volume), 7,250 Faxed (21% of total volume) and 3,872 (19% of total volume). And they have had approximately 3% of their calls being handled as after hour calls through their partnership with Tennessee One Call. Approximately 1% of their outbound transmissions are going out via email.

Mississippi has experienced a reduction in damages, which has been attributed to the success of their Damage Prevention meetings. However, once damages have taken a downturn, attendance at the meeting has dropped.

COMPANY UPDATES

BellSouth

In Georgia the district area covered by David Lewis has a program in place allowing technicians on light duty to be assigned to that department. They are given routes to monitor for both their contract locator quality program and high profile routes and/or courtesy stop patrol of excavation activities. If they are doing courtesy stops they have to make 5 contacts per day and hand out information with contact information for excavating around buried facilities. The program does allow for fines on the contract locator if they are under a certain quality level as a result of the quality monitoring.

Damages are still up; however, the ratios (damages/locates) are better than last year for the overall district area.

NEXT MEETING DATE

There will be a conference call held between July and October. The next physical meeting is tentatively scheduled to be held in conjunction with the NTDPC meeting in Raleigh, NC on October 21st.

ACTION ITEMS:

David Lewis to see if he can get management approval and support to serve as SEUFPC chair for the upcoming year.

Michele Dory to head up the Membership Growth Committee.

Brad Martin to head up Legislative Subcommittee.

Voluntary participation via conference call at the July NTDPC meeting, to express interest in working with the NTDPC to keep SEUFPC viable.

Comments on HDD White paper back to Mike McCrary by June 27th.