History and Background
“On Tuesday, July 8, 1986, a quiet neighborhood in Moundsview, Minnesota, was roused from its slumber when a wall of fire roared down that street. A mother and her six-year old daughter stepped out the front door shocked by the noise, frightened obviously, opened their door and were incinerated. Mailboxes melted. Trees wilted. The road buckled. A third woman was severely injured. Over a quarter of a million dollars in property damage was caused. The origin of the fire, a hazardous liquid pipeline running through this neighborhood.” Congressman James Oberstar (8th District) presented this chilling account of the Moundsview accident when he testified before the National Transportation Safety Board.
As a result of that horrific incident in Moundsview, the Minnesota Legislature undertook a study of pipeline safety and third party damages. Chief among the study’s findings was the recommendation that Minnesota enact comprehensive damage prevention legislation. This resulted in the passage of State Statutes Chapter 216D in 1987. The legislation, co-sponsored by Representatives Daniel Knuth, Dave Bishop and Senator Steve Novak, required the establishment of a statewide notification center to receive notices of intent to excavate from any person engaged in excavation activity. All persons who engaged in excavation were required to notify the call center two business days prior to the start of their work. The call center would in turn notify facility operators in the area of the excavation.
216D required the Commissioner of Public Safety to approve the formation of a nonprofit corporation for the provision of the call center services. The nonprofit corporation was to be governed by up to 20 directors, representing and selected by facility operators, excavators and other persons eligible to participate in the center. The only permanent board seat designated by the legislation is reserved for the Director of the Minnesota Office of Pipeline Safety. With the formation of the Board of Directors, Gopher State One Call (GSOC) was born.
The original board members were Bill Barbeau, Jackie Carlson, Tom Humanson, Art Jackson, Eldon Johnson, Roger Kiffmeyer, Adam Kramer, Roy Larson, Roger McBride, John Metz, Jim Moehnke, Doug Olson, Clarance Ranallo, Arlen Renstad, Rich Sandahl, Mike Styba and Tony Werner. One of the Board's first charges was to prepare a Request for Proposal for the operation of the call center. One Call Concepts, Inc. (OCC) was the successful bidder. Construction of the new office began immediately. GSOC accepted its first locate request on October 1, 1988.
Prior to the enactment of Minnesota Statutes Chapter 216D, there was no coordinated statewide damage prevention effort. There were no historical statistics as to the number of excavations that took place in the state every year. After assessing the available information, the Board made its best estimate and instructed One Call Concepts to be prepared to handle 175,000 requests during the first year of operation.
What everyone underestimated was the enthusiasm with which Minnesota’s excavators would comply with the new law. Their calls nearly overwhelmed the new center. Neither the GSOC board nor OCC was prepared for the volume of requests received by the call center during its first months of operation.
OCC quickly responded and, fortunately, winter was rapidly approaching. During the lull in excavation activity, the office was expanded, its computer system was upgraded and workstations were added. By the beginning of the spring 1989 digging season, the center’s capacity to handle the expected “rush” of locate requests was significantly increased. By the end of the first year’s operation, GSOC had handled over 900,000 transactions. This represented an increase of in excess of 500% of the volume originally estimated.
Shortly after the initial start-up, the Board of Directors instructed OCC to launch a Public Relations and Education Campaign. The goal was to conduct a multi-pronged outreach program that would reach all potential be excavators in Minnesota, including homeowners, with the “Call before You Dig” message. At a time when many state’s one-call centers chose to de-emphasize outreach to homeowners and other one-time excavators, GSOC’s Board recognized the important role this group played in preventing damages. Radio advertising, print media and opportunities for “one-on-one” contact served as the cornerstones of this program.
Since that time, the Public Relations & Education Campaign has grown from one to two full time employees. These staff members work closely with, and receive great assistance from, the Minnesota Office of Pipeline Safety, the facility owners, and a variety of local coordinating councils and professional associations. One of their most important tasks is to travel the state during the winter months to meet with a variety of excavators groups and conduct safety training. But these efforts at personal contact are not limited to the winter months. Many readers may remember noticing GSOC’s presence at the Minnesota State Fair, where people have been known to stand in line to receive a promotional yardstick imprinted with GSOC’s phone number.
The story of GSOC’s history is also one of an ongoing effort to manage its responsibility. As we have seen, since the center opened, Minnesotans in ever-increasing numbers are calling before they dig. To handle this load, GSOC has consistently been called on to provide more services as economically as possible for those who fund it, Minnesota’s utilities.
Excavator access has been expanded in numerous ways over the past twenty years by the increasing use of alternate means of contact. Early on, GSOC introduced the FAX-a-Locate program which allowed excavators the convenience of avoiding the telephone and submitting their locate requests on their schedule. This was followed by “Tickets on Line”, an internet tool for professional excavators to email locates to the center. In 2004, GSOC introduced ITIC, a web-based interface that gives excavators complete control over how and when they enter their ticket over the Internet. Not forgetting the homeowner and casual excavator, GSOC introduced ITIC Lite in 2006, a scaled-down version of ITIC that requires no special training or qualifications to access and use.
Minnesota’s utility operators have realized the benefit of GIS mapping at GSOC since the early ‘90’s when OCC installed its PRISM system. PRISM allows utility companies to fully customize their notification database and permits GSOC to discretely identify the dig site when the locate request is made. When compared with using less customizable systems, PRISM saves GSOC’s facility owners millions of dollars in locating costs every year.
Improvements in communication are not limited to increasing access to the Center. In 2005, the Minnesota Office of Pipeline Safety adopted Rules regarding “positive response”, the actions a utility owner must take to communicate with the excavator about the status of a locate request. The Rules called for the establishment of an automated “positive response” system. Utility owners could use the positive response system to record whether they had marked or cleared an excavator’s locate request. Excavators could contact the positive response system to find out whether their job site had already been checked.
In response to these Rules, “Ticket Check” came on-line January 1, 2006. Like ITIC and ITIC Lite, Ticket Check is another innovative web-based product implemented by OCC for GSOC. It is designed to increase the communication channels between excavators and facility operators in an effort to prevent damage to buried lines. More information about Ticket Check can be found by visiting the Ticket Check area of this web site.
Today, more than 1,400 utility operators who receive locate requests from GSOC. GSOC annually processes nearly 800,000 incoming requests for marking every year. Because multiple utility owners are usually present in any given area, these incoming requests generate more than 4,500,000 outbound requests for marking. A great deal of the credit for GSOC’s success is directly due to the efforts of Minnesota’s citizens to digging safely in their personal and professional lives. Thanks for being such an important part of GSOC’s history.