Municipalities face the continuous problem of dealing with utility damages, both from excavators striking their utility lines and their own crews striking other utilities.  This can cost the Municipality anywhere from a few thousand dollars to millions for larger cities.  Poor investigations often lead to the inability of the Municipality to recover their damages when an excavator strikes their line. Likewise, a lack of quality damage investigations can often lead to the city paying for a claim that might not have been their fault. This session will focus on developing structured processes to properly investigate utility damages.  These processes will help to get to the true cause or causes of damages and help to assign fault and aid the municipality in collecting for damages.  It will also help in protecting the City from paying for damages when their crews have done nothing wrong. Finally, the session will deal with using the information gained from quality damage investigations to improve processes within the municipality as well as to develop training to address issues where improvement is needed.  Attention can also be focused on public awareness concerning key issues identified.  This should also lead to reduced damages over time.

Learning Objectives:

1. Discover how to develop processes to properly investigate utility damages.

2. Develop processes that get to the true cause of utility damages and that help the municipality in collecting damages.

3. Discuss how to establish a training program and a public awareness program that can lead to reduced damages over time.

Contributor/Source

Ron Peterson

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