My take on "50 in 5"
The CGA recently announced their industry industry challenge to stakeholders to cut damages in half by 2028. This initiative is being called “50 in 5” as it represents a reduction of damages to critical underground utilities by 50% in 5 years. 50 in 5 is a call to action focused on improving 3 areas which were originally identified in the CGA’s?Next Practices Initiative. Those being:
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Individually these are important areas to tackle but together they add up to more than 76% of damages to buried infrastructure. (According to the?CGA’s most recent DIRT Report) I think it’s terrific that the CGA is presenting this vision and setting the goal of reducing damages over the next 5 years in the most effective areas. With the CGA’s ever-increasing influence on the industry I think we need them to set lofty but achievable goals like this to help us all move forward. Using the data that we have from the DIRT report means that it’s easy to identify the root causes of damages in the industry and should be straightforward to address them.?
However nothing in the damage prevention industry is ever that straightforward and there will be roadblocks on our way to reducing damages. The following are some of the disparate thoughts I’ve had surrounding this subject, many of which come from feedback by you guys working in the field everyday:
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Sarah K. Magruder Lyle, president and CEO of CGA, cites the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the pace of current construction activity as the impetus, “to seriously examine how we can make the next dramatic reduction in annual damages and protect critical infrastructure.” And said that we’re at an, "inflection point as an industry,” which I very much agree with - now is the time!
Reducing damages by 50% in in 5 years is a lofty goal, but I think it’s achievable if we get organized and start acting as if that’s the most important part of our industry. The 3 areas that the CGA identified need to be tackled in a coordinated fashion with resources and stakeholders in unison, and I think we need to break them off into bitesize chunks that are attainable and measurable. I’ll leave you with the words of Josh Hinrichs, chair of CGA’s board and president of UtiliSource. “We must focus on taking damage prevention to the next level in order to keep our communities safe and connected to the utilities we depend on every day.”?
Don't forget to check out the rest of my NoDamage articles at: utilityscoop.com
Louisiana 811
2 年Kyle, I will make the prediction of the damage prevention industry not meeting this goal by 5 or even 10 years. Ticket volume will go up and damages will go up as well. 10 years from now, we will all be talking about the very same things we are talking about now. Some states will do better than other states but overall results will be the same. In case you are wondering, I made this same prediction 15 years ago. Here we are today talking about the same subjects we were talking about 15 years ago.
Independent Sales Agent, tinbin TC2 excavator attachment master distributor - North America
2 年Interesting initiative - I was talking to someone yesterday at ConExpo who said that the overall quality of locates has been going down. That certainly won't help this initiative!