NCUCC MEETING MINUTES
September 10, 2002 – 10:00 AM
Southern Pines, NC
 
·        Call to order
 
Chairperson Paulette Warren welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked Time Warner Cable for sponsoring the meeting. Group introductions were made.
 
·        Old Business
 
A.     Treasurer’s Report – The account balance for the NCUCC as of August 1, 2002 is $634.20.  There are no outstanding invoices or checks.
B.  Next Meeting - Paulette reminded everyone the next meeting is November November 10, 2002. Dominion NC Power will host the meeting in Roanoke Rapids, NC. Directions are enclosed and will be made available on the web site at www.ncucc.org.
C.     Committee Reports
LOCAL UCC PARTICIPATION COMMITTEE - Bill Deal reported for the committee looking into getting the local UCC’s more involved in the State UCC. The recommendations are as follows:
 
·        Amy will give Lola a list of each local UCC chairperson. Lola will send out the meeting reminder notice to each local UCC chairperson inviting officers or their representative to attend the State meeting. Lola will ask that they respond to her by email if they plan to attend. This way, we will know how many to expect at the State meeting.
·        Stephanie will set up a “Major Concerns” hotlink on the NCUCC website. This link will be a place that anyone local or state, can go to and list issues/concerns/questions. They will also be able to see what others have written and hopefully get some good answers.
 
2004 JOINT SEMINAR COMMITTEE – Lola Ausby distributed a list of committees needed for the 2004 Joint Seminar, their duties and the number of people needed for each committee. The duties are a combination of lessons learned from the 2002 Joint Seminar and the original “to do” list the planning committee was using for the 2002 Joint Seminar. She asked for comments and volunteers. The group also needs to start looking at a site for the 2004 Joint Seminar. We would like to have a table at the 2003 Joint Seminar in Myrtle Beach with information about the 2004 Joint Seminar. The committees are listed below:
 
·        Site/Contract
·        Vendors/Sponsors
·        Agenda/Speakers/Program
·        Registration
·        Door Prizes/Drawings
·        Golf
         
 
·        New Business
 
  1.  
    NCDOT – Aydren Flowers reported that 2002 maps and draft 2004 – 2010 TIP’s are available to be picked up after the meeting.  The final draft TIP will be available July 2003.  
 
The DOT is getting into environmental issues more and more. Utility relocation and permit issues were once separated, but DOT is now being forced by state agencies such as Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Corps of Engineers to include utility relocation issues with the permit requests 2 to 4 years in advance of the project. This means that DOT will be working with utilities in the field earlier on to anticipate where facilities will be relocated in order to advise the proper agencies of anticipated trenching, approximate clearance, etc. In the future DOT will incorporate the different agency’s issues with DOT projects. DOT has had environmental problems on US 1 coming into Southern Pines south of Sanford. That project should be complete by the 2005 US Open.
 
A Pole Safety Issues committee has been formed to look at deaths by accidents involving poles. North Carolina is #10 in the nation. Possible solutions are moving poles, putting up guardrails, etc. Aydren will have a more detailed report to make in March 2003.
 
In January 2003, DOT wants to host the State UCC meeting. Aydren will bring in the DOT permitting group to talk about those issues. The meeting will be in Raleigh or Winston-Salem.
 
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    One Call Center – The North Carolina One Call Center has taken 800,902 locate requests to date and has transmitted 5,042,962 tickets. There are currently 40 active local UCC’s with 57 participating counties in NC.  All local UCC meeting dates are on the website, ncucc.org.  Stephanie has revised the look of the website. When you click on the website and choose local UCC minutes, a map of NC counties appears. You click the county you want and you only get the minutes for that county along with the meeting location and chairperson information. Stephanie is working on the “Discussion Board”. Paulette informed the group to send their local UCC minutes to Stephanie for publication on the website. Her email address is stephanie@ncocc.org. We suggested that Stephanie keep only one year of State minutes on the website.
 
George reported on the Enhanced Screening Service that NC One Call is planning to offer to its members. It should be on-line October 1, 2002. It uses a closed spatial database from a member. A member can draw a polygon around their facilities featuring whatever buffers thy wish to use. This buffer can be as close as 100 feet. NC One Call will use this enhanced database to screen any locate requests to be sent to that member to determine if their facilities are in the way of the excavation. A significant feature is to “bundle” locate notices for the same address, same day by different companies to minimize the notices.
 
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    Power Companies – Sheila Talton reported she has two Design Build projects in the works. She is spending lots of time with the Design-Build firm. She has also rewritten their Utility Relocation Agreement (URA) and will share it with anyone. She put together a list of “lessons learned” from that.
 
Aydren reported that Design-Build is a fairly new concept for highway construction projects and differs from the traditional Design-Bid-Build process. In Design-Bid-Build, the DOT completes all of the pre-construction activities, which includes project design, acquisition of right of way, and coordination of utility relocations. Then the project is advertised for bids and awarded to a contractor to construct. In Design-Build, the DOT completes a partial design of the project, usually 25 to 75%, and then goes through a selection process to award the project to a Design-Contractor Team which will be a Design-Build Firm.  The Design-Build Firm will then complete the design, acquire the right of way, coordinate utility relocations, and construct the project.
 
The major advantage to the Design-Build concept is acceleration of project delivery or completion.  As an example, the US 64 Knightdale Bypass in Wake County is anticipated to be complete approximately three (3) years ahead of schedule by using Design-Build.
 
One major disadvantage is probably with utility coordination. Most firms do not have a good knowledge of procedures involved and require a lot of guidance from DOT.  Also, the utility relocation timeframes demanded by the Design-Build Firm could be somewhat unrealistic. Except for the US 64 project and I-85 Interchange project in Vance County, the other Design-Build projects by DOT have been
mostly Interstate rehabilitation projects which have involved a minimal amount of utility conflicts.
 
DOT will be closely monitoring the Design-Build process; however, it appears that this concept will probably be used more and more on future projects especially those that are needed to be placed on a fast track.
 
Mark Price with BHME commented on Design-Build. The Design-Build firms must spend money upfront and talk to all the utility companies in advance to make sure they know what’s out there before putting in a bid package. The problem is that a lot of the companies are not local and are sending sketches of the job to the utilities asking them to indicate what they have and how much it will cost to move it. They also have unrealistic deadlines.
 
Sheila has a goal to put together documentation of communications with the railroad. She needs any railroad contacts that anyone may have. She wants to see how everyone else approaches the railroad and is looking for suggestions. Sheila attends the SCUCC and is on a sub-committee looking into railroad procedures. 
 
Larry Morris asked how the overhead ID tagging was going for each electric company. It is going slow and policing it is the major problem. DOT is tagging its fiber installations. Keith Reid also said that the major electric companies have wording in their Joint Use agreements requiring ID Tags. It is not cost effective for the small companies to rewrite their agreements to include the wording. In Virginia, Dominion is the major electric company and it’s in their agreement. Lola Ausby reported that in October 1999, the FCC ruled in favor of utilities requiring attachers to tag their cables and that attachment agreements between utilities and attachers would include the requirement.
 
  1.  
    Gas Companies – NCNG is laying 540 miles of pipeline from Virginia to North Carolina and they do have permitting issues with that project. They have lots of DOT relocations. They just finished an 85 mile project from Davidson to Hamlet. The question was asked if DOT relocation projects show all projects? Aydren said they do not include secondary road projects. He suggested staying in touch with the local district engineering office.
 
Glenn Flowers said that they are having problems with damages to valves and test stations being hit. They need help to alleviate this. It is grading contractors that are causing they problems.
  1.  
    Cable TV – Wallace Frazee with Time Warner reported that Herb Livingston will start attending the State UCC meeting. He investigates damages and gives classes on damage prevention also. They have lots of DOT projects in Cumberland County and are building a new office in Fayetteville.
 
Herb reported that there are problems with contractors because they are not being held liable. There is a problem holding them accountable for their actions. Most of them are calling NC One Call to locate facilities; however, they are still causing damages. It is mostly excavation contractors. George said that the city of Greensboro had a similar problem that the local UCC approached them about. They had 13 contractors replacing fiber and cutting lines. The city informed the contractors they would revoke their permits if the damages didn’t stop and that worked for them. George said that there is nothing in the statures right now requiring everyone to call NC One Call to locate cables, but it is being addressed. Mark Price suggested that the Board of General Contractors should be approached because that Board can suspend contractor’s licenses. George suggested a sub-committee be formed to go to the Board of General Contractors to make them aware of this. Herb Livingston was asked to be the chairperson of the sub-committee. Glenn Flowers also volunteered to serve on this sub-committee. Also, George said he would get a volunteer from telephone and water to serve on the committee.  The question was asked if power companies have the same problems with cut cable? The answer was yes, but not the magnitude that other cable companies are experiencing, due to the potential of being hurt.
 
Phil Ray with CLS reported that contractors say it is cheaper to cut the cable because time is money for them.
 
Jim Anderson said that he gained a lot of useful information at a Damage Prevention Seminar that was held in Southern Pines last year. It is the assumption that anytime a line is cut, the contractor is automatically at fault. There are other variables there also.
 
A question was asked, how far apart do you mark the facilities? The answer is 6-10 feet. With utility design locates, does it need to be every 10 feet or every 100 feet? It varies. George said that NC One Call does accept design locates and sends them to the utility. They tell the callers that the utility will reply within 10 days
 
  1.  
    Telecommunications – No Report.
  1.  
    Contractors – No Report.
  1.  
    Railroads – Not Present.
  1.  
    Locate Companies – No Report.
  1.  
    Local UCC’s - Sandra Johnson reported for Wake UCC. They meet the last Tuesday in each month and have a diverse group. They have tailgate meetings and the results from those meetings are reduced damages and good working relationships. Their next contractor’s breakfast is October 10th at 7:30 a.m. in Raleigh at the Golden Corral. Glenn commented that the tailgate meetings and contractor’s breakfasts do work. Phil Ray reported for Bladen/Columbus & Robeson UCC’s. They have numerous water projects and routine excavations. Robert Reid reported for Durham UCC. They are having problems with 72-hour notices and asked about mandatory membership in NC One Call. George Glenn said these issues are being worked on. Lola Ausby reported for Northampton/Halifax UCC. It was formed in February and as a result there is better communications among the members. George Glenn will speak on the NC Damage Prevention Act and NC One Call at their meeting on September 18th at 9:00 a.m. in Roanoke Rapids.
  1.  
    Utilities Commission – Jim Anderson reported that there is a movement to rewrite the Underground Damage Prevention Act. He has been assigned to talk to contractors and his counterparts in other states that have penalties and enforcements in their Acts that NC does not have in its Act.
  1.  
    Safety Issues  - The damaged pipeline at Concord Mills was the topic for the safety discussion. Pictures are available to use as a safety reminder and a “lessons learned” discussion.
 
 
·        Program – Mike Hall, Director of Marketing Sales & Services, presented a program on RoadRunner Services offered by Time Warner. His program generated questions from the group. Mike gave out three door prizes to the following individuals:
 
Herb Livingston – Bag
Bill Deal – Shirt
Roger Worthington – Basket
 
 
·        Paulette thanked Mike for presenting his program and adjourned the meeting. Time Warner provided lunch at the Holiday Inn.
 
·        Directions to our next meeting at the Dominion NC Power office at 200 Vepco Street, Roanoke Rapids are attached to the minutes.
 
 
Respectively submitted by Lola Ausby