Every Public Works agency has to deal with damage to their community’s infrastructure in the pursuit of 21st Century conveniences. Ideally steps are taken to minimize damage to existing infrastructure but that’s not always the case.

The Common Ground Alliance (CGA ) was formed to in an effort to promote effective damage prevention through shared stakeholder responsibility. The Common Ground Alliance (CGA) is a member-driven association dedicated to ensuring public safety, environmental protection, and the integrity of services by promoting effective damage prevention practices, recommendations for future use, Best Practices identification & promotion, and damage information reporting.

This session will focus on damage information reporting via the use of CGA’s Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT). Data collection allows the CGA to identify root causes, perform trend analysis, and help educate all stakeholders so that damages can be reduced through effective practices and procedures. DIRT provides a method for collecting damage data on a national level.

The primary purpose in collecting underground facility damage data is to analyze data, to learn why events occur, and how actions by industry can prevent them in the future; thereby, ensuring the safety and protection of people and the infrastructure. Come see how your agency can participate.

After viewing this program, participants will be better able to:

Explain what the DIRT data collection does to protect underground infrastructure
Identify what DIRT IS and is NOT
Recognize why “your story matters” and how to participate
Advocate Best Practices and explain the relationship between Damage Reporting and Best Practices
Discern the ways to use DIRT for damage data collection, reporting, and submission
Use the Annual DIRT Report findings and recommendations to spot issues and improve facility protection

Monty Zimmerman

Right of Way Manager City of Lenexa, City of Lenexa

Appearances