# Presentation: 448774

## Pipeline Marker Public MeetingFebruary 21, 2008Houston, Texas

**Agricultural Threats **
**and **
**CGA Agricultural Campaign**
- Presenter: Dan Maschka
- Northern Natural Gas
- Manager, Public Awareness and Compliance Support

**Notes:**
For those of you familiar with agriculture and the Midwest, this will be more of a refresher.    

Hopefully, others might be able to pick up something useful from this presentation.

_**Types of Farm Activities that Endanger Pipelines**_
- Activities that go beyond normal farming practices and depths, examples include:
- Chisel Plowing, Deep Ripping, Sub-Soiling
- Creek Maintenance
- Cleaning Out Drainage Ditches
- Building Waterways
- Tree and Stump Removal
- Setting Posts
- Terrace Projects
- Drain Tile Installation

**Notes:**
Chisel Plowing, Deep Ripping, Sub-Soiling – These techniques might go by different regional names and each can mean something slightly different, but basically these are all methods for breaking up compacted soil, which then allows for better penetration of fertilizers and moisture.
Creek Maintenance – Can mean many things, such as: straightening out a meandering creek to gain more usable acres, getting deeper all the time which can cause pipelines to become exposed, creek bank repair (often caused by livestock hooves or animal holes that destabilize the banks), heavy rains re-route channel, or beaver dams (often dynamite or heavy equipment needed to remove the dam)
Cleaning Out Drainage Ditches – over time, ditches tend to fill in with sediment or collect debris.
Building Waterways – grass covered strips of land adjacent to cultivated fields designed to improve drainage and safely carry water out of the field with minimal effects from erosion.
Tree and Stump Removal – Often use large dozers to push over and/or rip out.
Setting Posts – Becoming quite common to use fast, powerful augers from a PTO (power take off) of a small tractor
Terrace Projects – Another method to control drainage, using a small (perhaps 3’ high) hump of dirt built across the slope of a hill to slow down, capture and direct water to a waterway or creek.  Usually several of these are placed down the side of a hill, constructed with heavy earth moving equipment, and placed parallel from each other. 
Drain Tile Installation – A method of placing flexible, perforated, plastic pipe underneath wet farmland to allow for better drainage. Unabsorbed water passes through the soil and enters the tile where it collects and is then directed to a creek or stream.  Often the trench and tile placement are done in one motion as the tile spools off of the machine that trenches, lays the tile and backfills all at once.  Some machines use a giant “blade like” attachment that is used to open the earth just long enough to insert the pipe and then the earth closes back up as the blade (or knife) passes by. 
Recognize the pattern here?  WATER control is a big deal on a Midwest farm.
One other somewhat intangible factor that can lead to endangering pipelines – the farmer’s attitude!   Which can go something like this; “By Gosh, this is my land, I know what’s buried out here! I witnessed the construction of the pipeline with my own two eyes when I was a young boy. Besides, no one can tell me what I can and can’t do on my own property!” 

- Chisel plow example – depths up to 3 feet

- Sharp, Steel Point

**Notes:**
This shows the pointy chunk of metal usually attached to some monster of a bull dozer or some huge farm tractor like an old Steiger Tiger 4WD behemoth!!  It is lowered into the ground and drug around the most stubbornly compacted soils.

- Drain Tile Machines – Public Enemy # 1

- Plastic Drain Tile

**Notes:**
This is a fairly small version of typical drain tile machinery, but you get the general idea.  

(Point out the drain tile)  Tile can vary in size from about 3” to 12” – of course the larger the tile diameter, the larger the equipment used for installation.

Machines similar to this have cased Northern the most damage to our pipelines and unfortunately, some incidents have had fatal consequences at times.

- Drain tile equipment involved in a tragic incident

**Notes:**
Here is an example of an incident that took the lives of five people.   The dozer was actually hitched in front of the tiling machine providing extra power as the equipment moved along installing the tile.  The blade attached to this machine (point to the first machine in the photo) was “knifing in” the plastic tile.  The knife struck the pipeline which ruptured and ignited. The force of the blast threw the dozer around to the side as you see in the photo.

_**Seasonal Nature of the Threat**_
- Four Seasons – But Especially Plowing (Spring) and Harvesting (Fall)
- Weather factors – Erosion, Wind, Flooding and Storms
- Crop Type – Different Needs for Nutrients and Water
- Soil Conditions – Loose or Compacted Soil

**Notes:**

Four Seasons – But Especially Plowing (Spring) and Harvesting (Fall). Winter is typically too harsh to do much earth moving (frost at times to 4 feet deep).  Summer is typically the growing seasons(also very little earth movement conducted).  Harvesting doesn’t necessarily involve much earth work, but large machines out in the fields day and night happen to run into facilities on occasion for example – valve settings and farm taps (A photo upcoming)

Weather factors – Erosion, Wind, Flooding and Storms. All major factors in shaping the land. The Midwest is often referred to as the Great Plains, which may conjure up a vision of a flat, lifeless prairie.  But that isn’t very accurate, instead, there are LOTS of rolling hills and sloping farmland.  Farmers also install windbreaks and shelterbelts designed to slow down the wind and are simply made up of rows of trees - often evergreen type.  (Lessens learned the hard way from the “Dust Bowl” days)

Crop Type – Different Needs for Nutrients and Water. In the Midwest, wheat, soy beans and corn are king!  There are alternative crops such as barley, milo, sorghum, oats and more unconventional plants such as peas, potatoes, sugar beets.  Crop rotation, protecting ground cover and left over crop residue from previous years comes into play to help keep soil firm and stay in place.  For example a small layer of crop residue can cushion the impact of raindrops and also slows the flow of draining water, which allows moisture to absorb better.

Soil Conditions – Loose or Compacted soil are two oversimplified categories used for ease of reference here today. Loose soils, such as sandy, or real fine, almost powdery dirt, or soil deficient of decaying organic material - all erode the easiest.  But other physical factors are important to understand as well, such as steep slopes and farming methods being used (such as no till).  Compacted soil - caused by years of equipment driving repeatedly over the ground, rain fall plays a role, and natural settling properties of certain types of soil make-up (such as heavy clays). Breaking up this compaction is important because it allows for nutrients and water to be used more efficiently and allows the plant to grow and root easier. 

- Pure Power

**Notes:**
Farmers love big equipment such as this, but this photo gives a pipeliner nightmares because all they see is eight, potentially deadly claws poised to strike your pipeline

- Pure Power 2

**Notes:**
More examples of newer, bigger machines every year.  By the way, both pieces of equipment (this photo and last) were involved in pipeline strikes!

_**Marker Types – Permanent and Temporary**_
- Wood Posts – common aerial type sign
- Plastic Posts – tri-marker w/reflective strip wrapped around the top
- Signs – steel posts with aluminum signs or flat fiberglass
- Flags – wire or fiberglass shafts

**Notes:**
Northern recently started using taller and larger triangular shaped flag as compared to the traditional wire type. The wire is replaced by a fiberglass shaft about the size of a pencil

- Typical Sign

**Notes:**
Typical pipeline sign in an idyllic Midwestern setting of perfect weather and sunshiny days!    Life is good!

- Aerial Marker

- Waterway

- Terraces
- Drain to
- Waterway

**Notes:**
This slide illustrates a few of the terms I have used so far.  You can see the aerial marker and typical sign.  But you will also note the waterway in the middle of the photo that drains to the creek.  You can see that the terraces drain to the waterway.  The dark, horizontal tree line in the background marks the creek.  The far hillside also is terraced and contains a matching waterway leading to the creek.

- Tri-Marker

- Terrace

- Farm Tap

**Notes:**
Here is what a typical farm tap looks like.  Note the tall, plastic tri-marker.  Probably difficult to see in this photo, but there is reflective tape wrapped around the top of the marker.  In the pitch black darkness, the tape lights up like a beacon when struck by the lights of farming equipment (or even a flashlight).  The tall marker height is needed because hybrid corn can reach up to 12 feet tall, making it a real challenge to see the farm taps even in daylight.  You will also notice another example of a terrace in the background.

_**CGA Agriculture Campaign**_
- Survey
- Target Audience
- Campaign Development

**Notes:**
Survey – A few years ago, the CGA conducted a survey asking its members to prioritize the most common causes of third party damage. The clear leader was agriculture related damage. (Not surprising since the membership is heavily slanted to pipeline operators).  Of course, the lead cause of damage was no real surprise to operators either!  Most know that there are lots of pipelines in rural areas, they have been in the ground for many years and subject to erosion that entire time especially if terracing or other methods were slow to be adopted.  As we have seen, farm equipment is getting bigger, faster and more powerful.  Easily capable of reaching depths that could contact the pipe. 

Target audience - So it became clear that the ag community would benefit from a damage prevention educational campaign. To compound the issue, several states have agriculture one-call exemptions, which could easily be misunderstood.

Campaign development - The CGA ultimately developed an entire program. It is available on the CGA website (the address is at the end of the presentation). You can download the program for free.  Or you can request a CD that contains all of the information. You will see examples in a moment that will show a “white space” on each piece so that you can add one-call center or company specific logo’s or phone numbers.

_**CGA Agriculture Campaign**__** (continued)**_
- Timeframe
- Who Used It
- How Was It Used

**Notes:**
Timeframe – The inaugural campaign was launched a few years ago, but it is still active today.  Many one-call centers continue to use the material, for example, in trade publications and brochures.

Who Used It – Mainly one-call centers, but several pipeline operators used the material as well.

How Was It Used – A varied array of methods were used and we will discuss them further on the next slide.

_**Reaching the Agricultural Community**_
- One-Call Centers
- Power Point
- Print Material
- brochures, door hangers, bill stuffers, post cards, newspaper and magazine ads, banners
- Trade Publications
- Media Outlets
- radio, television, cable, print, billboards
- Websites

**Notes:**
One-Call Centers: The executive director of the Kansas one-call said, “We don’t have a graphics design department or a large budget to create promotional materials. But if the CGA builds it, we will use it.” 
Power Point – A very basic presentation, easily customized (I will show you a sample slide in a moment)
Print Material – brochures, door hangers, bill stuffers, post cards, newspaper ads, self mailer, banners, even graphics suitable for billboards
Trade Publications 
Media Outlets
Radio, TV, Cable, Newspaper, Magazines, Billboards, Public Service Announcements (PSA’s)
Websites – Yahoo Finance and countless ag sites in the US picked up the material. An unexpected international interest was seen with many Canadian sites and Yahoo UK and Ireland. 
Placement and Use – Co-ops, Feed stores, farm equipment dealers, Chicago tribune, Charleston Gazette, Daily Business Journal, The Everglades Echo and The Successful Farming magazine reached over 450k subscribers alone. Ag radio networks were by far the biggest users reaching over 2 million listeners during countless broadcasts using over 600 stations and their affiliates across the country.
Erosion control booklet – (show booklet) Northern developed this booklet, we purchased a data base of farm addresses and mailed it to targeted areas where we have known drain tile issues.  We weren’t sure how farmers would react – typically a proud, hardworking, independent group. So we needed to be mindful of how we approached them. To our pleasant surprise, the booklet was well received.

- It took years to **make** it a farm...It takes **one call** to keep it safe.

- Sample Power Point Slide
- CGA Ag Campaign

**Notes:**
Research showed that there are well over 2 million farms in the US and almost 10 million acres are used for farming or ranching activities. The CGA focused on the principles of the previously developed “Dig Safely” campaign elements:
Call Before You Dig
Wait the required amount of time
Respect the marks
Dig with care

Also leaned heavily on:
Keeping safe their family, employees and their equipment 
Keeping valuable top soil in place (lessen erosion)
Never assume you know the location and especially the depth of any utility
Re-enforce that the call is FREE and so is the locate! 

- Ag Campaign Sample

**Notes:**
Can be used in any of the forms already mentioned.  Point out the “white space”.

- Ag Campaign Sample

**Notes:**
This one provides a photo to include the rancher angle (see right hand corner)

- Billboard Example – Husker Harvest Days!

**Notes:**
The Nebraska One-Call Center used a portion of the material to customize a billboard that was placed at the two entrance/exit points of the Husker Harvest Days event held in the center of the state which draws thousands of attendees from all over Nebraska and surrounding states as well.  You will obviously note that this one is in black and white!  The CGA knew that some B/W versions would draw attention better and at times be easier and more cost effective to use (such as in newspapers).    Besides, how can you go wrong with images of kids, a dog and a hay stack pile to play in! 

- Questions??
- _[Dan.Maschka@nngco.com](mailto:Dan.Maschka@nngco.com)_
- 402-398-7443
- CGA Ag Campaign Website:
- _[http://www.digsafely.com/agriculture.htm](http://www.digsafely.com/agriculture.htm)_