Published: March 09, 2007 07:53 am      

Pipeline Group public education-contractor awareness program

The Pipeline Group’s annual “Public Education — Contractor Awareness Program” will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Cleburne Civic Center, 1501 W. Henderson St.

The program will be sponsored by a group of companies with a common goal of preventing accidents and damages to underground pipelines and utilities. A free dinner will be catered by West End Grill for all persons involved in excavation related activities in Ellis, Hill and Johnson counties. Following the dinner, a brief safety program will be presented. It will stress the importance of accident prevention by identifying pipeline and utility rights of way, use of one-call systems and the importance of working with pipeline and utility companies to safely excavate in the vicinity of underground facilities.

The Texas law requiring notification to a one-call system before excavating will be discussed. Sponsors will provide promotional materials, including notification information for their companies, safety-related brochures and other safety reminders.

Each year many lives are injured or lost, and millions of dollars in repairs and lost products are incurred due to third-party incidents — someone digging into a pipeline. Thousands of communications, some life-threatening, may be disrupted when expensive fiber-optic cables are damaged or severed. These types of excavation financially devastating to the responsible party. This safety program is an attempt to help those who do excavation work to avoid such situations.

Sponsors for the program include Crosstex Energy Services, Devon Gas Services LP/Southwestern Gas Pipeline Inc., Enterprise Products Operating LP, Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co., Louis Dreyfus Pipeline LP, MARKWEST Pinnacle LP, Quicksilver Resources Hood County Gas Plant, Texas Maximum Production Co., West Texas Gulf Pipeline Co. and XTO Energy Inc.

For information, call 800-982-8752 or visit www.pipelinegroup.com.