Mike McGarry
Badger Daylighting
A fast, safe and proven method of locating and crossing underground utilities, widely used throughout Canada, has recently been introduced to the United States.
In the past few years, Hydrovacs and "daylighting" have gained industry acceptance by minimizing the challenges of exposing underground pipelines, fiber-optics and utilities. Daylighting is a nondestructive process using pressurized water (hydro) and a vacuum system (vac) to remove soil cover, thereby allowing a visual observation of underground lines. Hydrovacs expose these facilities to daylight, thus the term daylighting.
Alberta Occupational Health and Safety recognizes Hydrovacs as the only acceptable and safe alternative to hand exposing, and they can be up to 10 times faster. Hydrovacs provide a cost effective and safe excavating solution around energized lines. In hard-to-reach locations, some Hydrovacs can dig by remote access up to 400 feet away. Their precise excavations preserve landscaped property, minimize ground disturbance and greatly reduce backfill and restoration costs. Applications include, but are not limited to, power pole holes, trenching and test holes. The most efficient Hydrovacs carry onboard heaters capable of heating the water to allow excavating in frozen earth to any depth of ground frost, thus eliminating the need for ground thawing.
In working for non-electrical utilities (gas, telephone, water/sewer, etc.) Hydrovacs expose energized lines on a daily basis. Water and electricity obviously do not mix and very specific safe-work procedures must be followed for Hydrovacs to expose these lines. Proactive Hydrovac procedures should be written in accordance with Competent Persons training, electrical awareness training and trench safety.
Badger Daylighting`s safety coordinator, Mac MacIntyre, has recently written Equal Potential Bonding Hydrovac procedures in cooperation with TransAlta`s Electrical Training School to ensure safe work practices around energized lines. Assisting companies with the testing and writing of specific Hydrovac procedures ensures the safety of personnel as well as the public at large and minimizes the risk of damages to buried utilities.
To maximize efficiency of this procedure, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) units are used to locate all utilities directly involved in the area of excavation. GPR is capable of detecting all underground items no matter what the material composition. The GPR operator can locate plastic, fiber, concrete, transite, PVC-all of these. Most locating companies only mark utilities that are "known" to be in the area. This is done by means of mapped documentation, which is sometimes in error or does not include current information. Equipment used by existing companies can give the user inaccurate information due to multiple utilities in close proximity, broken or missing tracer wires or any number of other conditions. GPR is able to identify the exact location of each specific item regardless of proximity to other utilities.
Cost of these methods is greatly offset by greater public safety, increased contractor production and reduced utility repairs.
Badger Daylighting
Inquire R.S. 107
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Daylighting uses pressurized water and a vacuum system to remove soil cover. Photo courtesy of Badger Daylighting.
