Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee Pipeline Safety in Washington Oversight and Review of Washington’s Pipeline Safety Office Report Follow-up June 16, 2004 Heather Moss, JLARC Staff

JLARC - Oversight and Review of Washington's Pipeline Safety Office June 16, Overview Legislature mandated JLARC review –1999 Bellingham explosion –WUTC delegated interstate oversight JLARC made recommendations in three areas: –Conducting Inspections –Mapping Pipelines –Assessing Fees WUTC has made progress in each area and plans additional efforts

JLARC - Oversight and Review of Washington's Pipeline Safety Office June 16, Inspections 2003 findings: Good job in developing program, but need to identify additional risk reduction strategies –Rec. 1: Focus on risk –Rec. 2: Integrate best practices In response: UTC established a task force to improve excavation techniques, adopted new gas safety rules, will enhance risk assessment training for inspectors

JLARC - Oversight and Review of Washington's Pipeline Safety Office June 16, Mapping 2003 findings: Extensive emergency response network already exists; the WUTC should identify how else it will use mapping information –Rec. 3: Integrate mapping with related efforts In response: UTC gradually developing GIS structure, next step is to identify specific local data needs; not yet investigating additional uses of system

JLARC - Oversight and Review of Washington's Pipeline Safety Office June 16, Fee Methodology 2003 finding: Fees charged to pipeline operators did not reflect actual costs of inspections –Rec. 4: Align fees with workload In Response: UTC changed the fee methodology to align inspection costs with fees charged to each operator

JLARC - Oversight and Review of Washington's Pipeline Safety Office June 16, One Year Later… In response to JLARC recommendations, UTC has taken a number of actions to improve pipeline safety efforts Some future proposed activities hold promise: –Developing a risk reduction strategy –Implementing enforcement policies –Using mapping to support inspections