August 01, 2009 – Louisiana: Madison Parish Police Jury has a road problem. Due to the discovery of the Haynesville Shale natural gas deposit, North Louisiana is seeing the installation of several new gas pipelines. This means that the heavy equipment on the roads and pipeline crossings are causing parish road damage. Rural roads simply aren’t designed to handle that level of constant heavy equipment traffic. The Madison Parish Engineer reported that damages in the past few months to the roads had exceeded $600,000. Madison Parish roads were being destroyed.
The Madison Parish Police Jury sought the expertise and resourcefulness of IBTS. During a jury meeting, they passed a resolution requesting that IBTS find a solution to the overwhelming burden of monitoring the damages being caused by natural gas pipeline operators when they “cross” a road with the pipeline or travel on the road with heavy equipment. IBTS understood this burden and gladly accepted the challenge to relieve their stress. IBTS went to work, and in less than 4 weeks, IBTS Engineers, Project Managers and Building Officials completed that challenge with a technical proposal, draft ordinance and draft contract for their review. After the Police Jury conducted a careful review and held public hearings, Madison Parish Police Jury awarded the Utility Permitting Contract to IBTS.
IBTS will be providing a full permitting system, inspections and enforcement of the ordinance:
- A Utility Permitting System, including:
- An Electronic Permitting System will full details and tracking.
- Utility Road Crossing Permits – anytime a natural gas pipeline crosses the road a permit is obtained.
- Utility Travel Route Permits – from the state highway / parish road intersection to the road crossing site and the linear footage will be permitted.
- Collection of all permit fees.
- Bond calculations and receipt of bonds for roads.
- Pre-condition inspection with GPS, video and digital photography documentation of road surfaces BEFORE the pipeline utilizes (travels on) or crosses the road.
- Road repair inspections during the repair process, to ensure proper standards are being followed.
- Final road inspection with GPS, video and digital photography documentation of road surface AFTER the pipeline completes the crossing.
- Video footage and digital photographs on DVD for parish storage.
IBTS has appointed Larry Walters as Task Manager on this project to monitor, inspect and fully enforce Parish ordinances. Mr. Walters brings 15+ years of road, bridge and petroleum industry experience to this project. Project oversight responsibility belongs to Mr. Greg Blount, Louisiana IBTS Branch Manager.
