The Cross Bore Safety Association is a community of industry professional that have joined together to address all aspects of utility cross bores for protection against loss of life, injury and property damage.

Leading Practices for Cross Bore Risk Reduction, 88 pages

Review Course Outline and REGISTER for Course: Using the Leading Practices for Cross Bore Risk Reduction

Course Instructors:

Mr. Mark Bruce, President, Cross Bore Safety Association
Mr. Mike Kemper, Executive Vice President, Mears Group
Dr. Samuel Ariaratnam, Professor, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University - Schools of Engineering

Synopsis:
The Leading Practices for Cross Bore Risk Reduction was finalized in 2019 with includes recommendations from representatives of utility owners, pipeline installers, inspection service providers, regulators and manufacturers. A strong focus is offered on cross bores of sewers and gas distribution and with recommendations useful for all types of utilities. The target stakeholder includes project managers for utilities, installers and inspection providers with recommendations for improvement of regulatory rate support, revision of regulatory safety regulations and Call Before You Dig legislation. The goal of the document is to achieve faster and more efficient risk reduction from existing cross bores and minimize the creation of new cross bores using leading practices. Municipal ordinance revision recommendations and sewer system operators can contribute to the effort with resulting improvement for the public and cooperation recommendations which can lower sewer operation costs due to required inspections of their sewer systems. Risk modeling, QAQC and the use of GIS data structures are included throughout the recommendations. In short the document includes details for operations as well as improvements across all stakeholders, flow charts, examples of project documentation and descriptive graphics. References included are extensive and offer a path for further expanding the user’s knowledge base of cross bores risk reduction.
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CBSA Benefits and Focus

Mission Statement of CBSA

"The purpose of the Cross Bore Safety Association is to bring persons and organizations together to create comprehensive high quality standards, guidelines, best practices, means and methods, courses, training, instructional materials and other related resources for the education and training of owners, installers, regulators, users, inspectors, maintainers and others who can benefit from such so as to minimize the risk for injury, loss of life and property damage from utility cross bores in an effective and efficient manner.”

Target Areas of Interest:

• Develop "Leading" Practices Guidance Documents
• Utility owner regulatory locating requirements
• New construction procedures
• Legacy verification procedures
• New technology peer review
• Out reach to affected service industries
• Municipal guidelines for acceptable installation practices

Focus of Efforts:

• “The association recognizes the impact from all types of utility cross bores. The association concludes that setting priorities and focus for different types of cross bores will best serve our stated mission statement. The association agrees that the initial focus will be to address cross bores where natural gas lines intersect sewer lines.”

• Other types of cross bores can occur between other combinations of utilities. These may be disruptive, costly and have potential for injury. Intersecting buried electric cables can cause death. Intersecting communications cables can interrupt calls for emergency assistance.

Highlighted on This Page:
● Mission Statement
● Target Areas of Interest
● Initial Focus
● Definition of a Utility Cross Bore
● Articles Bylaws

CBSA Brochure - click here

Definition of a Utility Cross  Bore
Cross bores are defined as an intersection of an existing underground utility or underground structure by a second utility resulting in direct contact between the transactions of the utilities that compromises the integrity of either utility or underground structure.

CBSA completed the Leading Practices for Cross Bore Risk Reduction, working with key industry associations, agencies and leaders, in December 2019. The 88 page Leading Practices, 32 chapters, 23 figures, 33 references and 12 examples.