Emergency Action Plan for Failed Pipelines: A Proactive Solution

As the fourth largest City in the U.S. and a regional water provider, the City of Houston operates and maintains a water system that contains over 550 miles of transmission mains and pumped at rates over 450 MGD during the summer of 2009. Like most utility agencies extending the useful life and enhancing the function of existing infrastructure through proper asset management is a necessity. The City of Houston has established a formal condition assessment and dynamic monitoring program. Key to the program is the development of a proactive process to assess and rehabilitate critical water transmission lines rather than rely on a reactive response to failures and urgent conditions, and to develop an effective action plan in the event of an unexpected shut down of some of the most critical lines in the system. The City, with the support of their consultant, Lockwood, Andrews and Newnam, Inc. (LAN) have developed an Emergency Action Plan which identifies the appropriate actions, notifications and coordination required for various potential emergency events. These events range from detecting minor wire breaks to leaks or in extreme cases pipe failure. This paper will discuss the process the City of Houston went through to evaluate the methods it uses to monitor and assess risk and the issues in establishing a written document for responding to emergencies. The paper will present the issues of establishing such a program including setting up monitoring technology, defining responsibilities, frequency of action plan updates, protocol for notifications, and hierarchy for communication. Included in the discussion will be a case study detailing how the action plan affected the implementation of the City's dynamic monitoring system on an existing 84-inch and 66-inch water transmission main.