News

Utility Safety Partners has prepared a 2nd draft of Proposed Damage Prevention Legislation

Draft II – Proposed Damage Prevention Legislation for Alberta

This second draft is posted for 30 days’ comment period and we invite you to use THIS MICROSITE to deliver your comments. Upon completion, you and USP will receive a copy of your comments in a PDF document delivered to your email address. Once comments have been considered on the second version, the third and final version of the legislation will be presented to the UCP government.

Earlier this week, Utility Safety Partners posted Draft Damage Prevention Legislation and a Public Comments Form to the Government Relations page of the USP website.

The Before You Dig web portal for creating locate requests will be offline for routine maintenance on Wednesday, December 22, 2021, between the hours of 1:00 am MST(2:00 am CST) and 4:00 am MST (5:00 am CST).

During this system outage, the OneCallAccess ticket creation software will be unavailable for both internal and external users.

Agents will be available by phone to process Emergency requests as usual. Emergency requests will be processed manually and the information will be called out to potentially affected members during this maintenance window. Ticket information will be entered into the system and transmitted to our members when the system maintenance is complete. If you have questions or concerns, please contact us at [email protected].

Please refer to the calendar below for our contact centre operating hours during the holiday season. Emergency Requests will be called out to members during the day on December 24 (Christmas Eve) and December 31 (New Year’s Eve).

Only days where ‘Regular Business Hours’ are indicated will be counted as part of the 3- or 5-day business days’ notice to members on routine requests.

Online routine requests can be placed 24/7.

We wish all of our safety partners the best of the season

Alberta One-Call today announced it has completed a rebranding program with ZGM Modern Marketing Partners following the unification of Alberta’s utility locate and safety awareness services and will now be known as Utility Safety Partners.

“Earlier this year, Alberta One-Call Corporation unified services with the Alberta Common Ground Alliance and absorbed the Where’s the Line campaign that has successfully delivered overhead powerline safety awareness to Albertans since 1996” said Mike Sullivan, President of Utility Safety Partners. “We believe that having all energy and utilities infrastructure owners in Alberta registered under a single locate contact point is the best approach for a safe Alberta. Together, we help Albertans stay safe around utilities. We are the foundation of the damage-prevention process.”

For almost 40 years as Alberta One-Call, the organization has processed more than 20 million locate requests from Albertans to identify, locate and mark buried energy and utility infrastructure before excavation begins.

Under a single hub, Utility Safety Partners will provide one trusted utility safety resource for all above-ground and below-ground infrastructure locates in Alberta. Familiar Call and Click Before You Dig services will continue through 1-800-242-3447 and the UtilitySafety.ca website. Additionally, albertaonecall.com will continue to be accessible as Albertans become familiar with Utility Safety Partners.

Coming soon, Utility Safety Partners – Your Safety for Life. After 37 years, Alberta One-Call Corporation is rebranding.

For 38 years, Alberta One-Call (AOC), a privately owned not-for-profit corporation, has been Alberta’s Call Before You Dig nerve centre, providing a valuable service for the excavation community, homeowners, and registered buried energy and utility asset members. We were the first such service in Canada, working to protect the public from unintended harm and to protect the integrity of Alberta’s buried energy and utility infrastructure.

Last year, the AOC Board of Directors agreed to unify services with the Alberta Common Ground Alliance (ABCGA) and industry’s Where’s the Line? (WTL) campaign. The decision allowed the ABCGA and WTL campaign to continue providing essential safety education, awareness, training and lobbying. As well, it eliminated unnecessary duplication and created an opportunity for all three brands to emerge as a single unified force – namely: the Utility Safety Partners, which will officially launch as a new brand and unified operating entity in the third quarter of 2021.

The primary objective of the Utility Safety Partners (USP) collective is to maintain the longstanding and best-in-class ClickBeforeYouDig service AOC has provided since 1983. Once our new website is unveiled, the ClickBeforeYouDig process will be exactly the same as it was. Previous users won’t have to log in with new credentials and new users will experience the same excellent service as always.

The USP website will also feature the services, links and information promoted in the past by ABCGA and WTL. Links to the USP’s Committees (Training Standards, Government Relations, Best Practices, Education & Public Awareness) will allow members to continue collaborating on mutual objectives and invite new members to contribute toward our shared goals.

Alberta One-Call has selected Concentric Public Affairs to manage its government relations portfolio.

Learn more information about the unification of ABCGA and AOC – including ABCGA membership fees, working committees, and more.