Features
Pipelines… Your Quiet Neighbor
Millions of people all across the country share the same neighbor. This neighbor does not intrude where it’s not wanted and simply goes about its business helping all of us every day. Pipelines are the energy lifelines of many of our daily activities, from driving our children to school, heating our homes, to buying groceries [...]
Dig Law Advisory Committee Update
Recently, the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration published the results of an extensive evaluation of state one-call programs. Their criteria for evaluating the programs were the nine elements of effective damage prevention programs. It is not surprising that Louisiana’s program is one of only eight programs in the nation to receive the highest possible [...]
Publisher’s Perspective, Volume 3, Issue 1
In a recent press release dated April 4, 2011, we were reminded that Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D – WV), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D – NJ), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and [...]
Master of Zing, Volume 3, Issue 1
It’s not often that you meet someone wearing a sign on their chest – or is it? I’m suggesting that everyone you and I meet has a huge imaginary sign on their chest that says “Make me feel important.” Sigmund Freud, the noted psychologist, said that everything we do springs from two motives: the sex [...]
The Doctor is In, Volume 3, Issue 1
As you know, elephants are large animals. Consequently, they are readily seen when in the room. Yet, while they can bring pleasure to those of us who visit them in their habitats, they can also be very destructive. What do people see when they look at you? About a year ago, I worked with a [...]
Me and Dillard, Volume 3, Issue 1
Even if it wasn’t an uncommonly cold and snowy winter, going swimming in the Hood-N-Pile in the middle of February might seem a bit extreme to the uninitiated. Aunt Beulah always told me that those older kids were going to keep me in trouble and that I needed to find kids my own age to [...]
The right things for the right reasons
Every abandoned house has a story to tell and every traveler had to start somewhere. When Donald Smith started his journey in a small community called Burton Lane just north of St. James, Louisiana resting on the banks of the Mississippi River, there wasn’t much to see. His early memories are the levee, the river, [...]
Leaving our places better than we found them
If it were possible to locate your water lines that do not have tracer wire buried with them, you’d at least want to know about it, wouldn’t you? Two guys were separated only by a county line. They both managed small water systems and went to the same association meetings. They became friends as the [...]
Working together
One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his greatest surprises is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do. It is not uncommon to hear someone conclude a conversation by saying “that won’t work here.” And the reason given for this impossible task is that there is someone [...]
Building on success
Annual excavator safety events, sponsored by utility members of one-call, have been successful in reducing the number of damages by sharing lifesaving, safety information with contractors and excavators. “‘Digger’s Night Out’ has been a huge success,” said Diana Wilcox, Entergy Gas Operations’ damage prevention manager in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. “We have more than [...]
