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Plastic Piping Data Project
A group of representatives of federal and state regulatory agencies and the natural gas and plastic pipe industries have come together and formed The Plastic Pipe Database Committee, or PPDC. Their goal is to create a national database of information related to the in-service performance of plastic piping materials. Members include the American Gas Association (AGA), the American Public Gas Association (APGA), the Plastics Pipe Institute (PPI), the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC), the National Association of Pipeline Safety Represenatives (NAPSR), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and its Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS).
Following the issuance of an incident investigation and report that identified the cause of a 1994 incident in Waterloo, Iowa as "brittle-like cracking" of plastic pipe, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that OPS determine how susceptible older plastic materials were to "brittle-like cracking." Through its trade associations, the industry agreed to work with the regulatory community to voluntarily collect accurate and pertinent information to be placed into a secure database. This database will eventually support an analysis of the frequency and causes of in-service plastic piping material failures, and demonstrate our industry's commitment to maintaining its superb safety record in the face of unprecedented scrutiny following some recent highly publicized incidents.
Industry-wide participation is vital. Outlined below are the essential elements of the project. Links are provided below for Annual Reports, Forms and additional PPDC information. We ask that your company seriously consider participation in this program.
The Project at a Glance:
- A Voluntary Confidential Program
This is a voluntary data collection effort. Contributed data elements will always be aggregated. No individual company will be identified with any specific data.
AGA directly receives the contributed data from the participating companies and inputs it into the database. No other organization, or member of the PPDC, may independently view or analyze the data. Of course, AGA cannot assure that the aggregate data would not have to be shared in the unlikely event of a subpoena or valid order to produce it to a competent authority.
- Data Collection Should Not Be Burdensome
The data collection is prospective in nature. Once a company volunteers to submit failure data, it is only agreeing to submit data on failures that occur after that point. Of course, if the company wants to submit historical data, it can choose to do so.
Because the project mission is to gather data on plastic material failures, contemporaneous failures caused by third-party excavation activity are not reported. Participating companies would report instances of third-party damage discovered through post-failure analysis of the piping. The PPDC has designed a unique data collection form to facilitate the process; a CD-ROM detailing the form's completion will be provided to all participating companies. However, the data can also be collected using your company's existing failure report forms. Participants will be asked to report periodically, and if in any quarter there are no reportable failures, participants will be asked to submit a "negative report."
- Data Submission Will Be Easy
Data submission also has been made easy. Data can be submitted in a variety of ways: by mail, electronically on diskette, or by fax. Regardless of the form that is used, or the way in which the data are submitted, the information can be entered into the AGA-secure database and confidentiality can be preserved. The collection of this data is not a "covered task" for purposes of the Operator Qualification Rule.
For data submission by fax, please return to fax number: 202-824-7136
No member of the PPDC will be able to independently conduct a trend analysis of the data. The PPDC as a group will review the data for trends and patterns, ensuring the use of uniform and scientifically sound statistical approaches.
The PPDC will use the information only in the aggregate. Although AGA will periodically report to the PPDC and to the industry on the status of the project, AGA will not undertake any independent analysis of the data.
If you are willing to participate, please complete and return the Volunteer Form. If you need additional information about the project, please contact: Kate Miller at (202) 824-7342 or Christina Sames at (202) 824-7214.
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