Innocent Bystanders

Safety of people not involved with the job is yet another priority that needs to be addressed. This is another issue that concerns both the limited and unlimited access driller. I’m sure we’ve all seen pedestrians walk right around safety barriers and under caution tape, ignore signs and walk right underneath a string of augers as they’re being pulled out of the ground to sample. The worst part is that a lot of these people seem to get mad at US because we’ve slightly inconvenienced them in the interests of trying to prevent them from walking through an unsafe area.

Here are two of my favorite, and by favorite, I mean least favorite, situations. The latter instance is the one where we were pulling augers out of the ground to sample. This was at a gas station, the place was very contaminated and the augers were dripping with wet clay and gasoline from below the surface. A not very bright individual decided that instead of taking an extra few steps around our pylons and caution tape, he would ignore them and walk right through the work area underneath the augers I was pulling out. I didn’t see him until the he was already too close to yell at. On the plus side, however, he didn’t seem to mind the bits of contaminated soil and groundwater that dripped on him. I hope he liked the smell of gas.

The other situation was even worse. I was working on a sidewalk that went underneath a bridge. The back of the rig was about five feet away from the edge of the bridge. On one side of the sidewalk was a four-foot tall railing with a drop of several feet down to the road below. On the other side of the rig was a grassy embankment. Underneath the bridge was the railing and a concrete wall. On the opposite end of the bridge from where we were working, blocking the sidewalk, was a sign stating that it was closed and advising pedestrians to use the sidewalk on the other side of the road and another one further up saying the same thing. Another genius, pushing a child in a stroller no less, moved the sign and walked under the bridge. He came out at the other side to the back end of the drill, a cloud of diesel exhaust and an embankment for him to climb with his stroller. That poor kid. The thing that angers me the most is that if something had happened and he or his child had been injured, I’m sure that we would have been held responsible, despite him blatantly ignoring the sign and putting himself and his child in danger.

Situations like this make me wonder how long it will be before we’ll need to erect construction fencing around work areas like these.

Utility Locates

I don’t know of any jurisdiction in North America where there aren’t laws requiring underground services to be marked before breaking ground using powered equipment. Having locates while drilling indoors is no exception. In my area, most utility companies will only mark their services up to the property line or demarcation point. However, they will inform you if there are any easements running underneath a building or across the property. After that, it’s up to a private locator to do the rest. I’ve worked on numerous jobs where I’ve refused to drill inside or on private property when there have been no private locates present. As-built and engineering drawings can help a private locator do their jobs better, but they are no substitute for having them come and clear any buried services. Gas lines for barbecues, and electrical lines for pool equipment and lights are just a few of the private utilities that might be found in a residential work site. Inside a factory or warehouse, there could be gas, water, electrical and drain lines all located below or encased in the concrete floor. These should be marked on the ground—just as with drilling done outside—if they pass close to the work area.

 To finish off, drilling in limited access areas can certainly be just as stimulating and challenging as working on the bigger rigs, both physically and mentally. You always have to come up with solutions to new problems, whether they’re as simple as bringing a few pieces of wood to bump your machine up and down a set of steps, or trying to figure out how to auger in monitoring wells in the basement of a multimillion dollar home while leaving no trace of your activities except for a few flushmounts. It takes the same amount of brains and hard work to finish the job with a satisfied client.