Meeting Minutes
January 20, 2010 | December 9, 2009
Wednesday,
January 20, 2010
The meeting was held in the Fort Nelson Town office Bear Pit
The meeting commenced at 1300hrs.
Chairperson, Paul Gould
Vice Chair, Greg Herman
Scribe, Brian Fertuck
At 1300 hrs the meeting was called to order the first topic on
the agenda was a review and approval of the minutes of the December
9, 2009 meeting , carried unanimously.
Paul Gould and Brian Fertuck gave an update on the RRSC
meeting held in Prince George on January 14th, 10. This
was a very positive meeting with input both from the Ministry of
Forests and Industry reps from each of the Forest Districts within
the Prince George Forest Region.
Paul Gould stated since the inception of the RRSC group in the
Prince George Forest District there have been zero fatalities in
the last four years, compared to 3-4 deaths per year before the
creation of the Prince George RRSC.
Bud Phillips of Works Safe BC stated we need to measure where we
are at in order to identify a common goal , in order to do this we
need to develop the tools to identify safety issues as
well as be cognizant of the perceptions of those using the
roads.
Work safe will develop a web page similar to the WEYSAFE web-
page created by Weyerhaeuser
The web page information will be by geographical area. Work safe
may be contracting or sourcing out the web page.
The web page will be piloted out in the Peace district.
David Vince the Sierra Yoyo Desan used to have an average of 7
fatalities per year. This has now dropped to zero and may be
attributed to more frequent multi agency road blocks.
The Fort Nelson municipality will be dedicating two full time
highway RCMP officers to policing the SYD.
There has been some resistance from the oil companies to provide
additional monies to fund the two RCMP positions as the oil &
gas companies to provide funding for two full time RCMP officers to
monitor the SYD road network.
Kurt Peat the RCMP traffic division staff sergeant from
Dawson Creek will be the individual responsible for the two
positions dedicated to the SYD.
The RCMP staff sergeant in charge of the traffic division for
the Peace area is willing to come to Fort Nelson to do a
presentation to the group, Bud Phillips will arrange this.
Paul Gould provided a power point presentation of
Devon's PDR signage.
The signage showed the name of the road UP/Down and the KM.
WCB will be discussing with the Federal Canada the idea of
placing RR signage with the Highway right of ways in order to have
the signs in a highly visible location.
It was also mentioned by Bud Phillips the South Peace, drivers
are starting to use "UP" and "Down"
In minimal time as opposed to loaded and empty.
This is a directive issued by The Ministry of Forests and Range
to be implemented by May 1st 2010.
This seems to have gained easy acceptance.
Existing signage will remain in place with additional placards
attached giving the required information
As time goes by and signs need to changed then the new signage
protocol will be used
The goal is to have all signs in the Peace and Fort Nelson and
the rest of the Province use the same standard format in order to
minimize confusion and guarantee that all signage conforms to the
new policies.
Each company will continue to use the sign supplier of their
choice.
There was some discussion around the fact that the South Peace
has set a dead line date of October 1st to have all new
signage in place.
There was some concerns voiced there may be resistance
from some companies to change or update their signage to
align with the directive handed down from the Ministry of
Forests to the district Manager's with a deadline of May
1st, 2010.
David Vince will contact OGC to ensure they will push the
directive handed down by the MOF.
The topic of the SYD group and their function was also discussed
the SYD group is basically group that monitors the condition of the
road manages the maintenance and provided the funding to do so.
The FNRRSC's mandate is to collectively set standards and create
policy's related to road issues and road safety.
Ken Brown of Shell Canada communicated to the group he is
willing to liaise with transport companies in and around Calgary
that haul into the Fort Nelson area.
The subject of a committee logo was discussed, Brian Fertuck
volunteered to approach Northern Lights and the Fort Nelson High
School to see if either group would be interested in creating a
logo with the participants of the winning group each receiving a
road safety kit from the committee members.
The web site logo will be similar to the one from the
Peace with a theme consisting of Trees, Rig,Road,load , driver and
vehicle.
The group decided on conducting a "Perception Survey" for the
SYD Bud Phillips suggested all companies conduct the survey
on February 15 and 16th which is the Monday
and Tuesday prior to the meeting.
The first day the survey will be conducted at Km 112 on the
Liard and the second day Km 65 on the Poco Komie.
The perception survey will be used as a benchmark and will be
balanced by driver perception, as well as well as an audit of the
road user training and orientation .
The terms of reference (TOR) for the FNRRSC
were adopted from the Peace District committee's TOR and were
reviewed, edited and accepted by the group.
The Road Safety Committee Role
documentation was review and some of the wording revised.
Section 2. The wording was changed from "exert influence over"
to "influence other user groups".
There was also discussion around the responsibility of the
committee as specified by WSBC that the committee and its
members who act in good faith will not be held responsible.
Some of the terminology was also defined:
- Road Users Group: Manage and develop policies for specific
road groups.
- Safe Use Plan: I need help with this
one
Paul Gould will be extending an invitation to Doreen
McAlister with the ministry of Transport to
Join the FNRRSC .
Bud Phillips will forward to Paul and Greg a copy of the FNRRSC
documents professionally edited
Paul suggested in order to expedite the progress of the
next meeting the committee members take the time to pre read the
material to be discussed and come prepared with comments, solutions
and suggestions.
The next meeting will be held in the same location at the Fort
Nelson town office in the "Bear Pit" on February 17th
starting at 1300 hrs.
Reminder: Fort Nelson is one hour behind Alberta.
Scribe: Brian Fertuck
Brian.Fertuck@gov.bc.ca
Wednesday, December
9, 2009
This meeting was held at the Encana Fort Nelson Office
boardroom.
The meeting served to establish the committee formally and chair
positions were voluntarily established as follows;
Chairperson, Paul Gould
Vice Chair, Greg Herman,
Scribe (interim) Lane LeClerc
Attendance - to be acquired from Joy (WSBC)
Action item for next meeting - Members should
review and become familiar with the SPRSC documentation
(guidelines, procedures and best management practices) for
discussion at the next meeting
Don Dahr, Joy Phiel and Bud Phillips from WSBC (WorkSafe BC)
were in attendance as resource persons.
The members in attendance will need to be acquired from Joy
Phiel with WorkSafe BC
A committee name was agreed upon and currently to stand as the
Fort Nelson Resource Road Safety Committee (FNRSC)
It was recommended that the meetings be held monthly with
established reoccurrences
Next meeting of the FNRSC is scheduled Wednesday January
20th @1300 hours, location TBA, future dates have not
yet been established.
The location of the next meeting is yet to be determined and
Terry Cavaliere looking into the use of the Encana boardroom for
future use - determined it would only be available Wednesdays.
Greg Herman will check into the Bear Pit at the City Hall for
availability.
Recommendation was made to consider review of section "C's" of
the existing road user agreements.
Paul suggested that the FNRSC establish it's own specific terms
of reference (TOR)
Paul then lead a review of the SPRSC (South Peace Road Safety
Committee) terms of reference as a initial action for the newly
established committee.
Quorum was agreed upon by the attending members to be 7.
Bud Phillips with WSBC shared some background on the SPRSC terms
of reference being modelled after the WSBC PAC (Public Advisory
Committee) which was established to conform with CSA
requirements.
Don Dahr recommended inclusion of the MOE and OGC within the
term owner as identified in the TOR.
Paul shared that the importance of keeping the end user in mind
was essential towards gaining buy-in from the end users of the
policies and procedures.
Greg shared his support of the plain language format.
John Paul Joiner cautions about the yes / no rules being
implemented without background information to support the
committees decisions being available to the members and end
users.
Don Dahr recommends reference to Workers Compensation act to
specific BC to prevent conflict from arising with other
jurisdictions Acts.
Paul recommended adding "to reduce injury and fatality on
resource roads " onto the Purpose statement as contained in the
SPRSC TOR
Joy Phiel has a professionally edited draft version of the SPRSC
TOR and will distribute for review to minimize the committee having
to scrutinize the document for editorial issues. She did indicate
that the document contains markups.
Bud shared that the document can be printed without markup for
ease of review.
Dan shared that the SPRSC had requested WSBC supply assistance
in the development of the logo. The SPRSC logo contains
representation from the 3 key industry stakeholders on the SP
resource roads (mining, forestry and oil and gas) and was uncertain
if there were an IP (Intellectual Property) or copyright issues
related to the logo.
Bud indicated, Prince George RSC has their own logo as there is
not the same level of oil and gas activity within their resource
road district.
?? Do we want to consider developing our own logo ??
Don - MOF (ministry of forests) has an initiative to standardize
all their signage which has a huge coat associated with it.
Discussion occurred about pushback to signage standards from
Drilling, Completions and Construction groups.
Lane- noted that the SPRSC has signage guidelines in their
documentation.
Bud - asked if there were any concerns regarding the
liability statement at the bottom of page 1 of the SPRSC TOR
with no response from the committee members present.
Paul - shared that the October 1st deadline initiated
by the SPRSC may have been a little optimistic. Cautions that FNRSC
be certain to be clear in communicating pending change and
providing background to the decisions of the committee related to
the changes to be implemented.
Bud - be realistic in the guidelines
Paul - SPRSC expecting October 2011 for their program to fully
implemented.
Don - Forestry in Prince George holds townhall meetings to
communicate major projects and changes to the area resource
roads
Paul - asked if stats were available regarding public fatality
on resource roads
Greg- suggested that we need a baseline to work from in order to
gauge the success of the FNRSC activities.
Bud- unsure if there has been any tracking as these would not be
reported to WSBC unless a worker was injured in the event, does not
account for public single vehicle events as a result of actions
related to industry users and industry related events resulting
from public user activities would not likely be able to be drilled
down / sorted easily.
Dan- suggested inquire with / invite ICBC as they may be able to
provide stats related to public MVA on resource roads.
Paul - can we ID (identify) what degree of public activity
occurs on our resource roads?
- He was involved with WSBC (Bud) poll the resource road users and
get information out about the pilot project to the users.
Don - the initial intent of the FN project was to engage the
players in the Horn River activity to provide opportunity to
establish policies / practices at the front end for consideration
in development and maintenance of access to the field but we have
to consider all the potential users of the access roads such as
forestry if it returns to the area.
Discussion occurred regarding the existing RUGS such as the SYD
and it was determined that it would be good not to duplicate
process and that consideration should be given to a split of the
Users Group maintenance meeting and the FRRSC established RUG tom
mange safety specific items. Some of the issue are common as
maintenance relates to safety. Too well maintained may
contribute to unsafe activity such as increased speeds and
additional use.
Bud - the producers etc not wanting to participate should
consider that if there is a standard to be measured against
compliance to that standard can become the measure in determining
diligence and it's better to set the standard than to be compared
to the standard.
Paul - origin of SPRSC procedures were derived from the
PGRSC
Paul will be away until January 4th effective this
Friday.
Greg will field any communication that is required to occur
before the 4th.
Bud- MOT may be valuable reference - RCMP is willing to
participate regarding patrol of resource roads
Paul - will contact Craig at Enform to determine if Enform will
serve as the host for the communication of FNRSC information. SPRSC
posting is provided by the MOF website.
Review of dispute resolution policy occurred -
Greg - recommends
2) Technical Issues
c) change word "compromise" to "solutions"
Bud - SPRSC had collected some baseline data
It was discussed that local producers shared road use
stats and perhaps a perception poll could work to establish a
baseline for the FNRSC.
Terry- asked if the SYD road check data could be used for a
baseline
Bud - indicated the data would be inconclusive and it was
intended to serve a different function (enforcement) than the SPRSC
information sharing / gathering activities he and Paul had
participated in.
Bud - WSBC resource road orientation video -5-7 minutes in
length is expected to begin production Jan 24th
2010.
Shawn - recommends a review of 2 or 3 schedule "C"s
Meeting unofficially adjourned @ ~ 1600