Intermap Technologies, a leading provider of location-based solutions, today announced the availability of InsitePro for Pipelines — a customized version of InsitePro, Intermap's natural catastrophe risk management software. InsitePro for Pipelines was created specifically for hazardous liquid pipeline operators throughout North America, enabling risk-based decision-making and improved environmental and regulatory compliance by providing immediate, up-to-date, simple access to geo-hazards and high consequence areas (HCAs).
Addressing an Industry-Wide Challenge
HCAs are defined by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) as an industry standard for ensuring pipeline operators have accurate information on areas that require special management practices. These include population, commercially navigable waterways, ecologically sensitive areas and locations that house public drinking water reserves. Populated areas and navigable waterways have scheduled updates, but PHMSA has encountered funding and resource challenges updating ecological and drinking water HCAs. The last release was in 2000. In general, the industry does not have the tools to maintain these complex datasets — although they are responsible for factoring environmental change into their integrity management programs. This in a climate where regulation of pipeline safety is becoming more publicized and politicized due to increasing urgency to protect our natural heritage and indispensible water resources. In response, the American Petroleum Institute (API), with PHMSA cooperation, has published a draft of recommended practice 1173: Pipeline Safety Management System Requirements. This practice requires detailed understanding of the operational setting integrated into the management systems. In Canada, the National Energy Board (NEB) regulated the requirement of risk management systems in 2013. These standards add further pressure on the industry to not only understand the potential consequences to HCAs, but the geo-hazards their pipelines may be exposed to (flood, fire, subsidence, etc.).
Designing an Intelligent Solution
Intermap is producing a dynamic and current geospatial dataset describing the locations of HCAs, fulfilling the urgent need for the up-to-date information required to comply with PHMSA and Canadian regulations. Furthermore, it is providing access to its world class geo-hazards information.
Intermap has teamed up with Bonnie Freeman, a renowned HCA expert, to develop InsitePro for Pipelines — a new way to deliver HCA information that makes compliance with PHMSA regulations easier and faster, and enables greater environmental protection for our precious resources.
InsitePro for Pipelines is a comprehensive solution that supports numerous strategic business decisions that should incorporate risk. Everything from network expansion or contraction, integrity management assessment and maintenance, or volume decisions are all better founded when based on current risk and environmental consequence (HCA) information. In addition, InsitePro for Pipelines provides Intermap's flood and wildfire risk information, producing a powerful tool for any company operating hazardous liquid pipelines.
"This is how HCAs were intended to be," said Bonnie Freeman, President of FreemanGIS, "— a continual update of sensitive resource areas vital to our society, that can be readily integrated into operators' programs to enhance risk-based decisions. Intermap recognizes the need for an innovative solution to standardize HCA identification."
"Our product delivers legitimate HCAs according to the peer-reviewed method approved by PHMSA prior to the final integrity management rulings," added Ivan Maddox, Intermap Product Manager for InsitePro for Pipelines.
Intermap is launching InsitePro for Pipelines with data available for Texas, and HCAs for other states are being identified now.
