Environmental Inspection: Down in the Trenches

This paper describes how the use of an environmental management plan can effectively anticipate problems that may occur during pipeline construction and make dealing with them easier. Examples from a recently completed natural gas pipeline project in eastern Ontario and our experience with environmental inspection of other pipelines in various jurisdictions are used to do this. The focus of the paper will be on environmental issues associated with smaller diameter, extra high pressure distribution pipelines, which have a distinctly different set of environmental considerations than do transmission pipelines.