Juanjo Ortellado | MEL Candidate | Dec 17, 2021.
Mentors: Heather Middleton and Stephanie Rooke, BC Hydro;
Abstract
BC Hydro is a Crown corporation with the aim to safely, reliably and affordably provide clean electricity throughout the province of British Columbia. Amongst their tasks is the installation of utility poles in compliance with environmental regulations. In particular, the company faces this scenario when treated wood poles need to be installed in a sensitive aquatic environment. Therefore, to assess potential risks associated to these kind of projects, avoid potential harms to wildlife and comply with regulations, in other words to ensure sustainable development, this project was conducted following the requirements stated by the Province of British Columbia, guidelines from the Federal Government and best management practices from both the industry and the company. After a thorough research and the development of supporting tools, the BC Provincial Manual for the Installation of Treated Wood Poles In and Around Aquatic Environments for BC Hydro was created. The document includes field work instructions; guidelines for data gathering, testing and processing; detailed explanation on when and how to run a risk assessment; and decision making matrices to act effectively and safely for both the company and the environment.
Background and Context
Trees, and the wood that is derived from them, are the world’s only renewable building material (Canada, Wood Preservation Canada, 2012). Therefore, it is essential to protect and use them wisely. Moreover, wood poles are typically used to support electrical overhead power lines as well as other utilities including telephone cables, fiber optic cables, coaxial cables, transformers and streetlights (Canada, Utility Poles, 2020).
However, to expand the lifespan of the wood and to preserve the surrounding environment a treatment must be applied, mostly with a pre-treatment to unified the raw material into standardized sizes. Subsequently, BC Hydro selected cromathed copper arsenate (CCA) as the preservative used for their utility poles in and around freshwater projects to extend the lifespan of the project and ensure reliability.
A report conducted by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), focused on wood treated with CCA found that it is a relatively strong and long lasting material that maintains its integrity in conditions under which untreated wood would quickly degrade (Canada, Scientist Endrose CCA Treated Wood as Environmentally Responsible, 2013). Nonetheless, for sensitive aquatic environments the Provincial Guidelines established some parameters to be evaluated before proceeding with the installation of the poles which involves to run a risk assessment.
Risk Assessment
A risk assessment is an available tool to evaluate the environmental parameters of the project, and to evaluate the risks to aquatic resources posed by the project conditions. The goal is to ensure that environmental parameters and standards will not be exceeded after the project installation (Institute W. W., 2011). Consequently, the Environmental Assessment Modelling Tool, a tested and recognized online tool is selected to evaluate the projects if needed. Furthermore, to conduct the assessment it is necessary to define the environmental benchmarks to compare them with the actual parameters. Also, there are several specific site data that would need to be extracted, in some cases from the field and in others from online databases to run the assessment.
Decision Making Process to Proceed with Pole Installations
To decide whether to run a risk assessment or not, the following Pre-Risk Assessment Decision Matrix was created. It is based on the Provincial Guidelines for Treated Wood Poles for projects around aquatic environment and the Water Quality Guidelines for the Province of British Columbia.
If a risk assessment have to be conducted, the following Risk Assessment Decision Matrix must be followed. It consists of three main steps; collection of the data both on site and online, process of the data including definition of parameters and project characteristics, and running the assessment online with the help of the developed Aquatic Risk Assessment Spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet was designed to gather and process data in an structured and organized form, hence allowing to run the program almost automatically due to a highly oriented similar final interface. The spreadsheet consists of different manageable tables to easily collect the information needed. Furthermore, the information provided would automatically fill a centralized table which later would be used to fill the online model.
Important Findings
In electrical projects close to sensitive aquatic environments that requires a risk assessment prior to installation of CCA treated wood poles, several aspect can play an important role. However, this capstone identified three variables that influences the results profoundly. They are then discussed and arranged in order of relevance.
1.Average Current Speed of Water. This feature is inherent from the site and strongly related to the flow of water in the channel. A smaller value fo flowinf water represents a greater tightness for the reservoir, meaning that the metals are more likely to remain in a steady state condition and consequently the tolerance for more chemicals is reduced.
2.Background Concentration of Metals (CCA). Also inherent from the site, if the background levels are high there is less available tolerance to increase the concentration of metals. Industries located upstream are major contributors to this factor.
3.Surface Area of the Pilings Exposed to the Rain. Linked to the radius and length of the poles. With time the rain acts over the poles reducing the retention of the preservative which promotes the leaching of CCA into the water. Additionally, this is particularly important because on this feature, unlike the others, there is control from the utility company is some extent.
Final Outcomes
This capstone project focused on conducting a thorough research that allowed to create the BC Provincial Manual for the Installation of Treated Wood Poles In and Around Aquatic Environments for BC Hydro, which would serve to determine the feasibility to install utility poles projects close to freshwater that complies with both Provincial and Federal regulations. To complement the manual, a well referenced report and an excel spreadsheet were developed. Moreover, presentations were given in order to explain the methodology and the findings as well as to instruct in the use of the manual.
Contact Information
Juanjo Ortellado
Email: ortelladojuanjo@gmail.com
Phone: +1-604-722-5132
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ortelladojuanjo