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Public Awareness programs are required by regulation and the American Petroleum Institute (API) Recommended Practice (RP) 1162: Public Awareness Programs provides the details on those requirements. API RP 1162 prescribes the stakeholder groups that are to be contacted, the pipeline safety messages that are to be delivered and the frequency that those messages are shared. One stakeholder group is the “affected public.”

The API RP 1162 working group has launched a webpage to gather input from the affected public on the successes public awareness programs have had to date and where there still may be deficiencies. The website provides an opportunity to provide feedback to the API RP 1162 revision team in a variety of ways including a survey, interactive activities and comment boards. The information gathered from this project will ultimately influence and justify some of the requirements in the current revision of RP 1162. While it remains unknown when this new version of API RP 1162 will be finalized and whether PHMSA will incorporate by reference into pipeline safety regulations, it is important that the affected public stakeholder group has an opportunity to provide honest input.

APGA encourages each member company to share the webpage with its customers and community. Without the public’s input, justification for change in the requirements is limited. The webpage will only be active for a short time, until September 20, 2019, so time is of the essence.

Learn more at www.pipelineaware.org

For questions on this article, please contact Erin Kurilla of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at ekurilla@apga.org.