Blue Green Alliance, MN - 2013 TAG Program

Overview

Main Objective

Under this grant award Blue Green Alliance will focus on the network of natural gas pipelines in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota, including Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The primary goal of this project is to increase the awareness among labor and community partner organizations about pipeline safety and to engage them in a collaborative effort to improve the identification and prevention hazardous conditions. The Blue Green Alliance will produce educational materials, two briefing papers, and conduct stakeholder meetings to increase the awareness among labor and community partner organizations about pipeline safety and to engage them in a collaborative effort. Blue Green Alliance will also utilize PHMSA's Minnesota specific incident reporting data to identify areas where serious incidents have occurred over the past 10 years and to review and analyze reported causes, including corrosion, excavation damage, equipment and weld failures, and incorrect operations.

Public Abstract

Under the terms of this agreement. the Recipient must demonstrate completion of the work through the actions it has specified in its Application.

• Research and production gfa set of a pipeline safety backgrounders (2) and fact sheets (2) tailored for labor and comniunity-environmental audiences and focusing on hazard awareness, hazard identification and what workers and communities can do to help prevent natural gas distribution pipeline incidents - and to report/respond to incidents when they occur.
• Planning and hosting of two labor-community briefings featuring technical experts on pipeline safety and the regulatory infrastructure ad process, frontline gas pipeline workers, and community leaders.
• Production qf afinal project report describing the effort and including a shared set of community-labor-business recommendations to be considered by - and form the basis of dialogue with - key decision makers.
• Development and execution of a dissemination strategy for educational work products, including fact sheets, backgrounders and the report. utilizing the conununications platforms of BGAF partners. (See Question No. 6.)
• Design and implementation of a media outreach strategy, depending on the outcomes and views of partners, including the use of the communications platforms of BGAF partners (newsletters, web sites) as well as social media.

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