The podcast by project managers for project managers. The Key Crossing Reliability Initiative by Baltimore Gas and Electric (BG&E) is a critical project replacing aging transmission lines across the Patapsco River, spanning 2.25 miles. Managed by Cody Duplisea, PMP, it powers over a million homes and businesses in Baltimore. Completed before the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, it gained high visibility for ensuring reliable power transmission.
Table of Contents
03:03 … Meet Cody
04:53 … Key Crossing Reliability Initiative Project
06:31 … A High Visibility Project
07:43 … Project Timeline
08:23 … Cody’s PM Role
09:11 … The “Above Water” Decision-Making Process
13:30 … Width of the River
15:00 … Tower Height
16:16 … Stakeholder Outreach
17:13 … Project Challenges
19:45 … Decommissioning Old Cables
21:03 … Kevin and Kyle
21:47 … Handling Stressful Moments
23:02 … Ensuring Good Communication
25:58 … Balancing Onsite and In Office
28:15 … Navigating the Unexpected
31:13 … Extra Risk Mitigation Strategies
32:29 … Project Takeaways
33:57 … Lessons Learned
36:27 … Find Out More
37:22 … Closing
WENDY GROUNDS: Hey folks, the bridge we’re talking about in this episode is the Francis Scott Key Bridge, over the Patapsco River in Baltimore. As many of you know the bridge collapsed around 1:30 a.m. March 26th this year after a massive cargo ship, called the Dali, lost power, veered off course and struck the bridge. Six construction workers died in this accident.
This episode we recorded before the tragedy took place and before the bridge collapsed. We opted against editing our conversation and chose to leave it in its original state. So, we do talk about the bridge quite a bit in this podcast.
WENDY GROUNDS: You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates. We hope to bring you some support as you navigate your projects.
We like to also delve into the latest developments that are shaping our world today. And we’re thrilled to highlight a remarkable project on this episode. This is called the Key Crossing Reliability Initiative, and it has been named a PMI Project of the Year Award Finalist for 2023.
BILL YATES: Yeah, this is such an honor to be able to speak with Cody directly about this project. He was involved in it and led it. Just to step back for a minute, this is a project that Baltimore Gas and Electric, BG&E, initiated. They were replacing transmission line.
So, as you guys know, I spent the first half of my career working in the utility space. Utilities have a generation component, transmission, and distribution. Transmission, these are the tall towers that we see when we’re driving down the road. Those are high voltage. They cover long distances. And then distribution is that last piece that gets the electricity to our homes or to our business.
So, these transmission lines that we’re going to talk about are, again, they’re high voltage. And in this case, they’re spanning across a river. And we’re going to talk about eight transmission poles that are put in place to span like a 2.5-mile space. Five of those are in the water, and eight total to get transmission, to get electricity from one side of the river to the next where you have a million customers who need electricity.
WENDY GROUNDS: Our guest is Cody Duplisea, and he works for Burns & McDonnell as a project manager working on Baltimore Gas and Electric’s Key Crossing Reliability Initiative. Cody’s career started in Northwestern Pennsylvania as a pipeline project engineer with National Fuel, and he has since become an integral part of the Burns & McDonnell PMOC for BGE going on nine years.
Since joining Burns & McDonnell in 2015, Cody has worked in the development of BGE’s Project Controls Organization for the STRIDE Gas Main Replacement Program, as well as managed multiple facilities’ enhancement projects. Join us as we talk to Cody and unpack the success story of the Key Crossing Reliability Initiative.
Hi, Cody. Welcome to Manage This. Thank you so much for joining us today.
CODY DUPLISEA: Hi, there. Thanks for having me.
Meet Cody
WENDY GROUNDS: We are looking forward to hearing your story about this incredible project, but I first want to find out a little bit about your career path. How did you become a project manager?
CODY DUPLISEA: Sure. So growing up I was always interested in kind of the math and sciences fields. And both my dad and grandfather were both in the construction industry, and I had a lot of experience kind of following them through their different projects and being onsite with them. And that kind of naturally led me to pursue a degree in civil engineering. So I knew early on that I didn’t really want to be behind a desk cranking out calculations and designs all day. I wanted to kind of start pursuing more of the construction field-based work opportunities that came my way.
And as I continued to interact with different contractors and consultants and clients really on a daily basis throughout all the different projects that I’ve been fortunate to be a part of, I learned that I’d enjoyed those personal connections and interactions the most. And honestly it just kind of was a natural progression and path that led me towards that project management field.
BILL YATES: And I’ve got to say, engineers who can speak to people and be understood and understand others, that’s always a big thing. That, you know, that really gets you ahead in your career. Another thing I’ve got to bring out to our listeners is we were talking ahead of time, we made a small world connection, Cape Town.
WENDY GROUNDS: Cape Town. We discovered that Cody has spent some time living in Cape Town, as well, and so that was really exciting because I grew up in Cape Town, lived most of my life there before I moved to the U.S. So Cody, I am so glad you understand. You get the beauty of the city; don’t you?
CODY DUPLISEA: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I’m waiting for the day that I can go back.
WENDY GROUNDS: Oh, yeah.
BILL YATES: That’s too cool.
CODY DUPLISEA: It’s an amazing spot.
WENDY GROUNDS: Yeah. Yeah.
Key Crossing Reliability Initiative Project
WENDY GROUNDS: All right. We want to talk to you about the Key Crossing Reliability Initiative project. It’s a long name for a project. What exactly is this project addressing?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah. So, the Key Crossing Reliability Initiative is really centered around the decommissioning of aging infrastructure and constructing and installing a new solution to deliver safe and reliable power to over a million customers in the Baltimore, Maryland region. So back in the ‘70s, Baltimore Gas and Electric, which is Maryland’s largest natural gas and electric utility provider, they installed two high-voltage transmission circuits beneath the Patapsco River, and also adjacent to the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
And in about 2009, engineers started noticing off-gassing of those lines, which is a condition and a sign of cable degradation. And essentially these conductor cables are installed within steel pipes that are buried beneath the river bottom, and the pipes are filled with a dielectric insulating oil. So the cable started to create this combustible gas and also hydrogen gas within the pipes, which was the first sign of those lines kind of coming to the end of their service life.
So because those cables serve a really critical function in the BGE transmission system, the Key Crossing Reliability Initiative was launched to replace that aging system with new overhead electric transmission lines to preserve the system’s integrity and ensure that safe and reliable power across its service territory.
A High Visibility Project
BILL YATES: One of the things that hits me with this project, is it’s so high visibility. It blows me away to think of the height of these towers that you guys built for the transmission. It’s also in a key area, you know, for the United States. It’s close to DC; it’s in the Baltimore area. Like you say, it’s serving a million customers. And it’s also touching history. I mean, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, that’s our Francis Scott Key, the national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner. This is so high visibility. So that must have added extra scrutiny and pressure to you guys to make sure that you got it right and that you delivered it right.
CODY DUPLISEA: Oh, totally, yeah. Not only the environmental complications of being right in the Chesapeake Bay critical area; but, like you mentioned, the historic component of that. Fort McHenry is also a local landmark just down the way within eyesight of the project. In fact, there’s a buoy that’s located right in the river next to the project, which we would drive by in the project boat almost every day. And it’s painted as an American flag to commemorate the spot where the Star-Spangled Banner was written. So yeah, it’s a really cool piece of history there.
Project Timeline
BILL YATES: Now, give us a sense for the project. How long was this project?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah. So altogether, engineering, permitting, and stakeholder outreach, those efforts date way back to 2015. And those kind of activities lasted about five years prior to construction even starting. So, there was a ton of legwork that had to be done before we even started driving piles into the river. So, construction commenced in 2020 and took about two years total to achieve our substantial completion. And then demolition and decommissioning efforts lasted about another year, year and a half after our substantial completion was achieved.
Cody’s PM Role
WENDY GROUNDS: Cody, were you on the project from the beginning? What was your role in this project?
CODY DUPLISEA: So, I joined right before construction started. I was fortunate to have all the engineers and permitting specialists and environmentalists complete that lengthy process before I joined. So, I was a project manager on Key Crossing responsible for leading these high-performing teams through the remaining engineering phases and then the ultimate construction phase of the project. And driving that design and construction effort while ensuring the requirements of the client were met were really our critical objectives.
Also keeping safety as our number one priority during all work was really paramount while maintaining our schedule to be able to successfully meet our outage and energization commitments.
The “Above Water” Decision-Making Process
BILL YATES: These are, you know, high-voltage transmission lines. It’s going across water. And, you know, the decision had to be made. Do we go above? Do we go under? How do we do that? Talk a little bit about some of those decisions that were made in terms of what’s the solution that we think is going to be the best in terms of all the things that we have to consider, and how did you guys end up arriving at what you did?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah, so that’s a really good question. And that gets asked a lot because, you know, initially you think about it, and you think, oh, why not just go back under the river and have it completely out of sight? There are a few interesting points with that. And I’ll backtrack a little bit here.
So, when that project charter for Key Crossing was initially developed, and engineers were tasked with developing that solution to replace this 50-year-old infrastructure, the team began to grow, develop. Different consultants and specialists were brought onboard to assess those replacement options.
And during that development stage, one of the most important documents of the whole project was created, which was called the Alternatives Analysis. It was a 200-plus page document that included input from all these different subject matter experts, outlined all the different types of replacement options for the transmission circuits. And this document essentially outlined the pros and cons of each option and graded each option. So, the analysis focused on really clearly and consistently grading cost, feasibility, and environmental impact criteria so at the end of the day we would have a clear and concise kind of apples-to-apples view on the choices.
And really there were quite a few creative choices to choose from. I can share a couple of those here, as well. The first was, like I mentioned, you could potentially install these new cables into the existing pipes that already lie beneath the river bottom. But the problem with that option is removing those old cables from the existing pipes.
The existing system is known as a high-pressure fluid-filled cable system, also known as HPFF. And the cables are housed within the steel pipes surrounded by 160,000 gallons of dielectric oil. So not only that, but they’re also spliced at locations buried beneath the river bottom, which would have to be accessed.
And to do that, you’d have to dig up those pipes, bring them to the surface. The integrity of the pipes, the condition of the pipe is really unknown. And just that attempt to raise the pipes to the surface would pose a pretty severe environmental threat. If something were to happen, the pipe breaks and oil leaks into the river, that would be a pretty bad issue to be faced with. So that was kind of no good.
Another option was installing new HPFF pipes beneath the river bottom. And this was carefully looked at, but some of the issues that revolved around this topic was really the history of the Baltimore Harbor. Heavy industrial operations have lined the Baltimore Inner Harbor since dating back to the 1700s. And that includes all kinds of operations like shipbuilding, iron works, copper smelting, chemical production, oil refining, you name it. There’s a slew of just known contaminants that exist within that river bottom soil in the inner harbor.
So, to implement that solution of installing new HPFF pipes, you’d have to dredge out the bottom of the river, which would cause severe river bottom disturbance and long periods of suspended sediment, which are two pretty costly environmental impacts that we wanted to avoid. And then you start thinking about the removal and disposal of over a million cubic yards of contaminated soil and sediment. That becomes really costly, as well. So those were really two main factors that threw out that idea.
Another factor is also the impact that those operations would have on the Baltimore shipping channel and the cargo network that runs right beneath the Francis Scott Key Bridge and right by the project. So that also would have a big impact on that front.
And then, that aside, you know, the next thing is probably what people are thinking is why not do a directional drill under the river and not worry about the sediment contaminants? And really you come into technical issues there with the length of the drill and the length of the manufacturer cable.
Width of the River
BILL YATES: Yeah. We should point that out. How long is it from bank to bank?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah.
BILL YATES: You know, this is a long expanse.
CODY DUPLISEA: It is long, yeah. It’s about 2.25 miles. And typically, those cables are only manufactured at about lengths of about 5,000 feet. So, the pulling distance is kind of more than twice of what is technically feasible for that technology.
Another interesting caveat on the HDB method was that those splice boxes that I referred to earlier, you’d have to have a splice box in the river, which would require the construction of an artificial island in the river.
BILL YATES: Wow. Yeah.
CODY DUPLISEA: And, yeah. And once you start thinking about that, permitting becomes a whole different ballgame. And you really can’t justify that route at that point. A few different options were explored. And ultimately, you know, at the end of the day, given that the project is in the Chesapeake Bay, it’s a federally protected waterway, we concluded that the environmental impact and costs were kind of the two heaviest weighted criteria to judge on.
That really directed the team to choose the overhead transmission line solution, you know, ranked number one in smallest environmental impacts, number one in being most cost effective, produced the least disturbance to the shipping channel, and really was the most technically feasible option compared to some of those others that I mentioned.
BILL YATES: Yeah. Some of the other research I did, Cody, they pointed out that the overhead solution was like half the cost of actually burying or going underneath the river.
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah.
Tower Height
BILL YATES: One of the things that – I wanted to ask this because some of the statistics just jumped out to me with those transmission lines. A typical height for a transmission tower is, like, 50 feet to 180 feet; and if somebody thinks in terms of meters, 15 to 55 meters. Versus these towers, some of these, they range from 160 feet tall to 400 feet tall. Do I have that right?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah.
BILL YATES: Are those accurate stats?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah, those are accurate stats there. The two tallest towers that we constructed were the towers that span across the shipping channel. And it’s actually one of the coolest stats I like to share is that they’re actually some of the tallest transmission monopole towers in the Northern Hemisphere. And, yeah, just shy of 400 feet, and they are monsters. They came in, I think, eight different segments. They had to be galvanized in a special facility. So, yeah, they’re the real deal for sure.
WENDY GROUNDS: I’m glad you explained that, Cody, because I am sure the layperson is like, “Why are they putting those lines up there? Why aren’t they putting them in the water underground?”
CODY DUPLISEA: Yup.
WENDY GROUNDS: So, seeing your perspective just why, I understand now, that makes a lot more sense, yeah.
Stakeholder Outreach
CODY DUPLISEA: Yup. And you bring up a good point about noticing this infrastructure. That was a big topic of discussion and concern for the team was is the construction of these huge towers and conductors right next to the bridge, a major highway in the Baltimore area, is that going to cause distractions to drivers, and incidents?
And we did a lot of proactive stakeholder outreach upfront. We coordinated with the MDTA and the Baltimore Harbor and did a lot of work with them upfront to clearly outline what we were going to be building, what the design was going to look like. And we let that stakeholder engagement process drive part of that design. We wanted to make sure that, you know, this wasn’t going to have a negative impact on the public. And a lot of that upfront work really helped us move things along during the engineering, construction, and permitting phases.
Project Challenges
WENDY GROUNDS: What were some of the other challenges that you had to face on this project?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah. So, a lot of unique and complex challenges were faced and successfully resolved by the high-performing project team. And I attribute a lot of that to the guidance of our program management model and project execution plan that we implemented. In addition to the close coordination with BGE’s executive leadership team that we held on a frequent basis. The consideration for marine engineering and construction practices were very unique.
And not only were we designing and installing conductors that span over two miles across Baltimore’s shipping channel, five of the eight structures being built are being built in the protected waterway, not to mention directing some of the tallest monopole structures in North America, like I just mentioned.
So, coordinating all the necessary parties and ensuring compliance in achieving our objectives was definitely challenging, but absolutely rewarding at the same time. And even the choice of the new overhead electric crossing came with its own complexities from a public perception and an aesthetic perception. We were unaware of how community members would view that potential impact. And the view from Fort McHenry, for example, like we talked about, and the impacts on the skyline adjacent to the bridge.
And after a lot of iterations of tower designs with the project team and key stakeholders, the selection of these taller and more slender monopole type structures used to support our infrastructure provided the community with sort of that minimal impact on the viewshed, while also protecting some of those other environmental and marine traffic considerations. So that was one challenge that we worked through was just the overall perception that this would have on the public community.
I think another challenge we faced was developing these complex outage sequences that were required to maintain reliable electric service to customers during the construction of our project. Multiple circuits of various voltages were taken out of service to execute. Different substation modifications and incremental adjustments were made to our existing overhead lines to prepare the water crossing to be put into service. So, upon completion of our new transmission line crossing, coordinated outages were performed to energize that new line safely while also removing the old cables from service.
Decommissioning Old Cables
One other challenge I’ll mention that I think is unique is the decommissioning of those old cables that ran beneath the river became pretty complex and required a lot of unique and innovative thinking. We always knew that the decommissioning would be a relatively high-risk activity due to that oil that’s contained within those pipes, and the age, the unknown condition, the integrity of those existing pipes. And just, again, that risk of oil potentially being released into the Patapsco River was kind of everyone’s worst nightmare. We wanted to do everything we could to prevent that type of incident.
So as a result, we ended up working with a specialized company who specializes in maritime physics projects, and we engaged them to develop a system-specific decommissioning procedure to really facilitate that safe removal of the oil contained within those lines. So, through the effective use of utilizing them as a resource and implementing this kind of highly complex oil removal procedure, we were able to safely and successfully remove over 165,000 gallons of oil from the existing system, helping to mitigate some of those environmental impacts and fulfilling our commitment to safety overall.
Kevin and Kyle
KYLE CROWE: Hello listeners, I wanted to follow up with you about the Risk Management Fundamentals course we previously told you about. Have you been thinking about how to further develop your skills in that area?
KEVIN RONEY: We have discovered another course by Margo Love called Applied Risk Management, which seems like the perfect next step. It builds upon the foundation from the previous course and dives deeper into practical approaches, processes, and tools for managing project risks effectively.
KYLE CROWE: Knowing the fundamentals of Risk Management is important, but it’s also advantageous to know how to also apply them in real-world situations. Margo’s Applied Risk Management course aims to equip project managers with the knowledge and techniques to handle uncertainty throughout the entire project lifecycle.
KEVIN RONEY: Check out Applied Risk Management by Margo Love at Velociteach if you also want to enhance your ability to ensure project success.
Handling Stressful Moments
BILL YATES: Cody, there are so many aspects of this project that are interesting to me, like you said, the recovery of the oil on the back end of the project where you’re decommissioning, the stringing of the lines, just thinking okay, we’re about to put a 200-ton crane out here. There had to be moments as the leader of this project where you’re just going, oh God, please, let this go well.
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah.
BILL YATES: How did you manage that stress?
CODY DUPLISEA: It was so interesting just seeing the different solutions that our contractors and teams could come up with. And you mentioned the crane component and going back to just installing those 400-foot towers. So, a very special crane had to be used for that lifting operation. And what our contractor ended up doing to mobilize that crane out to the waters, we built a – what’s called a “trestle.” Think of like a, I guess, a stable floating platform, if you will.
And they actually used one of their barge-mounted cranes to lift the other crane from the land, barge it over the water as it’s dangling 20, 30 feet above the water, out to the project site, and then safely assemble it on this trestle to be able to install the tower. So, yeah, that was a moment that all of us were holding our breath on, for sure.
Ensuring Good Communication
WENDY GROUNDS: So now you had a lot of stakeholders, you had a lot of collaborators on this project. So how did you make sure that you had really good communication amongst all of these parties involved?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah. That was really, I like to think, as sort of our number one job is coordinating all of the different parties and stakeholders to be aligned on the same page. And at the start of the project, BGE engaged us, Burns & McDonnell, to be the program managers, and to define and deploy a suitable approach to achieve the project objectives and manage that diverse group of companies and subject matter experts that would be required to successfully execute the Key Crossing Reliability Initiative.
And, you know, we started developing the project team. We used traditional team building methods to kind of fuse the management and assigned staff of those companies into our cohesive team, all focused on our goals to achieve the unique objectives of this project.
And we developed useful organization charts, reporting structures, communication protocols, which all provided a transparency and consistency for all our project-related communications and correspondence. We even set up specific notification process flows that were developed for all different types of scenarios that might play out on any given day. So this helped us really ensure that communications were occurring at the right times, with the right people, and during the right circumstances should they arise.
We also set up many routine meetings that covered different topics, issues, and planning and reporting structures. Those meetings were supplemented as needed with agency and other external stakeholder meetings. And once a month, our project team would actually assemble for a full day together where everyone could be face to face kind of in the same room. And that meeting kind of facilitated each area of specialty, presenting their own progress and issues and plans as a brief to the full team.
I think that type of inclusive leadership approach and sharing of knowledge during that time spent together really furthered the building of respect for all of each other and solidified the working relationships across and throughout our team. I think it developed accountability, as well, amongst some of the diverse range of contractors that were involved.
For me and a lot of others, I think presented an opportunity for each sector of the project to really learn and become familiar with all of the hard work that these other contractors are putting in on a day-to-day basis that they may not have otherwise known about.
And I think that just really allowed the project team to have the opportunity to learn about the new and unique technologies, construction methods that were being used, and just fostered the building of respect for each specialty area and group.
Balancing Onsite and In Office
BILL YATES: That’s important. That’s really important. Cody, I’m just curious. We have project managers that are doing projects, not at the same scale as this one, but they’re construction projects where they feel the pressure to be onsite. And they’re always trying to ask others, “Hey, how much time should I be spending onsite, how much back in the office with some of the other engineering team?” What seemed to be the key for you? What kind of balance did you hit?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah, that’s a really good question. So, we actually started construction right in the middle of the pandemic, actually right at the beginning.
BILL YATES: All right.
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah. We started; I think it was two weeks after the lockdown occurred. And as we all know, that was a strange and bizarre time to go through. But, you know, we really were flexible and adaptable to changing right on the fly as this enormous project was about to kick off. And we adapted to remote meetings really well. I think everyone knew their role, knew their job. And we really were able to succeed with a lot of these remote meetings and activities that we did remotely.
That sort of, you know, at the start didn’t allow us to all be together at all times and onsite. And again, hats off to the construction managers and contractors who were onsite, at risk, working next to each other during those times. But, you know, as time progressed, I think we learned how to hold certain in-person meetings and onsite visits. I always feel that being onsite is when I learn the most. And talking to the guys who are on site, who are actually building this project is just one of the more valuable experiences you can have to be able to understand what’s actually going on onsite.
And really, although, you know, that’s a large chunk out of the day traveling to the site, spending time onsite, and then going back to the office, you realize it’s at the end of the day and you haven’t been able to do your actual day-to-day tasks. But you realize that, once you do sit down, and you’re able to get to your tasks at hand, you have all that knowledge that you picked up from the site, and you can apply it directly and quickly to the work you’re doing.
So, yeah, it was I guess kind of a hybrid model of just trying to figure out whenever I could get onsite, I definitely would. It was always an opportunity I would try to take advantage of.
Navigating the Unexpected
WENDY GROUNDS: Now, every project is going to come with surprises. And you can have a perfect project plan, and then something’s going to happen to throw a spanner in the works. Do you have any examples of how you navigated some unexpected challenges, or if there were any setbacks that you had during the project?
CODY DUPLISEA: Definitely. One of the unexpected challenges involved stringing the conductor across the river, and the implications that developed from that activity were really interesting. So as with any conductor stringing operation, there’s a lot of hazards and risks associated with that. And being in a marine environment and needing to string across Baltimore Shipping Channel from a helicopter proved to be just a whole different ballgame.
And one major risk, for example, was that, if that conductor were to break or fall into the part of the harbor where stringing was occurring, and if a vessel was passing underneath, there’s a chance that that conductor could get snagged on that vessel, and it could potentially bring down the entire tower into the river, creating a massive safety issue.
So as a result of that possible scenario, we started coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard to begin developing a plan to be able to safely execute that stringing work while avoiding any vessel traffic. So an in-depth helicopter flight plan started to be developed. We were timing activities down to the half-hour increments. And that plan developed into really a full river closure, which the U.S. Coast Guard would enforce during all river crossing activities. And the plan kept getting revised, and different iterations were developed.
And ultimately, that plan became so detailed and so thorough and so elevated that it became an actual federal law that was implemented and enforced for the river closures to really ensure the safety of the project team and the surrounding public marine traffic and environment. So this was certainly a surprise at how large and important of this one seemingly small task eventually became.
My teammates even started calling that helicopter plan “Cody’s Law” as we started to get more and more involved with the Coast Guard and those closure activities. So yeah, project manager by day and maybe part-time lawyer by [laughter].
BILL YATES: It’s a different hat to wear, yup.
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah, exactly.
BILL YATES: That’s amazing, though, the complexity of that. It’s one of those things that I would have thought about, you know, the early planning phase of the project and thought, okay, sure, then the helicopter just picks up wire on one end and starts to string it. Okay. But yeah, you start to get closer and closer and looking at the details with that and the safety that’s needed. Yeah, it makes sense.
CODY DUPLISEA: Yup.
BILL YATES: Cody’s Law, how about that? That’s good.
WENDY GROUNDS: I like that.
Extra Risk Mitigation Strategies
CODY DUPLISEA: Exactly. One of the other safety components and risk mitigation strategies that we employed during those helicopter stringing activities was the contracting of a rescue dive boat and diver team. And we employed these divers to be sort of an extra precautionary measure and safety step. You know, with the linemen being harnessed onto a 200-foot-long line below the helicopter, if something were to happen mid-flight, it would be critical that we have a quick and reliable rescue strategy in place.
And really by having that rescue boat and the rescue divers on the water at all times gave our helicopter pilot and the aerial lineman teams a lot more comfortability and confidence to complete their work, knowing that this extra level of safety was in place for them. I think that really helped foster and strengthen the teamwork dynamic onsite that is really critical in being able to successfully complete that type of high-risk operation. And, you know, I still am in touch with a lot of those guys today, and they are all very appreciative of us kind of going the extra mile to implement that mitigation for them.
Project Takeaways
WENDY GROUNDS: So, your takeaways on this project, how did this project really account for future conditions and considerations that you’ve taken away?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah, due to the overhead infrastructure being installed in such a unique position like we’ve discussed, the requirements called for some very specific design and what we kind of like to call future-proofing considerations. And one of those requirements is obviously to allow for the safe passing of that shipping traffic below the installed electric lines. And to allow for that, a specific type of conductor needed to be designed and manufactured that allowed for the high strength and low sag properties of the wire.
But in addition to that, the project needed to account for future considerations of the Francis Scott Key Bridge being raised to allow for larger vessels to pass underneath at some future point in time. So, the clearance design that we built into the project accounts for that future bridge modification. And not only that, it actually accounts for future sea level rise, too, to ensure that those lines will not obstruct with vessels passing underneath if and when that mean water level rises in the future.
So, after all those factors are kind of taken into account, leads us to why, again, these towers are some of the tallest in North America, which is just a really neat and impressive thing to have been able to accomplish.
Lessons Learned
BILL YATES: Cody, let’s talk about lessons learned for a minute. Looking at this specific project, what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned from this one, or your team has learned, and you think you guys will implement in future projects and initiatives?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah, the team certainly learned a ton from this project. And we did take time at the end of the work to sit down all together and highlight a lot of those success areas that we wanted to implement in future projects, and also highlight some areas for improvement. But a couple of those highlighted success stories I think include the combined permitting and outreach approach that we utilized. This really helped avoid major environmental issues and permitting holdups by focusing on safeguarding the environment from day one.
So that is definitely something we are going to strive to implement in the future. Also being receptive to stakeholder input, that early stakeholder engagement drove the design of the project. And it was just important to be receptive to those communications with the community.
Completing a constructability analysis is something else that we used as a tool to help us navigate that stakeholder process and be able to produce an early schedule and approve funding ahead of time. And that’s something that I definitely would recommend that we continue to use in our projects moving forward. And then having a valuable partnership, you know, with all of our different contractors and consultants. I think that successful teamwork makes the dream work; you know. It really is true and held true for us on our project.
I think in the two years that we were under construction on Key Crossing, I think there were only two changes in personnel throughout this huge team that we’d put together, and both were retirements. So, yeah, it was a good, a really good working environment for everyone.
BILL YATES: Yeah, it sounds like the team took a lot of pride in what they were doing. I mean, you’re building something that’s going to be, first of all, there’s such an obvious use case for it, and it’s going to have a huge impact on the community. It’s going to be so visible, and it’s going to be there for, you know, you hope, close to a century; right?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah.
BILL YATES: I mean, the life of this project that it produces is so long. You really want to put a big stamp on it. And obviously I think, just from what you’ve described, your team really bought into that and saw this as a chance to do a fantastic work that’s going to last a long time.
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah, 100%.
Find Out More
WENDY GROUNDS: Lastly, if our audience wants to find out more about this project, where can they go? Or if they have questions for you, is there somewhere where they can connect with you?
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah, absolutely. So I can share my LinkedIn profile with you and be able to display that. And if anyone has questions, obviously feel free to reach out and be happy to help answer any questions or share any unique stats or facts that I wasn’t able to do here today.
BILL YATES: Well, Cody, thank you so much. And thanks for representing your team and just sharing the details of this, to me, a fascinating project, high level of difficulty. And it’s very public. It’s very much on display. So that just raises the bar that much higher for your team. And you guys knocked it out of the park. You did a phenomenal job. Thanks for walking us through it today.
CODY DUPLISEA: Yeah, absolutely. No, appreciate you guys taking the time to chat with me, and glad I could share some knowledge here with you all.
Closing
WENDY GROUNDS: That’s it for us here on Manage This. Thank you for joining us today. You can visit us at Velociteach.com, where you can subscribe to this podcast and see a complete transcript of the show. You’ve also earned your free PDUs by listening to this podcast. To claim them, go to Velociteach.com. Choose Manage This Podcast from the top of the page. Click the button that says Claim PDUs, and click through the steps. Until next time, keep calm and Manage This.
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