Hydrovac and ground disturbance safety manual template
A complete written health and safety program for hydrovac, vacuum truck and ground disturbance crews working across Canada: daylighting buried utilities and pipelines, slot trenching and potholes, sewer and catch basin cleaning, liquid and sludge hauling, tank cleaning and disposal. It is laid out on the 14 national COR elements and written for the work: locates, the tolerance zone and the one-call system, pipelines, excavations, overhead lines and the boom, the wand and the suction, flammable and sour loads, traffic and disposal. Section 15 sets out the law of every province and territory, and federal workplaces, side by side, with each jurisdiction’s one-call and ground disturbance rules. It arrives as an editable Word file you make your own.
What’s in the manual
1. Safety and health policy
A signed, dated policy, the written program, and responsibilities for management, dispatchers, operators, swampers and crew leads, and how we work with the client’s ground disturbance supervisor and the facility owners.
2. Hazard assessment, analysis and control
Formal hazard assessments by type of job, the 5 × 5 risk matrix, a critical task inventory, and the ground disturbance hazard assessment with locate tickets, facility owners, tolerance zones and crossing agreements.
3. Safe work practices
Eighteen practices for hydrovac and vacuum truck work: locates and the tolerance zone, pipelines, excavations, overhead lines, the wand, the suction and debris tube, flammable and toxic loads, static, confined spaces, traffic, dumping, cold weather, TDG and driving.
4. Safe job procedures
Step-by-step procedures for confirming locates and exposing a facility, daylighting near a high-pressure pipeline, setting up a work zone, vacuuming flammable or sour fluids, entering a sewer, clearing a plugged tube, dumping and working near an overhead line.
5. Company safety rules
Life-saving rules for hydrovac crews, working under the stricter of our rules and the client’s or facility owner’s, and a progressive discipline process applied the same way every time.
6. Personal protective equipment
High-visibility apparel, face and splash protection at the wand, flame-resistant clothing for hydrocarbon loads, gas monitors, respirators and cold-weather gear.
7. Preventative maintenance program
Trucks and their commercial vehicle inspections, booms, vacuum systems, pumps and boilers, tanks and valves, bonding cables, gas detectors and traffic control devices, with lockout of the truck’s systems.
8. Training and communication
A training matrix by role, from ground disturbance and locates to H2S, confined space, traffic control, TDG and the licence class the trucks need, with tailboards on every job.
9. Inspections
Job sites, locates, excavations and work zones, trucks from the daily trip check to the dangerous goods tank test, and correcting what is found.
10. Investigations and reporting
Facility strikes and contacts reported at once to the owner and the one-call centre, gas and pipeline releases, reporting to the regulator of the jurisdiction where it happened, and investigations.
11. Emergency preparedness
A struck gas line, power cable or pipeline, trench collapse, confined space rescue, gas alarms, traffic incidents and wand injection injuries.
12. Statistics, records and document control
Locate tickets, exposure records, crossing agreements, disposal manifests, gas tests and truck inspections, kept for the longest period any jurisdiction requires.
13. Legislation
OHS law where the work is done, pipeline and damage prevention law, TDG and disposal rules, the standards the manual follows, and the right to refuse.
14. Procurement and contractor management
Working for utilities, pipeline owners, municipalities and contractors, choosing subcontractors, and buying trucks and equipment rated for the work.
15. Working across Canada
Whose law applies, then every province and territory and federal workplaces side by side: the act and regulation, the regulator, each jurisdiction’s one-call centre, excavation and pipeline damage prevention rules, serious incidents to report and how fast, and the other rules that change at the border.
Appendix A. COR cross-reference
Every one of the 74 documentation questions in the 14 national COR elements, what it looks for in plain words, the section that answers it, and whether the auditor will also want your records.
Appendix B. Forms
Print-ready forms that match the manual, each with a form code: among them the ground disturbance hazard assessment, ground disturbance checklist, locate and exposure record, confined space entry permit and traffic control plan.
Written for the work, not just the province
A hydrovac crew’s worst day starts with a missed locate or a facility outside its marks: a gas line, a pipeline, a buried cable. Then there is the wand that can cut skin, the suction that can trap a hand, a load that can ignite, and traffic a metre away. This manual is written around them, practice by practice and procedure by procedure.
You work for clients and near facilities that belong to others. The manual says how your rules, the client’s and the facility owner’s fit together, and the stricter rule always wins.
One program for every province you work in
Your crews follow the occupational health and safety law of the province or territory where the dig is, not where your office is. The manual sets your company’s rules once and gathers what changes at each border into section 15, so a supervisor starting work in a new province looks up what applies there.
It is laid out on the 14 national COR elements, so it suits a COR audit wherever you certify. Each certifying partner uses its own audit tool, so check it against yours; our provincial manuals follow each province’s audit exactly. No template can guarantee a certificate on its own, and we don’t claim to.
Who it is for
Hydrovac and vacuum truck contractors and ground disturbance crews working for utilities, pipeline operators, municipalities, oil and gas producers and general contractors.
A template is a starting point, not legal or engineering advice: a qualified person must adapt it to your work and your clients’ programs before you issue it.
Add the exposure control plans for this work
Buy templates together and save on the whole order: 2 for 10% off, 3 for 15% off, 4+ for 20% off.
All provinces, territories and federal
Noise exposure control and hearing conservation plan template$119.95
Questions
Which province’s law is it written to?
All of them. Your crews follow the law of the province or territory where the dig is, so the manual sets your company’s rules once and section 15 sets out, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, what the law there adds. Federally regulated workplaces are in it too.
Will it get us COR?
It is laid out on the 14 national elements every harmonized COR audit shares, with all 74 documentation questions cross-referenced. Each province’s certifying partner uses its own audit tool, so check the manual against the one you are certifying with. The audit also interviews workers and observes work, so no template can promise a pass.
What format is the manual in?
An editable Microsoft Word (.docx) file on US Letter pages. It works best in desktop Word for Windows or Mac. It also opens in Google Docs and Word on the web, where you use Find and replace to put your company name in.
What happens when the legislation changes?
We update the template, and you get every update free for as long as we publish it: lifetime updates at no extra charge. We email you when a new edition is ready, with what changed and a link to download it.
Can I use it for more than one company?
Each purchase is licensed to one company. Consultants setting up programs for several clients should contact us.
Get one email when it’s ready
We write once, on the day it goes on sale.