Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Cost Recovery topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Stakeholders warn cost and cybersecurity could make required hosting costly for regional notification centers
Summary
Participants told the board that building and operating systems to host planning/design information would require significant IT, security, and staffing investments; speakers recommended regulators define retention and NDA rules before assigning fees or cost recovery.
Stakeholders at the Underground Safety Board workshop said adding storage, security and verification tools for planning-and-design records would be costly for regional notification centers and utility operators.
"It's going to cost the centers a lot of money to set this up," said Ann (participant), arguing that centers cannot estimate costs until regulators define whether centers must store information, for how long, and what security measures are required. "If I'm not mistaken, what it says is that we're supposed to facilitate the exchange of information. To me, facilitating the exchange could be as simple as sending the information to the owners of the underground lines," Ann said.
James Windgate (USA North 811) said he did not know any state that stores all planning/design information centrally and estimated that a centralized hosting model would likely cost "a few million dollars," not including enhanced cybersecurity and testing requirements. Several utilities, including Southern California Edison and AT&T representatives, said some operators currently charge per request (SoCal Edison reported a baseline around $20 that can increase with complexity) and warned that cost pass-through would require clear statutory authorization to avoid legal challenges.
Participants urged regulators to consider decentralized architectures (targeted API queries) and to define exemptions or reduced rates for small operators and public agencies when framing fee structures.
The workshop closed without votes; staff said it will consider the comments when drafting regulations required under Government Code 4216.1.
