The Natural Gas Pipeline Safety and Enhancement Project faces the difficult job of balancing the urgency of getting the infrastructure upgraded as quickly as possible with the environmental planning, permits and procedures necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of communities. The need for quick action, dramatically demonstrated by the San Bruno rupture in 2010, has intensified with increased demand for natural gas as a clean energy source, and the influx of greater supplies coming from new sources. But at the same time, the project must be performed properly with adequate planning, safeguards and required environmental permits to avoid jeopardizing communities, and endangering the environment.
Managing these issues and complexities takes high-risk decision analysis, which can be accomplished without bringing the project to a halt with a team-based, collaborative approach, called the “project-based learning model,” which ZMassociates developed and used effectively for energy industry clients since 2004.
An example of this approach can be seen at: http://www.facebook.com/BecomeSustainableByZMassociatesInc
