APGA held its annual Operations Conference this past week in Louisville, KY. The conference was very well attended with many attendees and exhibitors from the public natural gas industry.
The conference began on Tuesday afternoon with opening remarks from Steve Squibb from City Utilities of Springfield, MO. Steve is also the APGA Operations & Safety Committee Chair. Dave Schryver, APGA President and CEO, then gave an update on the association and recent initiatives. Tristan Brown, Deputy Administrator from the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) followed with a presentation addressing the mandates within the Congressional PIPES Act of 2020 and the PHMSA Natural Gas Distribution Safety & Modernization Grant Program. The afternoon continued with Gary Swan, Chief Marketing Officer from National Energy Foundation (NEF), who presented on a national energy literacy study. The day concluded with a panel on regulatory requirements that included Stephen Mayfield from City of Tallahassee, Todd Gentle from Huntsville Utilities, Stephen Harris from Powell Clinch Utility District, and Cody Stallings from Wilson Energy. Attendees were then able to enjoy networking receptions.
Wednesday morning kicked off the three-track program with the following tracks: Operations & Engineering, Safety & Compliance, and Environmental. Operations & Engineering tracks were on such topics as emergency response plans, construction inspection, asset management, improving gas mapping, asset lifecycle management and more. Safety & Compliance tracks included sessions like pipeline safety management systems, pipeline safety reauthorization, PHMSA outreach, and plastic pipe database. The Environmental track featured topics like green hydrogen, renewable natural gas, implementing cross compression, etc.
Thursday was a half-day of content with a morning full of information. First off were the presentations of the following awards: Environmental Stewardship for the City of Ellensburg, and the Safety Management Excellence Award for York County Natural Gas Authority. Erin Kurilla from APGA then gave a presentation on the PHMSA grant program followed by a presentation on both the Leak Detection & Repair Rule and the Safety of Gas Distribution Pipelines Rule. Lastly, Todd Gentle from Huntsville Utilities, who is also the APGA Operations & Safety Committee Vice Chair, moderated a roundtable on a wrap-up of the conference.
APGA would like to thank the many exhibitors and attendees for this year’s conference! The 2024 APGA Operations Conference will be held in Knoxville, TN next October 22-24. Learn more about the conference here.