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The Western Colorado Area Office in UC region is finishing up an appraisal study on a project involves a couple of long pipelines to serve principally the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. My office in LC region is finishing an appraisal report on a similar type of project for the Navajo's in Arizona. We also did technical work on a pipeline across the Navajo nation to supply water to a mine. The only real common point in all three efforts were the Navajo folks. And they see some inconsistences in the design and cost assumptions among the appraisal reports. For the purposes of plan formulation the differences may not be important, but they don't find that to be a very satisfying answer. They assumed, since all three were designed principally by the TSC, that some kind of cross-talk was going on. But, of course, that is not any more true than if we had all happened to hire the same big engineering firm to do our design. The designers might talk by accident, but not on purpose. The Navajo question is - should it happen on purpose? If so, that is an overview...maybe even a peer review.... kind of function that is not currently required or paid for by us customers of the TSC. So the question is - is that kind of function something that the organization is willing to require and fund? Maybe it's not worth doing for appraisal designs, I don't know. But what if both offices proceed to feasibility design? Will there be any review for consistency between the designs? Right now I assume not, if we don't ask for it. We just did a DEC review on Western Colorado's project. It was internal and the Navajos had some thought that their concern might get covered in the DEC review. But I was on the team, and it did not. Should that kind of look at other similar projects be part of a DEC review? I don't know, but Bruce, that's why you are cc'd on this message. Meanwhile, I think we should be considering this kind of "peer review" workload for the TSC, and I think (I can't believe I'm saying this) that we should have policy that would require that kind of review.	09/11/2006

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The Western Colorado Area Office in UC region is finishing up an appraisal study on a project involves a couple of long pipelines to serve principally the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. My office in LC region is finishing an appraisal report on a similar type of project for the Navajo's in Arizona.
We also did technical work on a pipeline across the Navajo nation to supply water to a mine.

The only real common point in all three efforts were the Navajo folks. And they see some inconsistences in the design and cost assumptions among the appraisal reports. For the purposes of plan formulation the differences may not be important, but they don't find that to be a very satisfying answer.

They assumed, since all three were designed principally by the TSC, that some kind of cross-talk was going on. But, of course, that is not any more true than if we had all happened to hire the same big engineering firm to do our design. The designers might talk by accident, but not on purpose.

The Navajo question is - should it happen on purpose? If so, that is an overview...maybe even a peer review.... kind of function that is not currently required or paid for by us customers of the TSC.

So the question is - is that kind of function something that the organization is willing to require and fund? Maybe it's not worth doing for appraisal designs, I don't know. But what if both offices proceed to feasibility design? Will there be any review for consistency between the designs? Right now I assume not, if we don't ask for it.

We just did a DEC review on Western Colorado's project. It was internal and the Navajos had some thought that their concern might get covered in the DEC review. But I was on the team, and it did not. Should that kind of look at other similar projects be part of a DEC review? I don't know, but Bruce, that's why you are cc'd on this message.

Meanwhile, I think we should be considering this kind of "peer review" workload for the TSC, and I think (I can't believe I'm saying this) that we should have policy that would require that kind of review.

09/11/2006