ROWSC Announces Finalized Revised Technical Requirements

• 6/1/2025

Minneapolis, MN—The Right-of-Way Stewardship Council (ROWSC) is pleased to announce the finalization of revised ROW Steward Technical Requirements for Accreditation. Goals for this revision included reducing redundancy across principles, criteria, and indicators; aligning the requirements with recent IVM science, trends, regulations and standards; and including emerging issues like updates to environmental and social contracts. 

The previous Accreditation Standards for Assessing IVM Excellence were last updated in 2016.  These standards establish the technical requirements for applicants seeking ROW Steward accreditation of IVM practices on electric transmission and pipeline rights-of-way. Accreditation standards were developed with the direct participation of the electric transmission, natural gas, and liquid petroleum pipeline industries with input provided from subject matter experts, and a diverse group of stakeholders including environmental non-governmental organizations, academia, and the public.  Accreditation standards are used in an independent audit of an applicant’s IVM program, and they are intended to assist with benchmarking, identifying best practices, and to promote continuous improvement of IVM programming. The current process of revision was completed by the ROWSC’s multidisciplinary Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), and included comprehensive review of the standards, a public comment period, and incorporation of feedback from relevant stakeholders. The standards were adopted after unanimous approval from the Council. 

“The four main changes within the revised standards were reduction of redundant verifiers, modification of aging verifiers, consistency in terminology for IVM personnel, methods, and vegetation maintenance treatments, and a greater emphasis on natural resource mapping, planning, conservation, and monitoring,” John Steelman, ROWSC co-chair. “These standards are a high quality benchmark and continuous improvement roadmap that utilities and pipeline operators can use to build and improve IVM programming, and the council is glad to see expanding interest in the benefits of accreditation.”

Existing ROW Stewards will have 12 months to come into compliance with the revised standards and will be audited against the revised standards at their next full field audit.  All new applications for accreditation are expected to pursue accreditation under the revised standard.