Underground Utilities for Construction Practitioners and Homeowners

In 1970, the American Public Works Association (APWA) produced a study that highlighted the need to coordinate construction-related activities according to rights of way. This study paved the way for the formation of APWA’s Utility Location and Coordination Council. In the 1950s and 1960s, an earnest effort began to place utilities underground as a way to protect them from climatic damage. This chapter presents key terminologies with which excavators and homeowners should be familiar while addressing damage prevention acts in their states. An evaluation is also included on the benefits of measuring and tracking damage trends to help stakeholders determine appropriate educational focus and identify opportunities for reducing the risk of damage.

This chapter provides specific details about the one-call process, including how laws govern it, how enforcement and disputes are managed, and the various types of outreach that are performed by one-call centers. The state of North Carolina’s Prevention Act is examined with respect to its emphasis on shared responsibility and the resulting absence of liability on the part of construction establishments to nonresponding or improperly responding operators for damages to operators’ facilities. Focus is also given to the indispensability of fair and balanced enforcement to an effective damage prevention program, as well as the US safety regulation requiring pipeline operators to educate property owners, excavators, and first responders in the communities in which their facilities are located.

This chapter discusses basic duties, as well as desirable and undesirable actions, of designers, professional excavators, and nonprofessionals (homeowners) during planning and design phases. The processes by which contractors, including general contractors and subcontractors, make the majority of the construction phase requests to one-call centers are explored, along with the high proportion of damages to underground utilities resulting from construction activities. Examples are given to illustrate the importance of requesting the most specific information available about the location of the work to be done, as well as the actual type of work and its projected duration. The four nationally recognized steps in the safe excavation process are described: calling before digging, waiting the required time, respecting the marks, and digging with care.

This chapter focuses on the role of utilities in the safe digging process. To participate in the one-call system, a utility must have membership in the one-call center(s) where the service territory is located. In an effort to illustrate a typical utility membership, a fictitious company is presented—XYZ Fiber—which provides a footprint of the area where building is planned, the desired method of ticket receipt, and database and damage contact information. Shared responsibility calls for teamwork among stakeholders that creates a smoother work process. SEGRA case study and National Grid case study are provided to show how shared responsibility contributes to lower damages.

This chapter examines the role of the US federal government in the establishment and monitoring of effective enforcement in the United States based on fair and effective damage investigation. The most commonly used charge of liability in utility damage cases is negligence. Negligence claims are made in the context of the duty of excavators to use reasonable care in digging near underground facilities, breach of that duty by excavators, and damages affecting utility owners that result from breach of duty. This chapter also describes state-constructed enforcement programs and discusses evaluations of these programs by PHMSA (USDOT’s Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration). The mechanics of different programs’ functions are explored in terms of investigation and subsequent determination of fault and assignment of cost recovery.