BEFORE YOU DIG
White lining makes a difference.
b y
W
hen submitting excavation notifications,
white lining makes a difference. Consider
a scenario where the excavator has submitted a
ticket with the following information: “5211
Library Road, (Anytown, USA) nearest cross
street Lytle Road, second cross street Baptist Road.
Excavating on the left side of the private property,
near Starbucks. Replacing asphalt in the parking
lot. The site is not marked in white. Digging on
the north end of the strip mall, extending approximately 10 feet west and 20 feet north from the corner of the sidewalk closest to Starbucks.”
As the electric company locator, your responsibility is to accurately mark the site. You receive
the ticket and find the site. When you arrive,
this is what you see (figures 1 & 2):
(Figure 1)
Da n
L u c a r e ll i
The question in your mind:
Where do you mark? Where is
the proposed excavation site?
‘Act 287, as amended (The “One
Attempts to contact the excavator
via the phone number provided
Call” law) states: “An excavator
on the ticket result in voice mail.
shall use the color white to
You can see Starbuck’s, but where
should you mark? The left side of
mark a proposed excavation
the building appears to be an acsite when exact site information
cess road. There is a parking lot
in front of Starbuck’s, but not to
cannot be provided.‘
the right. You see light poles, a
telephone pole, a transformer, and
underground electric service to
the strip mall. It looks like a couple of hours
As the electric company locator, your responsiof work, and the result is a whole bunch of red
bility is to accurately mark the site. You receive
lines in the parking lot: for the light poles, the
the ticket and find the site. When you arrive,
you drive around the parking lot, looking for
telephone pole, and the electric service for
the strip mall.
white marks, and find this (figure 3):
Now consider a notification when the
excavator placed white lines around the
proposed excavation area before dialing
811. Consider the scenario again, where
the excavator has submitted a ticket with
the following information: “5211 Library
Road, (Anytown, USA), nearest cross
street Lytle Road, second cross street
Baptist Road. Excavating on the left side
of the private property, near Starbucks.
Replacing asphalt in the parking lot. The
site is marked in white.”
(Figure 2)
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2014
It looks like the site is well-marked in white. This
one is simple, you think. I don’t even need to
call the excavator! I’ll be here for 20 minutes,
tops. Although the excavator described the area
as “parking lot”, it is clear from the white lines
that excavation will occur within the access road
around the strip mall. The excavator has spent
five or ten minutes at the site, indicating where
excavation will occur with white paint, flags, or
stakes. Your job as the electric company locator
is now easier. The excavator will be safer and you
can focus efforts on locating electric facilities in
and near a well-defined proposed excavation site.
(Figure 3)
(Figure 4)
White lining makes
a difference.
proposed excavation area as depicted.
41 states require pre-marking before submitting a One Call notification (figure 4). In
Pennsylvania, Act 287, as amended (The “One
Call” law) states: “An excavator shall use the
color white to mark a proposed excavation site
when exact site information cannot be provided.” Even though an exact address has been
provided (5211 Library Road) with cross streets
(Lytle Road and Baptist Road), the address
given was not exact enough to precisely determine where excavation will take place. As a result, the locator will probably spend too much
time and mark an area too large.
White lining around a proposed excavation
area tells the locator where to spend time finding underground utilities once they arrive on
-site. Because the locator has a clear indication
of the excavation area, less time is spent on areas where excavation will not occur. This gives
the locator the time to accurately locate underground facilities that need protection during
excavation – making your work site safer.
When white lines are not indicated, additional information
is needed to provide exact site
information about the location of proposed excavation.
In PA, the first example needs
additional information in the
Location field: “In the asphalt
access road on the north end of
the strip mall, extending approximately 10 feet west and
20 feet north from the corner of the sidewalk closest to
Starbucks.” This additional information is easily and quickly
conveyed by white lining the
White lining makes your
excavation site safer.
White lining is recommended for
all excavation sites.
(Figure 5)
Exact site information does not mean a specific address. Exact site information means
including specific descriptions within the site
address such as front, back, right or left side
of a structure, directions (North, East) from a
known describable and non-moveable point of
reference, and accurate distances from known
points. These descriptions can be minimized
and potentially eliminated with white lining
of the proposed excavation site.
Before you call in that next ticket, spend a few
minutes outlining in white where you plan to
dig. This small planning step will result in less
time creating a more accurate ticket and will
give locators the on-site information they need
to accurately mark where you intend to dig.
Help the locators do their job with better communication about your excavation site (figure 5).
Mark in white before dialing 811 to help keep
your work site, the underground facilities, and
your excavation crew safe. ESG
Dan Lucarelli is the Director, Marketing
& Education for Pennsylvania One
Call System, Inc. He is a member of the
Common Ground Alliance, the American
Marketing Association, and the Pittsburgh
Technology Council. Dan can be reached
at [email protected].
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