Digging Deep

How they do things south of the border

A national “one call” program is available across the US. From any state, dialling 811 will connect you to the one call office for your area. The people who answer the phone then coordinate the process of sending one or more crews out to locate and mark utility lines. By law, all utilities must participate in the program. More information about the 811 program and the agency behind it, the Common Ground Alliance, is available on the “Call 811” website.

That’s the education and convenience side of things. The other is enforcement. In this, too, the American approach is more vigorous. In the state of Virginia, every person who hits a gas line has to appear in court. Since the launch of that program, gas-line strikes have fallen by a full 60 percent. For more information, see the Miss Utility of Virginia website.

In Canada, five provinces have one call systems of their own. The key difference between these systems and the US one is that here, utilities are not required to participate. So even if you do dial the one call number, you may still wind up with utility lines unmarked.

Posted on January 16, 2008
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