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Digging Deep

Some numbers

  • There are approximately 3500-4000 gas pipeline hits in Ontario annually.
  • BC recorded more than 1,700 hits to gas lines lines last year (2007), costing over $1 million in repairs. Over 74 percent of these were caused by people who did not call before digging.
  • BC One call received 80,000 requests for information in 2006. The corresponding Alberta service received 423,000 calls, and Ontario one call took 570,000.
  • Of 650 facility owners (that is, utilities and organizations that operate buried utility lines) in Ontario, only 118 belong to the province’s one call system.
  • The no call rate for Ontario is 45-50 percent.
  • Each year, failure to call for locates in Ontario leads to over $33 million dollars in damages. This includes the costs of police, firefighters, paramedics and related services, as well as utility and loss-of-business costs.

Posted on January 16, 2008
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Comments - Share your thoughts

I'm a former municipal Land Surveyor involved, at one time, in "call before you dig" locates. My division undertook, with the cooperation of all the utilities in the municipality, a survey of all the utilities in the streets in the downtown area with each utility supplying locates for its plant. Once the surveys were completed, the utilities provided updated information as to new installations and changes. Despite sharing in the cost of the surveys, the utilities would not rely on the result. This shows, I think, how much they trust the accuracy of their on-the-ground locates. Speaking as a property owner, I would probably not call for locates if I were building a fence close to my front property line unless I had a gas connection and was not sure where it entered the property or if the gas company had an easement on my land. However, your programme might now make me change my attitude and I might even go so far as to have a land surveyor locate the marks made by the gas company with respect to my property line! Posted by: Charles Chapman | Jan 17, 08 04:26 PM
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