Welcome to The Water Connection, an online newsletter for the Crystal Springs Water District.
Call Before You Dig
- It's the LawLocate Service - 811
To avoid liability for damages to underground utilities, call 811 before you begin to dig. The locate service will notify the utilities in your area and each utility will mark the undergound cables and/or pipelines in your intended work site. This is a free service to protect the underground utilities from damage and the call will absolve you of any liability for damage to unmarked lines.
Be prepared to furnish the following
information:
Address of work area / nearest intersecting road
Type of work - new fence, mailbox, septic, etc
Description of work area - length/width, distance/direction from house, barn, etc
Contact person / phone
The locate service operates from the Portland Metro area and may not be familiar with local landmarks. It is helpful to provide range, township and section of the work area, if the information is available. Otherwise, the operator will find the street/road on the map and list the utilities to be notified.
Generally, the locate service requires 48 hours prior notice for utilities to respond, but will also accept emergency, priority and short-notice calls.
Call Before You Dig
- It's the LawThat message is being promoted by the Oregon Utility Notification Center (OUNC), a newly created state agency that provides a one-call service to contractors, excavators -- even homeowners -- to let them know what they may encounter underground. The goal is to prevent damage, service disruption, and potential disaster from uncharted digging into buried utility lines.
Callers to the Center identify project locations 48 hours prior to beginning work, giving exact street or other coordinate information. The Center then notifies all affected subscribers to mark the location of their respective underground lines with colored paint
(water - blue, electricity - red, sewer/septic - green, phone - orange, white - project site). Failure of the owner to mark line locations relieves the excavator of liability for damages. Failure of the excavator to call and allow notification of the member of pending work may result in fines and liability for any damages.The 1995 Oregon Legislature created a single, state-wide one-call center, called the Oregon Utility Notification Center (OUNC). The new law, SB 559, also requires that all owners (including orchardists and other land owners) of underground facilities (phone, tv cable, electric, gas, sewer or water lines) located in a public right-of-way or recorded easement must join the OUNC on, or before, the law goes into effect on July 1, 1997.
Center operation fees are paid by subscribing owners and operators of underground lines who want to protect their lines. Fees are based on the number of times a member is notified to mark utility lines. Currently the charge is $1.00 per call ($.90 per fax) after the first 50 per year. Call (503) 246-1987 for more information.
The Oregon Utility Notification Center is the outgrowth of years of work by regional utility coordinating councils and now covers most of Oregon and five southern Washington counties. Implementation of the law and administration of the center is provided by an 18-member board, appointed by the Governor and representing public and private utilities, cities, counties, contractors, railroads, special districts and other facility operators.
Each call to the center generates an average of five outgoing calls to request line locations. The number of incoming calls ranges from 15,000 to 20,000 per month, and is increasing. Failure to call can prove messy at the very least, can disrupt essential services, or can be downright hazardous.
• The telecommunications industry estimates that in the US every day approximately 60,000 telephone customers experience a two to three hour break in service, caused primarily by cable dig-ins.
• In the gas industry, dig-ins - commercial and residential - are the number one cause of damage to facilities.
• The statewide Oregon Utilities Coordinating Council reports that in 1995 there were 4,680 reported damages out of 581,000 total locate requests. With the full implementation of the law, the number of mishaps is expected to decline.
Do-it-yourselfers planting trees or setting fence posts have damaged electric, telephone, gas and other utility lines causing electrocution and other severe injuries. Everyone, including homeowners, must call OUNC when planning to dig.
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