Please take a moment to participate in this important 811 Safety and Utility Damage Prevention Process Survey. Survey DEADLINE September 10. This survey is intended to document the experience in the 811 process of contractors that work on water/wastewater, highway heavy, building, telecom, and energy infrastructure projects. “As local, state and federal entities address issues, laws, and regulations associated with the 811 process, this survey will be an invaluable tool in helping to accurately convey the construction industry’s story in the process,” states Randy Douglas, AGC’s Utility Infrastructure Division Chair and President of Tierra Contracting, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA, “I encourage everyone to take it and share with your project managers, foreman, superintendents and fellow contractors.”
The 811 Process is a shared responsibility shouldered by all stakeholders in the 811 process. For the process to work it requires stakeholders, including facility owner/operators, 811 centers, locators, and excavators to execute their responsibilities competently and efficiently.
There are several recognized surveys and data repositories that claim it is excavators who are responsible for most damages to existing facilities during excavation activities. Most of the data sources do not specifically address heavy professional excavators, such as AGC members, but instead include other excavators in their data collection such as landscapers, homeowners, and others. These resources are being widely used as a basis to update laws and regulations associated with the 811 process, often placing undue burdens on professional contractors. The results of the survey will tell the professional contractor’s story.
The root cause of a damage or near miss can be the result of any of the stakeholders failing to perform the responsibilities properly in the process. Owner/Operators (O/O’s) should be members of their local 811 center, have up-to-date maps of facility locations and competent technicians locating and marking their facilities accurately and on time. One-call centers are the communication hub for the process and must reliably take locate requests in detail and pass them on to O/O’s to act on. And finally, the contractor must have a program in place to communicate with other stakeholders and implement safe digging practices to protect existing facilities on the job site.
For more information, please contact Allen Gray, UID Director, Allen.Gray@AGC.org, 703-837-5321.