We had a bit of a close call today.
We are working for an environmental consultant, performing fish habitat enhancement work on two spring creeks in Wyoming which are both on the same property, and the funding is derived from grants obtained by a conservation group which has a perpetual conservation easement on this parcel of land.
The environmental consultant (our client) obtained utility locates for all of the area in which we would be working.
There is an outfit that contracts to several utilities to provide locates (phone and cable at least), while the power company and natural gas company perform their own locates. We hit utilities today where there were no markings whatsoever, one of which was obviously phone (about 500 pair). There were two other lines, but neither was broken. One was a conduit, and the other was orange, which I imagined was probably fibre optic (oh crap, right?) The orange line was kinked just a bit, and the conduit un-scathed.
My guys called me, and the environmental consultant called the various utilities to report what happened, as well as the fellow that did the locating for the phone/cable companies. The power company rep showed up first and declared that none of the lines were his (power). A bit later the locate company fellow showed up. He stated that the orange line was NOT fibre optic, and the conduit was empty, probably for future use although it would have been a very long section to blow a pig through to pull wire (maybe there is a pull wire inside). The other line may be cable?
I wasn't there, and we are still not sure what we are dealing with other that we know that we broke the phone line. When the power company tech was there he stated that we would be liable despite the fact that there were no markings; because the locate was more than 15 days old, and because we (the excavating company) hadn't been the one to request the locate.
When the locate fellow showed up he said that we would be in the clear as the utilities that we hit are not on his plans.
So...I think that we are in the clear. The phone company isn't going to do the repair until tomorrow, so I don't know what there response is going to be.
Lessons learned:
1 - Always request locates ourselves, so that the ticket is in our name.
2 - Always request locates AGAIN if we are going to be on the project for more than 15 days.
We typically work in fairly remote areas where the utility companies can tell you via email swapping of google earth pictures whether or not they need to locate anything, and often any existing utilities have been identified in the plan set in which case we would call for locates. I suspect many or most of you deal with this on a daily basis, and are intimately familiar with the local rules and laws regarding utilities. I know that we are going to change our procedure from here on out.
We are working for an environmental consultant, performing fish habitat enhancement work on two spring creeks in Wyoming which are both on the same property, and the funding is derived from grants obtained by a conservation group which has a perpetual conservation easement on this parcel of land.
The environmental consultant (our client) obtained utility locates for all of the area in which we would be working.
There is an outfit that contracts to several utilities to provide locates (phone and cable at least), while the power company and natural gas company perform their own locates. We hit utilities today where there were no markings whatsoever, one of which was obviously phone (about 500 pair). There were two other lines, but neither was broken. One was a conduit, and the other was orange, which I imagined was probably fibre optic (oh crap, right?) The orange line was kinked just a bit, and the conduit un-scathed.
My guys called me, and the environmental consultant called the various utilities to report what happened, as well as the fellow that did the locating for the phone/cable companies. The power company rep showed up first and declared that none of the lines were his (power). A bit later the locate company fellow showed up. He stated that the orange line was NOT fibre optic, and the conduit was empty, probably for future use although it would have been a very long section to blow a pig through to pull wire (maybe there is a pull wire inside). The other line may be cable?
I wasn't there, and we are still not sure what we are dealing with other that we know that we broke the phone line. When the power company tech was there he stated that we would be liable despite the fact that there were no markings; because the locate was more than 15 days old, and because we (the excavating company) hadn't been the one to request the locate.
When the locate fellow showed up he said that we would be in the clear as the utilities that we hit are not on his plans.
So...I think that we are in the clear. The phone company isn't going to do the repair until tomorrow, so I don't know what there response is going to be.
Lessons learned:
1 - Always request locates ourselves, so that the ticket is in our name.
2 - Always request locates AGAIN if we are going to be on the project for more than 15 days.
We typically work in fairly remote areas where the utility companies can tell you via email swapping of google earth pictures whether or not they need to locate anything, and often any existing utilities have been identified in the plan set in which case we would call for locates. I suspect many or most of you deal with this on a daily basis, and are intimately familiar with the local rules and laws regarding utilities. I know that we are going to change our procedure from here on out.
