811 and napkin sketches for as-built plans took a year or two off my life last year; we had a parking lot addition and coffee hut pad to build, install utility run. Had the locate done, and shortly after we started broke a fiber line. Several businesses affected, we were about 12'-15' from the paint line and flags and the fiber was within 6" of the surface . Fiber guy showed up and just shook his head, we were obviously off the hook but his phone was busy with p.o.ed customers. He got his patch crew in (they fixed and then buried it at 6" again..I was dumbfounded), I told him I wanted one of their in-house locate guys out here before I moved another teaspoon of material. Surprisingly, he agreed and someone showed up about two hours later, did a thorough job. But the two locates did not agree except vaguely for two locations on in the area, which was a mixed-breed small biz development done over the past 30 years or so. Fiber and electric was the only two, water was at 8', building heat was external propane tanks near the walls so obvious where the lines were, and we weren't digging there, anyway. My trench line ran right thru where there was a close proximity to the two locates, I borrowed my buddy's employee and told him I'd pay him a little cash on top of his wages if he'd sharpen his eyes and help me scratch in a big pothole to find the line. River run cobble and sand, and that afternoon was the only one it rained almost all summer. We found the first located line 18" below grade and about 2' off the paint line. Exposed it for travel direction, but I couldn't shake the idea that something wasn't right in spite of the two locates running roughly in the same direction. Told my helper that if he was game, we'd put in some backwork and get down aways to see what there was to see. After two hours of roughing the material with the bucket teeth a couple inches and then digging with small hand picks, I saw a piece of caution tape appear, and it wound up being a foot above a conduited fiber line..a big one. I went home that evening after my knees started working again..if I'd have started my trench after finding the smaller line, I'd probably have bit right through the big one. Assessing responsibility would have been difficult as both locates were essentially correct, but no clue there was a big one almost 3' below the first, which wound up being a residential feeder. The big one was a mystery line heading away from the development.
And that wasn't the end of the drama on that job, as the owner of an adjacent building came roaring up while we were digging the utility entrance in and said he had a septic system right there. And I'm like, "In the middle of a historic-use parking lot?!!" He had a hand-drawn map which showed a lateral field right there. The county's plan did not appear to show what his map did. After some fiddling, we found the d-box and a mix of jointed lines. Long story short, I bit through a lateral partway down the trench, found the other two by poking around a 7' spacing, his scratch paper was essentially correct but the county's was not. We just flex-tied new line in and rebuilt the gravel field easily enough. Two of the laterals were completely dry, they'd never had enough effluent to even color the surrounding soils. I can't imagine parking lot traffic hadn't driven the frost deep enough to render the field essentially useless at least part of the year, or maybe had cracked the lines and any effluent running beyond the d-box just went thru the crack(s) and headed for China.