
CHANGE NORTH CAROLINA UTILITY LOCATING LAWS!


Utility locating laws in North Carolina need to be changed
and enforced! Millions of hours, and dollars are wasted every year due to excavators
abusing the utility locating system. As a utility locator myself, I see and
deal with the problems every day that need to be fixed. Currently, the few laws
that are written regarding utility locating in North Carolina are not even
enforced. Also every law written seems to cater to the excavators doing the
work. As utility locators, we are
responsible for protecting the utilities; therefore we should have more power
and control in order to protect these utilities from excavators. The largest
problems that we experience are excavators or contractors calling in and doing
whatever they want. They ALWAYS call in tickets asking for way more to be
located than is needed. Given this, we are responsible for locating the entire
scope of what the ticket asks for, otherwise we are held responsible for
damages if they decide to change their excavation path and differ from what
they tell us. This needs to be stopped. Excavators need to be forced to white
line or flag the work being done, or at least call in the exact details of the
excavation. if this is not done, locators should be given authority to reject the ticket and cancel it out, and the excavators are not allowed to dig until they mark the scope of the job and we then locate the utilities. A good example of this is a 811 ticket stating to locate entire property for
a fence. In 90% of fence tickets, the fence is going in the back yard. Also all
utilities are running from the front of the property in most cases. Therefore
if we mark the front of the property and the fence is going in the back yard,
we are wasting a lot of time and money. The utility companies that pay us to
mark their utilities are paying us for nothing when this happens. I am sure
they do not like wasting their money. This needs to be stopped. Another major
problem is excavators will call locate tickets, and we go spend the time and
effort to mark the scope of the ticket, but they never come do the work. They
literally call in the same ticket maybe 3 or more times, and waste our time and
utility company’s money to go mark it again and again for nothing. This needs
to be stopped. Excavators should be limited to how many times they can call in
a locate ticket for one job before they do the work. Update tickets for ongoing
work on ground that is already broken, and in process of being developed is different.
Locate tickets are supposed to be called in by the person doing the work, this
is also abused and tickets are always being called in by individuals not doing
the work. 811 does not explain this, and allows people to call in and say
whatever they want for the most part on the locate tickets. The 811 call center
needs more power, and should be able to prevent people from calling in the very
thing that is causing these problems. Fines need to be set in place and
enforced for abusing the locate laws, we as the utility locators should be
allowed to write these fines to the excavators just like a Osha official can to
enforce their safety laws. If we are not allowed to do this then someone needs
to be set in place that can. Utility locating is a serious business, and can
mean the difference between life and death. Some of these utilities are very
dangerous when hit. Excavators should not be allowed to dig until the utilities
are marked. This needs to be changed and enforced. These problems I have
presented keep most of us utility locators working 6 to 7 days a week 60 hours
or more a week. This is ridiculous, and can easily be fixed if these things are
changed, and our time stops getting wasted. Utility damages, and risks will go
down dramatically, if these changes happen. Also the utility company’s costs to
protect their utilities will go down as well. As a fellow utility locator, you
know exactly what I am talking about, and with your help we can possibly make a
change. All we ask is for the North Carolina Utility Commission to recognize
this petition and change the laws. Also we ask for the utility companies that
are paying for this to stand up and get the laws changed as well, and please
give utility locators more power to keep excavators in check. Please sign this
petition to help make our voice be heard.
Comment