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from the desk of
Annette Bowman
The entire purpose for the creation of 811 “Call Before You Dig” centers was to reduce the potential of damage to underground facilities during excavation activities. Unfortunately, damages still occur. During 2023, there were 2,566 damages reported to Alabama 811. This was 2% fewer reported damages than reported in 2022 but almost an increase of 575 since 2019. Of the nearly 600 enforcement complaints filed in 2023, 60% of those resulted in damage.
Common Ground Alliance (CGA) has taken a bold initiative to reduce damages nationwide by 50% in 5 years nationwide. In doing so CGA has identified key areas to focus on:
• Effective and Consistent use of 811 • Key excavation practices
• Accurate and timely utility locating
To bring these initiatives closer to home, the Alabama Underground Damage Prevention Authority statistics for 2023 also illustrate that 52% of the complaints filed were for no notice given to the facility owners prior to excavation. Almost all of these resulted in a damaged facility. Nearly 21% reported violations in excavation practice as outlined in state law. And finally, 8% of the violation complaints submitted were due to late or no locate requests.
Keep in mind these are only for those entities where state law violation complaints were submitted. This is not reflective of practical field statistics.
The quickest move to reduce damages in Alabama is the practice of using 811 to place
a locate request for every job. But to ensure excavators do not get frustrated with the process, facility owners must perform timely locates of their facilities. Small things can make this easier to accomplish such as providing as much notice in the 2-10 working day window as possible to allow the facility owners to adequately schedule their personnel to respond. There is one area of the state that nearly 350 locate requests were placed by one excavator to begin work in 2 working days which did result in facilities not being able to locate everything prior to the proposed start of excavation. If those could have been more scheduled out based on a true picture of when crews were planned to be on-site, the result may have been much more reasonable and successful.
We must all do our part; damage prevention is a shared responsibility.
Annette Bowman Executive Director Alabama 811
2024, Issue 2
Alabama 811
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