Re: Call before you dig

[Jared Mauch <jared () puck Nether net>]

On Sat, Apr 17, 1999 at 04:10:11PM -0500, Sean Donelan wrote:
> woody () zocalo NET (Bill Woodcock) writes:
> > Okay, so basically the deal was that there were a zillion (like 200)
> > different "call before you dig" hotlines for different areas, and you had
> > to track down the correct one, and there weren't a lot of penalties for
> > not having one for an area, et cetera.  Then in 1997, there was a federal
> > house bill to unify it all, it carried over to 1998, and then actually
> > passed around May or June sometime, as part of the Omnibus Federal
> > Transportation act.  The upshot of that is that there's one 888 number for
> > the whole country now, and states lose a portion of their federal highway
> > funds if they don't get the utilities which their PUCs regulate to
> > participate in the program.  
>
> Its still a bit early to tell if the One-Call legislation made any
> difference.  Only two quarters of information has been reported, and
> one quarter was down, and the following quarter was up.  However, there
> are still a lot of cases where the excavator did call, but the utility
> either didn't mark, marked the wrong place, or didn't mark all the lines.

        I've found this to be the case.  I know folks who do a fair amount
of construction work arount the kalamazoo, MI area, and they have problems
with the utilities labeling everything to avoid underground power
lines, etc..

> National Call Before You Dig = 888-258-0808

        - Jared

-- 
Jared Mauch  | pgp key available via finger from jared () puck nether net
clue++;      | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/  My statements are only mine.