What is a Locate? (I'll Share)

     My job is to deal with locates. I deal with them every day, 100+ times a day. If there is ONE word, I say more than anything else all day, it's "locate". I'm asking "Did you call for a locate?" or "Were the locates marked or not?" I may say "I checked, and the locates were marked, and they were marked accurately." I am also prone to saying, "What? You did what? You dug a hole without a locate? What are you, nuts?"  NO MARKY  - NO DIGGY!!  ( I say that all the time too.)

    A locate is what a locator is placing on the ground (paint) and in the ground (flag on a metal stick) to mark that right below the locate or marks, is a wire of either the fiber flavor or the copper flavor -- or both. Some wires are aerial (or above ground) you see them attached to telephone poles, but a lot of what I do is underground or buried cable work - - I don't actually do the locate, no, but I am calling folks to see if they did them if they did the when they were supposed to, how they were supposed to, when they were supposed to, because they were supposed to.  You would be surprised how many people across this big country of ours do NOT do this tiny simple job correctly.

    How important is a locate? I'll tell you (you knew I would). If you dig a hole and hit a line when there is no locate you are 100% automatically held 100% responsible for having committed an actual tort, a negligible offense; and you are also responsible for paying for all recoverable damages for having done so. It may be tiny - - you know,  a few hundred dollars. It could be in the millions because you hit a gas line and blew yourself up, and the neighborhood! Yes, it happens. Google that.

    Even if you are just putting in a fence, or post, or doing a bit of deep-rutted gardening, you have to call 811 to get permission to do so because you never know where those communication, energy, gas, water, and sewer lines are. We've all seen colored stripes on the ground around our neighborhoods and the flags too - - do NOT pick those flags! That too is a tort. Do NOT do that, you'll literally put lives at risk if you do. Cameras are EVERYWHERE and you will be caught eventually - - by someone like me who investigates these things. 

    So, you're going to put in a fence, you call 811, they come out and say there are water lines, gas lines, telephone and internet lines, and there are both cable and fiber, above and below the ground. They point out the pedestals, the crossboxes, and anything like a pole or guidelines with anchors that should be an enormous clue that there are wires either above your head or below your feet.  When 811 calls USIC or another locating service, they come out and mark the place. AFTER the mark it, you can dig. If you dig before it is marked, it is a no-no, don't be that guy/gal who I call in a year when the utility company gets around to giving me that claim.

    The locates are tagged with the names of the utility company too: AT&T, Verizon, Windstream, Frontier, Cox, OG&E, ONG, you get the picture. On a busy corner there could be dozens of lines and symbols that the excavators have to understand before digging. Depth of a line is NOT a reason to blame the utility company for YOU having destroyed said line. Remember that; depth is NEVER the root cause, the person digging is the cause. Before the dig, that line was fine - - minding its own business and in working order.  When it is disrupted people lose power, and they complain. That's when and how most damagers are caught.

    Remember those cameras? They're on phones too. People like me and anyone else who sees a person digging without colored flags or marks can send those photos to 811 and guess what - - yeah, about 14% of the photos I get to prove a damager was there come from passersby who caught them digging and/or "inspecting" a pole without a dig mark -- NO MARKY, NO DIGGY!!  I really should make T-shirts that say that.

    Anyway, that's what a locate is, and the next time you see a house flatted because someone cut a gas line, or you lose your internet for no reason, you may find out it's because someone got antsy and dug before calling 811 -- it's a FREE SERVICE PEOPLE....but contractors, subcontractors, bosses, employers who think they're above the law, or that because they own their own equipment that they don't have to follow the rules - - they'll do it. ESPECIALLY IN THE COUNTRY where they think it's OK...who lays lines down in the country? EVERYONE!! EVERY SINGLE FACILITY and UTILITY company does.

    That's my rant - - I'm over it. Do me a favor, go out and look for locates in your neighborhood and if you see someone digging or working without locates visible to your eyes - - because they can't work on expired tickets from 811 - - only valid tickets which are usually only good for 2-4 weeks, take their picture and send it to the good people at 811. (Watch them call me now and ask me to stop telling people to do that.)

Photo Credit. ME.