Is it safe to dig here?
Public and Private Locate Technicians sometimes state a limitation on their report with respect to unknown or known buried facilities that limited their ability to trace a buried facility for whatever reason. If a limitation or special instruction is noted on the private locate report, it needs to be acted upon before excavating.
Any limitation that a Locator faces while investigating, locating, and marking, increases the risk of them missing a buried facility and increases the risk for the excavator of striking a buried facility if the limitation is not mitigated. These limitations can be grouped into two types:
Unavoidable Limitations
non-tonable facilities
non-locatable facilities due to depth or angled facilities
fixes or repairs with non-conductive materials
non-functioning tracer wires
no tracer wires on non-tonable facilities
no utility-owned records
Avoidable Limitations
no utility records or records that exist and are available
no access to buildings and mechanical rooms
no direct access to connection points for facilities
no access to someone knowledgeable of the property’s utility infrastructure and mechanical systems
When any of these limitations are identified, notify your Supervisor, Project Manager, Client and/or Private Utility Owner and don’t proceed with mechanical excavation activities until clear direction is given from the private utility owner.
Typical private utility owner directions to manage any of these limitations when excavating can include:
avoiding the work area altogether;
hand digging; or
soft digging using air or water vacuum techniques
Knowing how to manage these locate limitations and knowing the options needed to mitigate these limitations, is critical to avoid striking a buried public or private facility.