ALBERTA – Spring has arrived and that means the “Digging Season” will soon be here. The province of Alberta is booming with construction and people are planning to build decks or fences and other projects. Contractors are also planning and bidding on projects for the upcoming construction season as it’s a small window to work in to get all of the jobs done. On Friday March 22nd, Alberta One Call launched its new logo and a new slogan. The old “Call Before You Dig” has been replaced by “Click Before You Dig”, referring to going to their website to make a utility location request. Alberta One Call President, Mike Sullivan said “It’s not really new, we have been taking web requests for 15 years but we have seen the increased trend in web requests over the years”. He added “It’s a 24/7 service, there are no dropped calls, you are never on hold and there are fewer errors since the user is the one inputting the data”.” You can even include attachments of your dig site or other pertinent information”. “It is time for a rebranding” he says “as the old logo and such are almost 30 years old and in addition we just shutoff the Fax machine last week so you can no longer send in a Fax request”.
Alberta has a vast buried utility network that is critical to our way of life and protecting its integrity is essential in meeting the energy and societal demands of Albertans. One of the biggest hurdles is for people to understand is what is a ground disturbance. Utilities are always installed at a designed specification but unfortunately they often don’t remain at the same level they were installed. Often the land above them is altered either by removing topsoil or adding to it. This is one of the reasons why the utility locator cannot ever give you an approximate depth of the utility below. So the short answer is anytime you are digging and using mechanical equipment, you should have the utilities located just so you know where they are and can expose them properly. By the way, this is a FREE service provided to you from the utility owner/operators.
Alberta One Call (AOC) is a non-profit organization and was established in 1984. Although many people associate AOC with actually coming out and doing the utility location, they are actually a call centre that provides a communication service between the digging community and the owners of buried facilities. The locate requests are handed off to a contract locator, or in some locations, the utility owner themselves. Province wide AOC will handle 350,000 to 400,000 location requests every year. There are 50 AOC employees during the peak season and that number drops to about half of that in the off season. It is said that AOC is the best damage prevention tool in your toolbox and that is because they hold all of the underground utility location mapping system for the 726 AOC members. If you tell AOC where you are going to dig, they plot the area on their map and inform all of the utilities in that area that you will be disturbing the ground. Depending on the work you are doing, they notify the locator and the locator can come out and put marks on the ground to let you know if there are utilities in your excavation. This is more than just protecting the utility; this is also about protecting anyone working nearby and hitting a gas line or electric service. Electric and gas utilities can be deadly if contacted or improperly exposed.
Shaw Cablesystems and a number of pipeline companies are not part of AOC, so if you are disturbing the ground, you will need to make a phone call to them as well.
Sullivan also wants to mention the “April is Safe Digging Month” campaign. April is typically the month when people start to plan to do work in their yards; this is also the month to find out if there are utilities under their deck where they have planned to install a support post for example. If you don’t know where the utility lines are, then you may have to alter your plan a little and sometimes at the last moment; the same message goes for construction contractors. “By contacting Alberta One-Call during the planning stage of work, people are making a responsible choice and doing their part to maintain public, worker and community safety” says Sullivan.
“Most importantly, we need the media’s help in reminding homeowners and constructioncontractors of the tremendous importance in contacting Alberta One-Call before digging” explains Sullivan.
Submit a locate request to Alberta One-Call through their web site at www.albertaonecall.com or by calling 1-800-242-3447 two full working days in advance of your project. It is the safest way to dig.
