Toe the Line

Every spring there is a big media campaign to get everyone looking to dig up a new garden or planning to plant trees or put up a new fence to "call Diggers Hotline" at least three days before doing any excavating.  The ads feature ominous warnings about electrocution or explosions caused by rupturing underground utilities.  And yet, it is very rarely the homeowner working in the backyard that is responsible for such incidents.  Usually, it is commercial and municipal work crews.

Having access to police and fire scanners, I can tell you that gas leaks are surprisingly common.  It's an almost weekly occurrence in the Fox Valley.  Just yesterday, there were incidents in Fond du Lac and Sheboygan that required emergency response and small-scale evacuations of surrounding homes and businesses.  Fortunately, the events in Sun Prairie this week are extremely rare--as utilities are able to shut off the gas flow quickly and there is not a source of ignition nearby.

The reason you don't see public service announcements telling contractors to call before they dig is because large-scale operations like street and sewer repair are given detailed diagrams of the underground utilities in their project area.  Water, sewer, natural gas, power and communications lines are all mapped with their location and depth clearly marked--and yet, crews are cutting through them on a weekly basis.

It is possible that the diagrams and schematics provided to the crews are erroneous.  Plotting was a low tech procedure when some lines were installed in the early 1900's--and it's possible that conduit and pipelines could have been marked wrong on original maps.  Those elements could also shift with the freezing and thawing cycle of the ground.  But it still seems like far too many pipelines and fiber optic cables are being severed during routine construction work.

Keep in mind that backhoes and excavators are not precision instruments.  If you've ever driven by a work site, you've likely noticed one guy operating the machine and three or four guys standing around watching him.  That's not just a union thing, those guys are likely assigned to keep an eye on the bucket--because as the hole gets deeper, the operator can see less.  But still, they should be doing a better job of digging accurately and safely.  As Sun Prairie proved, the stakes are much higher than you would think.