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.