Call Before You Dig!

Avoid Careless Damage and Accidents. The natural gas delivered to your home or business arrives through an intricate network of pipelines. They underlie your city like a massive, subterranean spider web. The infrastructure supporting your neighborhood lies right there with them – the underground conduits of communications, electric power, and television often surprise those who fail to think before they act. And they can pack a big bite. Far too often, a potential accident or pipeline break is just a careless backhoe, bulldozer, or jackhammer away. Most states have laws that requires utilities and line owners to register their underground facilities in every county – and for excavators to contact every potentially affected operator before they start to dig. Call your city offices before you dig. Operators with underground facilities in the quarter sections where the excavation is planned are notified. This includes natural gas and power utilities, communications companies, and cities and towns. Operator crews either mark their underground facilities or tell the excavator they have no lines in the area. On arrival, the underground facilities are identified for the excavator with color-coded flags marking the area. The chart below shows what the colored flags mean.

Unless you're a professional, don't use excavation equipment in your yard. Do your digging with hand tools, or enlist the assistance of a plumber. If excavating, ditching, trenching, drilling, or blasting activity is to be done on or adjacent to your property, call your gas company yourself. It's an extra measure of caution that could save someone's life.

Flags may also be an advertisement for a company which has installed an irrigation system for lawns or gardens. In this case, each sprinkler head is usually marked, so that landscaping crews will not cover or bury them with soil or sod, or damage them with tractors or other construction equipment while digging holes for trees, shrubs, or other large plants or fence posts. This is important because a vehicle (tractor, truck, or otherwise) can break a sprinkler or the hard-PVC pipe or joint it is mounted on, simply by driving over it, particularly on newly moved soil which has not been compacted and therefore will not support the weight.

Some municipalities use the pink paint to make lines and codes on the pavements related to required street improvements such as ramp replacement, asphalt grinding and form injection. These markings are not related to utility locating. When you see flags that have one of the colors that are in the chart on the right, and you need to dig, CALL THE COUNTY FIRST! Do not take a chance.