A major gap in the construction process is the unavailability of reliable information about the location of underground utilities during the design stage of civil engineering construction projects such as highways and pipelines. All states and provinces in North America have one call legislation designed to reduce underground utility damage during actual excavation, but the legislation does not provide for making underground records available to inform the design phase of construction projects. Colorado and Pennsylvania are the first state/provincial jurisdictions in North America to mandate subsurface utility engineering surveys (SUE) during pre-construction.
Making SUE surveys mandatory for certain public construction projects requires changes to the state one call legislation. For projects for which a SUE survey is required, there is an additional information requirement on network owners and operators. Before beginning design, the project owner is required to contact the one call centre, who notifies the relevant network operators who then havten days to provide their best available records of the equipment they have in the proposed project area. On completion of the SUE survey the collected data and report must be provided to an organization which is able to ensure this data store and shared with other construction stakeholders.
Colorado
In 2018 a bipartisan bill to revise Colorado's one call statute was passed in the state legislature. The revised statute (Colorado Revised Statues, Title 9, Article 1.5 Excavation Safety (C.R.S 9-1.5 )) became law in August. First and foremost among the provisions of the new statute is that it makes subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys mandatory on certain public civil engineering projects. There are four criteria for a project to require a SUE survey; it must be a public project, it must be primarily a horizontal project, not a vertical project such as a building, excavation must exceed two feet in depth and the site must encompass a contiguous 1000 square feet, and the project must be designed by a professional engineer. Based on these criteria more than 95% of CDOT projects meet the requirement for a mandatory SUE survey.
The new legislation requires the project owner, CDOT or another agency, to send an information request to the Colorado one call centre for all projects that require a SUE survey. After being notified by the one call center utility owners are required to provide their best available records of their infrastructure in the project area within 10 business days. The project owner is then required to conduct a SUE survey at their own expense and provide the results showing the location of all underground infrastructure and assigned the ASCE 38 quality level to CDOT. Importantly, the SUE document must be stamped (signed) by a PLS or PE to ensure accountability. Standard SUE practice is to achieve at least ASCE Quality Level B for all underground utilities. In the case of conflicts with a new gravity-fed systems it is expected that test holes will be dug to locate and identify conflicts with existing utilities. Furthermore Colorado became an ASCE 38 state and the law requires ASCE 38 to be used on SUE surveys. Currently that means 38-02, but in the future that will become ASCE 38-21 when that version is released.
Pennsylvania
The project owner is responsible for initiating all design projects that will require excavation or demolition. The use of SUE or other similar techniques is required on large or complex projects costing $400,000 or more.
A designer notifies the one call centre by providing the scope of the plan or development with enough detail to allow the facility owners to provide the approximate locations of their lines in the proposed work area. Two types of design notifications are possible.
- Preliminary design: For designers requesting line and facility information more than 90 business days before the final design is to be completed.
- Final design: For designers which are not less that 10, nor more than 90 business days in advance of the final design.
On completion of the SUE survey the project owner is responsible for furnishing the pertinent data obtained through subsurface utility engineering to the One Call system. To assist underground stakeholders with managing their projects and the associated SUE data, Pennsylvania 811 provides a free web-based application called Coordinate PA (CPA) that provides a repository for underground stakeholders to house and share their project information and SUE data. It is designed to help project owners coordinate their projects with other project owners, designers, excavators, and facility owners..
PA Act 50 of 2017
The original SUE requirement in Pennsylvania dates from 2006. In 2017 Pennsylvania adopted a new Underground Utility Line Protection Law (PA One Call Law) that requires the following:
It shall be the duty of each project owner who engages in excavation or demolition work to be done within this Commonwealth:
- To utilize sufficient quality levels of subsurface utility engineering or other similar techniques whenever practicable to properly determine the existence and positions of underground facilities when designing known complex projects having an estimated cost of four hundred thousand dollars ($400,000) or more.
- To furnish the pertinent data obtained through subsurface utility engineering to the One Call System in a mutually agreeable format.
Furthermore network owners and operators are required to
- Not more than ten business days after receipt of a request from a designer who identifies the work site of excavation or demolition work for which he is preparing a drawing, to initially respond to his request for information as to the position and type of the facility owner's lines at such work site based on the information currently in the facility owner's possession or to mark the plans which have been provided to it by the designer by field location or by another method agreed to by the designer, excavator and facility owner, or their agent.
The one call system is required to
- Pursuant to policies adopted by the One Call System's board of directors, to provide a secure repository for and access to subsurface utility engineering data received from project owners to affected facility owner members.
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