Dominion Energy reminds contractors, homeowners to call 811 before starting digging projects
Staff Report From South Carolina CEO
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019
Spring is a popular time for construction activity and outdoor projects and many of those involve digging. SCE&G, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dominion Energy, dedicates this month to raising awareness of safe digging practices across its footprint and reminding the public that any safe digging project starts with a call to 811.
South Carolina State Law requires contractors and homeowners to call 811 at least three full business days in advance of planned excavation. Alternatively, the public can visit sc811.com or use the SC811 app to conveniently submit a utility line locate request. Examples of excavation projects include installation of a septic tank, swimming pool, fence, water well, sprinkler system, mailbox post and tree planting. At no cost, professional locators will mark the location of the utility lines within three days after your call. Once all utility lines have been marked, careful digging around the marks can begin.
“We had 1,254 dig-ins to our natural gas lines in our operating area in 2018. Thirty-seven percent of those incidents were attributed to excavators failing to call SC811. When the excavator doesn’t call 811, we don’t have the opportunity to locate the gas lines for them,” said Greg McGlohorn, General Manager of Construction, Operations and Maintenance for SCE&G's natural gas business. “In addition to posing a serious safety issue, these incidents can cause inconvenient traffic and service disruptions as well as result in costly fines and repairs costs for excavators.”
Construction activity causes the majority of gas line incidents on SCE&G’s system. Contractor companies wanting to prevent utility line damages may benefit from SC811 Academy, a free online damage prevention certification program.