Call 811 Before You Dig on Arbor Day

It may be a good idea to pick up the phone before planting a tree in honor of Arbor Day today.

Digging a hole in the ground for new shrubbery or a new tree can lead to disrupting a gas line or other utility line, Columbia Gas officials said.

Utility lines are sometimes buried only a few inches below the surface, making them very susceptible to accidental damage.

Striking a natural gas pipeline can cause injury, significant repair
costs, fines and inconvenient outages, Bob Innes, a Columbia Gas spokesman said earlier this month.

Columbia Gas of Virginia's natural gas facilities were damaged 248 times in 2012. The cause of 23 percent of those incidents was the  lack  of utility  locate  tickets or the failure to dig safely around natural gas lines, the company said.

An underground utility line is damaged every eight minutes because someone accidentally disrupted a buried utility line while digging, according to Common
Ground  Alliance, a national association focused on protecting underground
utilities.

That's why every digging project—large or small— should prompt a called to 811.

Calling notifies the appropriate utility company officials, who then dispatch professional locators to the requested digging site to mark underground lines with flags or paint.  

Each utility has designated colors to help clearly identify the  type  of underground facilities. The marking colors
are:
      · Red – Electric
      · Yellow – Gas-Oil
      · Orange – Communications
      · Blue – Potable (Drinking) Water
      · Green – Sewer
      · Pink – Temporary Survey
      · Purple – Irrigation
      · White – Proposed excavation