CLARION, Pa. (EYT) — Notifying Pennsylvania 811 is essential for one-call underground construction, and on Tuesday Clarion County Commissioners Ted Tharan, Wayne Brosius, and Ed Heasley designated April as Pennsylvania 811 Safe Digging Month in Clarion County.

Pennsylvania 811 received over one million excavation notifications in 2022 and transmitted approximately 6.8 million notifications to their member facility owners and operators allowing essential utility and construction crews to provide vital underground services and repair critical infrastructure to communities throughout Pennsylvania.

The consequences of not notifying Pennsylvania 811 could be disastrous, according to Tharan.

Why is it important?

Tharan offered the following reasons:

• If you don’t want to blow yourself up or kill yourself;
• If you don’t want to cause a catastrophe for the community;
• If you would dig into a fiber line and shut down all the businesses;
• If you dig into the electric cable, you can put out the electric service;
• If you dig into a gas line, you can put out the heat and everybody’s the dead of winter; or
• If you get into a water line and they have a big major problem.

“You are responsible for the cost, too, if you don’t call, you have to pay all expenses of repairing that line, so you could be looking at millions of dollars,” Tharan stated.

Everybody that owns a buried line has to register with PA One Call, according to Tharan, a former contractor.

Within four days, 811 goes out and physically marks them. If the contractor digs into one of those lines, he’s not liable for it. You have a four-foot path that you’ve got to stay within that path.

Contacting 811 at least three business days before digging, a homeowner or a contractor is connected to a unique service that notifies the appropriate underground utility operators in the municipality in which the work will be performed.

By notifying 811 of their intent to dig, the homeowner or contractor is knowingly helping to protect the underground utilities, themselves, the work crew, and their neighbors from any unsafe digging practices within their community.

Upon receiving notification from Pennsylvania 811, the facility owners and operators disperse to the work site to mark the approximate location of their underground utility lines with flags, paint, or both, to establish an eighteen-inch tolerance zone of the outside wall or edge of their line or facility.

For more information about digging safely, visit the Pennsylvania 811 website at www.pa1call.org