Most people are familiar with the warnings to “call before you dig”. There are commercials, bumper stickers, and notices on websites. But, it’s not just a contractor digging a trench that needs to be concerned about underground utility damage. Land surveying work preparing maps for civil engineering design could also present a danger to underground utilities.
Prior to excavation you would call Tennessee 811. http://www.tenn811.com/
“In the state of Tennessee, State Law requires anyone about to engage in either digging, excavation, moving of earth, demolition or any type of activity that disturbs the earth and therefore possibly involving a danger to damaging underground utility lines, to notify Tennessee 811, of their intent to dig.
Tennessee 811 will then notify the member utilities of your proposed work. The utility company locator will then have 72 hours, excluding holidays and weekends, to locate those underground facilities. “
The Tennessee State Law is the “Underground Utility Damage Prevention Act”, and can be found in it’s entirety here: Underground Utility Damage Prevention Act
For LandTech projects it is standard practice to contact TN811 for a “design locate request” which is “a communication to the one‐call service in which a request for locating existing utility facilities for predesign or advance planning purposes is made“.
We will enter our design locate request using the E-Ticket process on-line. We will indicate the type of work as “survey work” or “survey stakes”. Since we may set 18″ length iron rods for property corners or survey measurement points, there is the potential to damage an underground utility line.
We would be happy to discuss our underground utility location process with you. Contact us at http://landtechco.com/contact_us