By Tim Baxter, Road Safety and Loss Prevention Specialist
NIRMA continues to receive tens of thousands of dollars of claims from utility companies involving county maintenance and construction damage to underground utilities in county right-of-way.
The recent NIRMA internal road department assessments, of all 82 member counties, shows that only 34 of the 82 member counties, or 41%, have a good, comprehensive Utility Permit Program. That leaves 48 member counties with either sub-standard or absolutely no utility permit program. No wonder utility damage claims are so high.
It is imperative counties have an up to date Utility Permit program, including liability insurance, and that permits are required prior to ANY utility or other outside work in county rights-of-way. Utility companies many times hire sub-contractors to install telecommunication lines with no supervision whatsoever. The county, to ensure proper burial depth of utilities and other compliance to the county permit, should require a county road department employee to periodically inspect the work of the contractors to ensure proper depth, and other utility permit compliance.
Without a county inspector, the contractor can and will cut corners to quickly install the utility resulting in improper burial depth of utilities thereby resulting in damage from county equipment. If your utility permit is properly developed, the minimum depth of bury should be thirty-six (36) inches beneath the road surface, and if installed at that depth, normal maintenance would not damage the utility.
County road department management and employees need to be taking photos of the marked lines prior to beginning work to ensure the lines are marked properly and photos should be taken of any cut lines to show that they were either not marked or were not deep enough according to permit requirements.
State law requires 48 hours’ notice to diggers hotline of any construction work, outside regular county maintenance, and you cannot begin construction until the 48 hours is up, and all lines have been marked. If lines are not marked or you have questions, contact the utility company prior to digging.
This is a serious issue and needs to be addressed. All county employees should be required to contact diggers hotline 48 hours prior to any construction activity.
The county board should adopt an updated Utility Permit, NIRMA has a sample, and road department management needs to ensure permits are issued for ANY county ROW use, outside county maintenance and construction. Failure to adopt a good Utility Permit program, and to ensure compliance to said permit, will continue to open the county to unnecessary claims and payment of those claims.
NIRMA needs assistance from you if we are going to successfully defend you in utility damage claims filed against the county. Help us help you to reduce claims of this type. If counties do nothing to reduce claims, then we have virtually no defense to argue, hence we pay the claim, settlement, lawsuit, etc.
If you would like me to present Utility Permit Program training to your county board, highway superintendent and road department, etc., please let me know and I will work it into my schedule.
If you have any questions, please contact me at 402-310-4417 or tim@nirma.info. Be Safe.
