Februarylive! Open Mic with Miss Dig 811 Notes

FEBRUARYLIVE! OPEN MIC WITH MISS DIG 811 NOTES

February’s topic of discussion was What Determines Which Member Gets a Ticket? And What Determines the Work Area that Gets Located by Members?We received several questions and comments regarding these subjects:

• What procedure should we follow if a member is not responding to tickets? You should be checking positive response, if a member has not responded you must call and have the ticket retransmitted.
• What is the procedure that is followed when making a third request? Once a third request is made a supervisor gets involved. Enhanced Positive Response is also in the works.With this an excavator can post a code saying that multiple requests have been made with no response. If all else fails, you can file a complaint with the MPSC
• I heard about a presentation at Lake Michigan College about Safe Excavation Practices, how can I get on the mailing list? The Safe Excavation Practices is a MISS DIG 811 Presentation, we are not having one at Lake Michigan College. You can go on our website on the education page at to check for locations of the presentation. The event you are talking about is probably sponsored by Paradigm. I can get in touch with our Paradigm contact and see if your name can be added to the list.
• We are having problems with Scope of Work when LOCATE ENTIRE LOT is used. We mark the mowed area and are then called back saying that the lot is 40 acres. They are not putting the entire scope of work on the ticket. To address the situation directly with the parties who are doing this we need ticket numbers. Please e-mail them to us so we can research it.

• We are having problems with communications contractors, they put LOCATE ENTIRE LOT TO POLE/PED for locate information and sometimes don’t give the pole/ped number. We assume they are referring to the one in front of the address and sometimes it is three lots down. Again, you would have to send us some ticket numbers for us to speak directly with the parties involved.
• Who is responsible for calling 911 when a gas line is hit, the excavator or the gas company? Homeowners are refusing to call 911 because they think they will be charged. The excavator is responsible for calling 911 if there is a dangerous situation and then notifying the facility owner/operator. I don’t believe they would be charged for calling 911, you may want to contact your local law enforcement to find out.
• I have noticed that staggering of start dates has improved since last year. That is great. there are also a few new things in the works to even better improve this. NSR’s and RTE users will be alerted if they have placed a lot of tickets with the same start date in hopes of encouraging them to stagger them. We also have a Web Ticket Management System.