April Is National Safe Digging Month: Springtime Safety Tips

April is National Safe Digging Month and as the spring arrives so does construction season.  Whether you’re planning small construction for home improvement or major construction, such as home additions or adding a building structure to your property, safety must be your first priority.  Since this time a year is peak home improvement and tree planting season now is the best time to review digging safety tips to minimize your exposure and reduce accidents involving natural gas pipelines or other buried safety hazards.

By law, you should make a call to Dig Safe for any project that requires digging, whether this digging is done by a professional excavator or simply installing a new mailbox or trees on your property.  Your local utility will mark their own lines in your yard setting clearly marked areas where no digging is permitted in order to prevent damage to underground utilities, such as gas pipelines.  The timelines for advance notice of any digging project varies by state and provinces. For more Information: Call 811 or visit www.call811.com/811-your-state

See below for the color coding system used when lines are marked: 

From the U.S. Department of Transportation: The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) recognizes April as National Safe Digging Month. Although excavation damage is the leading cause of serious pipeline incidents, it is easily preventable with one call (or click) to 8-1-1. Established in 2002, 8-1-1 is a national, toll-free one-call notification center system that has become the most effective way to combat excavation damage. It does this by connecting callers with a local one-call center which dispatches a locator to mark any underground utilities in your yard that could be damaged during digging projects. Practicing safe digging can prevent injury, pipeline damage and even death.

Learn more about safe digging on the 811 website.