You are required by law to make contact with underground facility owners before you dig or excavate. If you are planning on excavating please call the number below 2 business days before you dig or excavate.
Call 1-800-424-5555 or 811
Why should you call before you dig?
It could save a life: Many things lie buried beneath the ground. Power lines and gas lines are two of the most deadly.
It could save your property: Fire or explosion from a damaged gas line, erosion from a broken water line, disease from a broken sewer line, or simply the inconvenience of losing your phone or cable TV service due to a cut line.
It could save you money: It doesn’t cost anything to call in a locate request. With one quick telephone call, all utilities in your area will be notified to come and mark the location of their lines. However, if you damage a utility line and did NOT call for a locate, you may be liable for up to three times the actual amount of the damage. Some high-capacity telephone lines carry up to one million dollars per minute in calls!
It’s the law: RCW 19.122, anyone digging deeper than twelve inches must call for locates two business days before they dig. This holds true for private property, city, county, state or federal lands, and railroad right-of-way. In addition to damages and civil penalties, anyone who ignores this law may also be subject to penalties from the Department of Labor and Industries.
The Washington Utilities Coordinating Council (WUCC) is a non-profit organization created for the benefit of preventing damage to various underground utilities including: power lines, phone lines, gas lines, water and sewer lines, and all other buried utilities.
