Summit Natural Gas Encourages Safety Awareness on National 811 Day

Summit Natural Gas encourages people to make a free request 3 days before digging to avoid damaging buried utilities.

8/9/2021

MAINE – August 11 marks National 811 Day! Summit Natural Gas of Maine (Summit) hopes that the 8/11 date on the calendar will serve as a natural reminder for Maine residents and contractors to call 811 to have underground utility lines marked prior to any project. Every few minutes an underground utility line is damaged because someone decided to dig without first calling 811.

When calling 811, homeowners and contractors are connected to Dig Safe®, the free local one call center, which notifies utility companies of their intent to dig. Professional locators are then sent to the requested digging site to mark the approximate locations of underground lines with flags, spray paint or both.

Every digging project, no matter how large or small, warrants contacting 811 by phone or online. Installing a mailbox, building a deck, planting a tree and laying a patio are just some examples of digging projects that need a call to 811 before starting.

“On August 11 and throughout the year, we remind our communities, homeowners, and professional contractors alike to call 811 before digging to help avoid striking an underground utility line,” said Jason Weekley, Chief Operations Officer at Summit. “Digging without having your underground utilities marked can result in injury, fines and inconvenient outages. An easy call to 811 is the best way to know where utilities are buried in your area.”

The depth of utility lines can vary for a number of reasons, such as erosion, previous digging projects and uneven surfaces. Utility lines need to be properly marked because even when digging only a few inches or digging in a location that’s previously been marked, the risk of striking an underground utility line still exists.,