Underground Utility Locate Services in Colorado

Colorado 811: Your Central Point for Underground Public Utility Locates

Colorado 811, officially known as the Utility Notification Center of Colorado, does not provide locate services directly. Instead, it serves as a free, state-mandated service that allows excavators, homeowners, and other property owners to notify registered members of owner/operators of public underground utilities about their planned digging projects via a simply One-Call communication pathway. This ensures that public underground utility lines are marked before excavation, preventing accidental damage and ensuring safety.

How Colorado 811 Works

Anyone planning to dig, including professional excavators, contractors, landscapers, and homeowners, must submit a request to Colorado 811 with details about the dig site before the excavation starts. Colorado 811 then notifies the relevant public utility owner/operator companies, who are responsible for locating and marking their underground facilities.

Why It's Important

Accidentally hitting an underground utility line can be dangerous, causing injuries, loss of life, service disruptions, environmental damage, and it generates potential fines. Therefore, it's crucial to have both public and private utilities located and marked before digging.

Difference Between Private and Public Underground Utility Lines

• Private Utilities: Often owned and operated by property owners, such as homeowners or HOAs. These private utilities serve individual properties and include systems like sprinkler systems, gas lines to backyard grills, invisible fences, septic systems, and buried water tanks. Private utilities are not registered with Colorado 811, are not part of an 811 locate request, and must be located at the owner's expense by a private locating company.
  
  

• Public Utilities: Mostly owned and operated by utility companies, native tribes, local, state, or federal governments. These utilities are part of a larger network, such as water mains, electricity, internet, TV cable, or gas lines and are included and located via an 811 locate ticket request.

What You Need to Do

To ensure safety, you need both private and public utilities located before digging. Public utility locates can be initiated by contacting 811, which is free and covers utilities like telephone lines, gas, electricity, water, internet, sewer, and cable television owned by utility companies.

Don’t forget that 811 does not mark private lines such as gas grill lines, septic systems, invisible fences, sprinklers, or buried tanks. For private utilities, contact a private locating firm prior to excavation.