With August 11th almost here, Call Before You Dig, Inc. hopes this date on the calendar, 8/11, will serve as a natural reminder for residents to call 811 prior to any digging project to have underground utility lines marked to avoid unintentionally hitting them. Call Before You Dig is a non-profit organization comprised of all public utility companies and municipalities within Connecticut. CBYD is a free service that provides homeowners and professional excavators with a toll free call by dialing 8-1-1 for locating and marking underground facilities by its members, and calling CBYD before you dig is the law in Connecticut.

      When calling 811, the federally-mandated national "Call Before You Dig" number, homeowners are connected to Call Before You Dig, Inc., the local one-call center in Hamden, CT which notifies the appropriate 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 or spray paint. Call Before You Dig, Inc. requires a call two full working days before the planned project start date.

      Striking a single line can cause injury, repair costs, fines and inconvenient outages. Every digging project, no matter how large or small, warrants a call to 811. Installing a mailbox, putting in a fence or basketball hoop, building a deck and planting trees are all examples of digging projects that need a call to 811 before starting.

      “On August 11 and throughout the year, we remind homeowners and contractors alike to call 811 before digging to eliminate the risk of striking an underground utility line,” said Bill Petersen, Call Center Manager. “Failure to call before digging results in more than 250,000 unintentional hits annually, and we do not want anyone’s project to become part of the national statistic.”

      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, the risk of striking an underground utility line still exists.

      Visit www.cbyd.com or www.call811.com for more information about 811 and the call-before-you-dig process.