Comprehensive guidance on excavation safety programs, best practices for damage prevention, and compliance with state and federal one-call/811 requirements.
Discuss Your ProgramExcavation damage remains one of the most persistent threats to buried pipelines, and the trend is not improving. The Common Ground Alliance's 2025 DIRT data show its damage index rising for a second consecutive year.
The root causes point to every party involved. Damage prevention is a shared responsibility, and every stakeholder contributes to both the problem and the solution.
Source: Common Ground Alliance, 2025 DIRT Data Summary & Trends: 2025 At-A-Glance, published 2026. Figures are rounded. The damage count consolidates multiple reports of the same event. Percentages are shares of reports with an identified root cause; the locating figure combines the three locating practice causes in the top ten.
A locator can only mark what the operator's records show. Gaps between mapping, billing, and service records produce unmarked facilities. Operators carry the obligation to identify their facilities and provide for temporary marking before excavation begins.
49 CFR 192.614(c)Locate accuracy and timeliness should be measured against underlying ticket records, not only against reported performance metrics. Locators should investigate visible field indicators, such as meter vents and curb valves, rather than certify an area clear on the absence of a signal.
Hand digging, potholing, or vacuum excavation to expose facilities before mechanized excavation, including directional drilling, prevents a large share of damage. State laws define the tolerance zone and the methods required within it.
Operators should inspect facilities during and after excavation when they have reason to believe damage could occur.
49 CFR 192.614(c)(6)PHMSA evaluates each state's excavation damage prevention enforcement program annually. Laws without enforcement do not change behavior.
49 CFR Part 198, Subpart DDamage and ticket data should feed the operator's integrity management risk ranking and drive targeted outreach to the excavators and locators involved.
As Manager of Damage Prevention at Pacific Gas & Electric, David Appelbaum led a team that reduced underground infrastructure damages by more than 30 percent, created the Gold Shovel Standard that evolved into the CGA Damage Prevention Institute, and developed a dedicated dig-in reduction team.
In more than 12 years at PHMSA, he conducted more than 350 evaluations of state damage prevention enforcement programs, supervised more than 500 investigations, and evaluated more than 60 state pipeline safety programs.
Clearpath works with every party to an excavation, applying CGA Best Practices and the federal and state requirements each one carries.
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