Utility bills are already costly. However, because one company allegedly fails to tell others what is buried underground, bills could climb even higher.
UtiliQuest, which finds underground utilities such as phone and cable lines for contractors throughout the state, is doing a substandard job, according to businesses and government entities that work with the company. The firm’s failure to properly locate underground utilities during major construction efforts could be costing homeowners and businesses thousands of dollars.
A repavement and sewer replacement project this year along Union Boulevard typified the problem. The Green Mountain Water and Sanitation District hired UtiliQuest to check for underground utilities. UtiliQuest found most but not all of the utilities. The failure to locate all the underground utilities caused numerous delays and cost the district thousands of dollars.
Dave Hartkopf, manager of the water and sanitation district, was so upset by the problem he wrote an angry letter to the city detailing the problem and demanding action.
“Bad ‘locates’ cost the homeowners of our district thousands of dollars per year,” he wrote.
He concluded the letter with a prediction that if the problem was multiplied by all the utilities and municipalities in Colorado, the yearly cost incurred by missed lines could run into the millions of dollars.
Hartkopf recalled at least four unexpected utility finds during the installation of a replacement sewer main on Union Boulevard. The most costly discovery was a tangle of phone lines. He said the district spent $19,612 redesigning the project and moving the sewer main for the single bank of phone lines.
“When we started digging for our project, we found this concrete encasement and nobody could tell us what it was,” Hartkopf said. “Our construction company chipped away at the concrete and discovered it was phone lines. We had to reroute the sewer main under a concrete traffic island and that was an added expense to the project.”
Chris Jacobsen, infrastructure maintenance engineer for the city of Lakewood, said inaccurate utility locations have not cost the city much cash, but the problem has caused confusion and wasted staff time.
“It’s like a spaghetti bowl underneath the pavement. In some areas there are just utilities everywhere,” Jacobsen said. “You rely on the marks on the surface because if they are off they can be a problem.”
The problem is not one of dollars alone. There are serious public safety consequences to excavating and rupturing such things as gas and water lines.
“We see it a couple times a week with a construction crew hitting a line,” said Cindy Matthews, spokeswoman for the West Metro Fire Protection District. “We typically only hear about them when it is natural gas, and that causes great hazards to the community. It is the kind of call that is easily preventable if everybody knew where the lines are before they dug. It is the kind of call that should theoretically never happen.”
Construction crews often unwittingly interfere with phone lines, gas lines, water mains and many other essential services because of the failure to locate underground utilities.
Jacobsen said UtiliQuest troubles may not be a fault of the information and technology at its disposal. Rather, it may be the company’s employees.
“I think maybe it’s a personnel problem or they’re not staffed adequately,” he said.
UtiliQuest, based in Georgia, did not return telephone calls from the Lakewood Sentinel to comment on this story.
To address the problem, the city has asked the general council for the Colorado Municipal League to work with the Colorado Contractors Association Underground Committee.
J.D. Maniscalco is the executive director of the non-profit Utility Notification Center of Colorado. His organization is working with CML and the state’s contractors association on a solution. Anyone digging in the public right of way is required by state law to call UNCC three days prior to digging to obtain proper utility locations. UNCC is the go-between for excavators and utility owners.
“Yea, there are issues out there, absolutely,” Maniscalco said. “We are talking about locating utilities underground and somebody supposedly not doing their job.”
There are many other factors adding to the problem, he said. A estimated 25 to 30 percent of excavators do not check for underground utilities before digging, he said.
Other factors to consider are the state’s construction boom and Colorado’s unique soil, which diminishes the quality of ground-penetrating radar. On the other hand, the problem is not unique to the state.
“Nowhere do we see that a national standard is being followed,” he said. “The management of facilities in the right of way is a major, major issue not only in Colorado but in all states.”