Below the surface of any lawn could lay all kinds of cables and pipes for services like telephone, cable, natural gas, hydro, water and sewer.
“The underground is full of buried infrastructure,” said Keith White, business development manager for DigNORTH.
So before taking on any landscaping or construction projects and potentially damaging service lines, the City of Thunder Bay and DigNORTH encourage city residents to Call Before You Dig.
The new program, launched Thursday by the city and DigNORTH, allows residents to call one toll free number (1-888-ONT-CBYD) to get information on all the utilities.
“The advantage is that this will be a single point of contact,” said city transportation and works general manager Darrell Matson.
The call centre staff, based in Dryden, notify each separate utility and the dig location. Then homeowners are notified whether it’s safe to dig.
White said the danger of putting the onus on the homeowner to gather the information on their own is that since there are so many possible utilities, they might miss something.
“Or they spend so much time trying to find out who to call,” he said. “We do the rest on their behalf.”
The Call Before You Dig program was launched in Ontario in April 2010 and it’s been making its way across the north. White said they’re happy to now have the service available in Thunder Bay since it’s the biggest city in Northern Ontario.
“That gives us a challenge now to go across the province now to other cities,” he said, adding the reason they chose Dryden as their base is because of it’s central location in Northwestern Ontario.
Matson said the appeal of the program for the city was they wanted a coordinated effort in order to engage homeowners and contractors to make the call to locate underground utilities.
“The primary drivers are protection of the environment, safety of the public and the workers and to prevent damage from the buried infrastructure,” he said.
“The underground is full of buried infrastructure,” said Keith White, business development manager for DigNORTH.
So before taking on any landscaping or construction projects and potentially damaging service lines, the City of Thunder Bay and DigNORTH encourage city residents to Call Before You Dig.
The new program, launched Thursday by the city and DigNORTH, allows residents to call one toll free number (1-888-ONT-CBYD) to get information on all the utilities.
“The advantage is that this will be a single point of contact,” said city transportation and works general manager Darrell Matson.
The call centre staff, based in Dryden, notify each separate utility and the dig location. Then homeowners are notified whether it’s safe to dig.
White said the danger of putting the onus on the homeowner to gather the information on their own is that since there are so many possible utilities, they might miss something.
“Or they spend so much time trying to find out who to call,” he said. “We do the rest on their behalf.”
The Call Before You Dig program was launched in Ontario in April 2010 and it’s been making its way across the north. White said they’re happy to now have the service available in Thunder Bay since it’s the biggest city in Northern Ontario.
“That gives us a challenge now to go across the province now to other cities,” he said, adding the reason they chose Dryden as their base is because of it’s central location in Northwestern Ontario.
Matson said the appeal of the program for the city was they wanted a coordinated effort in order to engage homeowners and contractors to make the call to locate underground utilities.
“The primary drivers are protection of the environment, safety of the public and the workers and to prevent damage from the buried infrastructure,” he said.
