September 3, 2024 • 12 mins
We spoke with Derek Brown, President of Call Before You Dig, Inc., a FREE service to anyone excavating within the state of Connecticut. Call Before You Dig service enables excavators to obtain information on the location of underground utility pipes and cables in the area of the proposed work site.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm Alison Demurz.
My guest today is Derek Brown, president of Call Before
You Dig.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
How are you very good? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm so glad you could make it. An important event
is coming up on eight eleven.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
That's correct, eight eleven, August eleventh is the number eight
one one, and eight one to one is also the
phone number for Call Before You Dig. It's actually the
nationwide number. So anywhere in the United States, if you
call eight one to one, you're going to be contacted
to your state's one call center if you're going to
be digging.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Being the president of Call Before You Dig, how did
this originate?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
So the Call Before You Dig process goes back actually
to the seventies or started by the phone company. There's
a voluntary thing in Connecticut, and then over the years,
unfortunately as there was more underground accidents with the utilities,
the state stepped in and passed some laws in the
eighties and now the laws require anybody digging in the
(01:03):
ground with mechanized equipment which is like a baco or
something like that, they have to contact Call Before You Dig.
We advise everybody to use Call Before you dig because
a free service. Even if you're digging in your yard,
we want to call eight one to one and contact
call before you dig, before you start digging.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
You mentioned who may use the service, who else would
use the service.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So primarily, like I said, the excavators, the contractors, they're
required to by law. But homeowners, you know, if you're
putting in a fence and you're putting posts along your
property line, or you're putting a mailbox near the road.
We've had people putting in mailbox and they've actually hit
an underground gas line going to their house. But you
don't know what's buried underground because you can't see it.
(01:47):
So we encourage everybody to use it. It's a free service.
You contact us two days before you start digging, and
the utility companies will go out and mark out what
they have buried at your big location.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Some are a prime time to contact CBYD.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So summer is prime time for excavations, whether you a homeowner,
a homeowner, or a contractor or trying to get these
jobs done. Especially August, we're starting to face you know,
fault coming right around the corner, so everybody's kind of
in a rush to hurry up and get their jobs done,
get the digging done, and eight one one in August eleventh,
it's just a natural day. It's a natural day on
the calendar. To remind everybody, it's a simple call eight
(02:26):
one to one before you start digging.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
What are the risks you mentioned some of them associated
with digging.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Sure, so there's a number of risks, you know, Like
I said that you don't see the buried underground utilities,
and there's gas lines, water lines, electric lines. If you
hit a gas line, the gas can escape and can
ignite and it could possibly cause an explosion. A water main.
You know, you think that well water won't army well
ken If you expect a large water main, it's going
(02:57):
to undermine the ground almost like a sinkhole, and you
could potentially drown in the water. Or an electric line.
If you break into a condit onto it that has
a live electric line, you can get electricuted and that's
going to damage you for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I mean, and that's most important. But you also said,
it's the law. What if people break the law, what
would happen?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, so the law says, like anybody using mechanized equipment
must contact quality before you dig. If you violate that law,
or if you if you ignore the marks, the utility
company comes out in marks and you ignore that and
you hit the utility, you're liable. So now the state
can actually issue you a fine, and then utility company
(03:39):
is also going to find you for any lost revenue
on their part. They're going to charge you to fix
that service. If it's an underground fiber optic. We all
use fiber optic every day for our internet and everything else.
If that fiber optic breaks, that's very costly to have
that repaired, and a lot of your neighbors are gonna
be upset if you break their fiber optic.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So that means it'll affect everyone in the area, not
just yourself.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Absolutely, it's almost like what we call the ripple effect.
You do one bad action and it's gonna, you know,
affect thousands of people.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Can you imagine all the moms that would be mad
when their kids couldn't watch TV or like on a
rainy day, if they're stuck in the house.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Exactly, I don't want to be in that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Online it mentions an E ticket and the need to
get an E ticket can you explain that process.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. So a need ticket
is just an easier way if you will to enter
your dig information. You create a profile only once and
then you log into the system through call before you
digs d, B y D dot com and on there
it comes up a map just like Google Maps, and
you'll draw on that map. You'll give the dig location,
(04:50):
you'll put in the description of what you're doing, and
you're going to put the address and all that information,
and then the computer will automatically transmit that to the
utility companies that are registered at your dig location. So
it could be Connecticut Water Company, it could be Connecticut
Natural Gas. They're gonna get notification that you're digging and
they're going to go out to that address and mark
(05:12):
out if they have stuff buried in the ground at
that location.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
This is absolutely amazing and the service is free.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It is It's absolutely free. So we everyone said, well,
somebody's got paid for it, right, Yeah, And of course everything,
everything has a price, and we have to pay for it.
So the cost of operating our one call center, all
the computer software behind the scenes, and all the efforts
to make this happen We set an annual budget by
(05:41):
the border directors of Call Before you Dig. We submitted
to the state for approval. Once it's approved, we actually
build utility companies per mile of underground facility that they own.
So in the state of Connecticut, Frontier has the most
underground facilities. They get the biggest bill every month and
that pays the Call Before you Dig budget.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
One of the other great things that you offer is
a website, user guide and user friendly tools. Maybe you
can explain that.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, our website, we've been populating it with more and
more information. We have excavator manials online in both English
and Spanish. We have homeowners guides online English and Spanish versions,
and we also have an online education class. We're very
proud of that education class because it's a self paced class.
Anybody can go on and take the class, whether you're
(06:31):
a homeowner an excavator. If you take that class, it's
going to teach you the overall process of Call Before
you Dig and at the end you're going to get
a certificate. So if you work in the industry, or
if you're looking at a job in construction or something,
you can show that certificate to it to an employer
and show them that you're called before you Dig knowledgeable.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
That's fantastic. How long does the online course take about It.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Could take two hours, but you don't necessarily have to
do it all at once. Once you create again, once
you create a profile in our Excavator Education class, you
can leave it and come back and pick up where
you left off. And it's loaded with videos and it's
an interesting class. It's not just it's just not words
on a paper. There's a lot of pictures and stuff
that helps explain the call before you Dig system.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And is this only for adults eighteen and over?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
No, Actually, anybody can take the online class. So recently
we teamed up with the Connecticut Technical High School program
and they've added it to the curriculum in the high
school for all construction related trades such as carpentry, plumbing,
you know those you know those trades, they could end
up being doing jobs outside digging in the ground. So
these high school students are graduating with this knowledge and
(07:44):
that's helping them get jobs out in the industry today.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
How fantastic is that? That is wonderful? Tell me what
role does PURA play?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Pure? So pure stands for Public utility regulatory authority part
of the DEEP which is Department of Environmental and Electric Protection,
and so by statue, they're the ones that create and
maintain the Call Before You Dig regulations state regulations and
they ensure that the Call before You Dig program is
(08:19):
following the guidelines. We have a board of directors we
meet monthly and PURA have a seat on the board
as an associate member, so they participate in our monthly
meetings and they help us out with the programs, all
the public awareness programs to make sure that our operations
(08:39):
center is operating properly. So it's a good partnership. And
by the statue, they're the ones that oversee the Connecticut
Called before you Dig program.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So summer is a big time that people would call you,
but do you find that they call you in the fall,
or the winter or the spring as well.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, you know, this past year we didn't have much
of a winter, so the contractors were happy because they
kept working all year round. But it can be challenging
for the utility companies because when you call Call before
you Dig, it could be pouring rain and they're going
to somehow have to go out and mark out or
or contact you to let you know where the underground
stuff is varied. They do it all year round. Sometimes
(09:20):
there could be an emergency water main break in the
middle of winter, even if the ground is frozen. You
know you're gonna have to put in an emergency ticket
with call before you dig for that broken water rain. So, yeah,
it's it's three hundred and sixty five days a year
that we're active. So we just recently awarded scholarships for
this year. For the first time, we started a scholarship
(09:40):
program for the technical high school program. So we gave
out I think twelve one thousand dollars scholarships to graduating
high school students. Other than that, we do a one
year underground safety program at the aquaturf where we invite contractors.
But we have nothing on the calendar currently other than
going to other raid events not our own. So next
(10:04):
week we're actually going to go to the Connecticut grounds Keepers.
They're going to have an equipment show at the Durham
Fairgrounds on Tuesday the thirteenth, and we'll have a table
there and so if you want to can speak to that.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, keep going, you're doing great.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Okay, Yeah, So coming up on Tuesday, August thirteenth, We're
going to go out to the Connecticut Groundskeepers Association. They're
going to have an equipment demo show at the Durham Fairgrounds,
and so they invite vendors and we as a vendor,
we will attend and we'll have a table. We'll hand
out all our information. We're going to hand out excavator manuals.
(10:40):
We're going to talk to people that come through that
may have any questions about the Cabby Free To program.
We're going to see what new equipment is out there
and make sure that everybody knows that new equipment can
be dangerous around underground the utilities.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And if students want to apply for this particular scholarship,
can they just go to the website.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
So the student the scholarships we're awarding are through the
Connecticut Technical High School Program. Their abbreviation is c Tech
bt ECS and so they coordinate all the technical high
schools in Connecticut together. So we worked with the Technical
High School System to award twelve scholarships this year to
(11:22):
graduating seniors.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I see, so the students would go through the school.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's correct, Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
I'm speaking with Derek Brown, President of CALL Before you
Dig It's c by D eight eleven is call before
you Dig day It's coming up. So thank you so
much for being here today. This was very interesting, very helpful.
Thank you for all the great work that you do well.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Thank you and again I appreciate you having me and
helping us spread the word. You know, maybe we should
have a piece of cake at eight one one day
and we'll dig in in a Slafe manner.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That sounds great.
Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm Alison Demurz.
My guest today is Derek Brown, president of Call Before
You Dig.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
How are you very good? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm so glad you could make it. An important event
is coming up on eight eleven.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
That's correct, eight eleven, August eleventh is the number eight
one one, and eight one to one is also the
phone number for Call Before You Dig. It's actually the
nationwide number. So anywhere in the United States, if you
call eight one to one, you're going to be contacted
to your state's one call center if you're going to
be digging.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Being the president of Call Before You Dig, how did
this originate?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
So the Call Before You Dig process goes back actually
to the seventies or started by the phone company. There's
a voluntary thing in Connecticut, and then over the years,
unfortunately as there was more underground accidents with the utilities,
the state stepped in and passed some laws in the
eighties and now the laws require anybody digging in the
(01:03):
ground with mechanized equipment which is like a baco or
something like that, they have to contact Call Before You Dig.
We advise everybody to use Call Before you dig because
a free service. Even if you're digging in your yard,
we want to call eight one to one and contact
call before you dig, before you start digging.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
You mentioned who may use the service, who else would
use the service.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So primarily, like I said, the excavators, the contractors, they're
required to by law. But homeowners, you know, if you're
putting in a fence and you're putting posts along your
property line, or you're putting a mailbox near the road.
We've had people putting in mailbox and they've actually hit
an underground gas line going to their house. But you
don't know what's buried underground because you can't see it.
(01:47):
So we encourage everybody to use it. It's a free service.
You contact us two days before you start digging, and
the utility companies will go out and mark out what
they have buried at your big location.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Some are a prime time to contact CBYD.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So summer is prime time for excavations, whether you a homeowner,
a homeowner, or a contractor or trying to get these
jobs done. Especially August, we're starting to face you know,
fault coming right around the corner, so everybody's kind of
in a rush to hurry up and get their jobs done,
get the digging done, and eight one one in August eleventh,
it's just a natural day. It's a natural day on
the calendar. To remind everybody, it's a simple call eight
(02:26):
one to one before you start digging.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
What are the risks you mentioned some of them associated
with digging.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Sure, so there's a number of risks, you know, Like
I said that you don't see the buried underground utilities,
and there's gas lines, water lines, electric lines. If you
hit a gas line, the gas can escape and can
ignite and it could possibly cause an explosion. A water main.
You know, you think that well water won't army well
ken If you expect a large water main, it's going
(02:57):
to undermine the ground almost like a sinkhole, and you
could potentially drown in the water. Or an electric line.
If you break into a condit onto it that has
a live electric line, you can get electricuted and that's
going to damage you for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I mean, and that's most important. But you also said,
it's the law. What if people break the law, what
would happen?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, so the law says, like anybody using mechanized equipment
must contact quality before you dig. If you violate that law,
or if you if you ignore the marks, the utility
company comes out in marks and you ignore that and
you hit the utility, you're liable. So now the state
can actually issue you a fine, and then utility company
(03:39):
is also going to find you for any lost revenue
on their part. They're going to charge you to fix
that service. If it's an underground fiber optic. We all
use fiber optic every day for our internet and everything else.
If that fiber optic breaks, that's very costly to have
that repaired, and a lot of your neighbors are gonna
be upset if you break their fiber optic.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So that means it'll affect everyone in the area, not
just yourself.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Absolutely, it's almost like what we call the ripple effect.
You do one bad action and it's gonna, you know,
affect thousands of people.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Can you imagine all the moms that would be mad
when their kids couldn't watch TV or like on a
rainy day, if they're stuck in the house.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Exactly, I don't want to be in that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Online it mentions an E ticket and the need to
get an E ticket can you explain that process.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. So a need ticket
is just an easier way if you will to enter
your dig information. You create a profile only once and
then you log into the system through call before you
digs d, B y D dot com and on there
it comes up a map just like Google Maps, and
you'll draw on that map. You'll give the dig location,
(04:50):
you'll put in the description of what you're doing, and
you're going to put the address and all that information,
and then the computer will automatically transmit that to the
utility companies that are registered at your dig location. So
it could be Connecticut Water Company, it could be Connecticut
Natural Gas. They're gonna get notification that you're digging and
they're going to go out to that address and mark
(05:12):
out if they have stuff buried in the ground at
that location.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
This is absolutely amazing and the service is free.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It is It's absolutely free. So we everyone said, well,
somebody's got paid for it, right, Yeah, And of course everything,
everything has a price, and we have to pay for it.
So the cost of operating our one call center, all
the computer software behind the scenes, and all the efforts
to make this happen We set an annual budget by
(05:41):
the border directors of Call Before you Dig. We submitted
to the state for approval. Once it's approved, we actually
build utility companies per mile of underground facility that they own.
So in the state of Connecticut, Frontier has the most
underground facilities. They get the biggest bill every month and
that pays the Call Before you Dig budget.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
One of the other great things that you offer is
a website, user guide and user friendly tools. Maybe you
can explain that.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, our website, we've been populating it with more and
more information. We have excavator manials online in both English
and Spanish. We have homeowners guides online English and Spanish versions,
and we also have an online education class. We're very
proud of that education class because it's a self paced class.
Anybody can go on and take the class, whether you're
(06:31):
a homeowner an excavator. If you take that class, it's
going to teach you the overall process of Call Before
you Dig and at the end you're going to get
a certificate. So if you work in the industry, or
if you're looking at a job in construction or something,
you can show that certificate to it to an employer
and show them that you're called before you Dig knowledgeable.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
That's fantastic. How long does the online course take about It.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Could take two hours, but you don't necessarily have to
do it all at once. Once you create again, once
you create a profile in our Excavator Education class, you
can leave it and come back and pick up where
you left off. And it's loaded with videos and it's
an interesting class. It's not just it's just not words
on a paper. There's a lot of pictures and stuff
that helps explain the call before you Dig system.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And is this only for adults eighteen and over?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
No, Actually, anybody can take the online class. So recently
we teamed up with the Connecticut Technical High School program
and they've added it to the curriculum in the high
school for all construction related trades such as carpentry, plumbing,
you know those you know those trades, they could end
up being doing jobs outside digging in the ground. So
these high school students are graduating with this knowledge and
(07:44):
that's helping them get jobs out in the industry today.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
How fantastic is that? That is wonderful? Tell me what
role does PURA play?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Pure? So pure stands for Public utility regulatory authority part
of the DEEP which is Department of Environmental and Electric Protection,
and so by statue, they're the ones that create and
maintain the Call Before You Dig regulations state regulations and
they ensure that the Call before You Dig program is
(08:19):
following the guidelines. We have a board of directors we
meet monthly and PURA have a seat on the board
as an associate member, so they participate in our monthly
meetings and they help us out with the programs, all
the public awareness programs to make sure that our operations
(08:39):
center is operating properly. So it's a good partnership. And
by the statue, they're the ones that oversee the Connecticut
Called before you Dig program.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So summer is a big time that people would call you,
but do you find that they call you in the fall,
or the winter or the spring as well.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, you know, this past year we didn't have much
of a winter, so the contractors were happy because they
kept working all year round. But it can be challenging
for the utility companies because when you call Call before
you Dig, it could be pouring rain and they're going
to somehow have to go out and mark out or
or contact you to let you know where the underground
stuff is varied. They do it all year round. Sometimes
(09:20):
there could be an emergency water main break in the
middle of winter, even if the ground is frozen. You
know you're gonna have to put in an emergency ticket
with call before you dig for that broken water rain. So, yeah,
it's it's three hundred and sixty five days a year
that we're active. So we just recently awarded scholarships for
this year. For the first time, we started a scholarship
(09:40):
program for the technical high school program. So we gave
out I think twelve one thousand dollars scholarships to graduating
high school students. Other than that, we do a one
year underground safety program at the aquaturf where we invite contractors.
But we have nothing on the calendar currently other than
going to other raid events not our own. So next
(10:04):
week we're actually going to go to the Connecticut grounds Keepers.
They're going to have an equipment show at the Durham
Fairgrounds on Tuesday the thirteenth, and we'll have a table
there and so if you want to can speak to that.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, keep going, you're doing great.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Okay, Yeah, So coming up on Tuesday, August thirteenth, We're
going to go out to the Connecticut Groundskeepers Association. They're
going to have an equipment demo show at the Durham Fairgrounds,
and so they invite vendors and we as a vendor,
we will attend and we'll have a table. We'll hand
out all our information. We're going to hand out excavator manuals.
(10:40):
We're going to talk to people that come through that
may have any questions about the Cabby Free To program.
We're going to see what new equipment is out there
and make sure that everybody knows that new equipment can
be dangerous around underground the utilities.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And if students want to apply for this particular scholarship,
can they just go to the website.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
So the student the scholarships we're awarding are through the
Connecticut Technical High School Program. Their abbreviation is c Tech
bt ECS and so they coordinate all the technical high
schools in Connecticut together. So we worked with the Technical
High School System to award twelve scholarships this year to
(11:22):
graduating seniors.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I see, so the students would go through the school.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's correct, Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
I'm speaking with Derek Brown, President of CALL Before you
Dig It's c by D eight eleven is call before
you Dig day It's coming up. So thank you so
much for being here today. This was very interesting, very helpful.
Thank you for all the great work that you do well.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Thank you and again I appreciate you having me and
helping us spread the word. You know, maybe we should
have a piece of cake at eight one one day
and we'll dig in in a Slafe manner.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That sounds great.
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