Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
UPDATE: CSLB, Before You Turn a Shovel, Make a Call (Summer 2014)
Call 811, a nationwide safety service, is observing “National Safe Digging Month.” As part of the celebration, on April 1, Call 811 kicked off a month-long promotion offering users the chance to “dig” for prizes every day with a virtual shovel. Call 811 will be awarding lucky diggers the chance to win an iPad Mini, Kindle Fire HDX, Apple TV, Jawbone JAMBOX, Samsung Chromebook, Sony Cybershot X50 Camera, $250, $500, Call 811 Shirts, Call 811 Mugs and gift cards from VISA, iTunes, Amazon and Starbucks. Promotion ends April 30.
Sign up and you to can visit Call 811’s website to click 1 of 24 virtual “dirt piles” in hopes of finding a prize notification underneath. 1 dig per day – but look for bonus questions to earn an additional dig. Dig in the wrong area and you could hit a water, gas, power, phone or sewer line, resulting in no prize for that particular day.
California Government Code § 4216.2(a)(1) requires that “[e]xcept in an emergency, any person planning to conduct any excavation shall contact the appropriate regional notification center, at least two working days, but not more than 14 calendar days, prior to commencing that excavation, if the excavation will be conducted in an area that is known, or reasonably should be known, to contain subsurface installations other than the underground facilities owned or operated by the excavator and, if practical, the excavator shall delineate with white paint or other suitable markings the area to be excavated.” Under Section 4216.6(a)(1)-(2), any operator or excavator who negligently violates this law is subject to a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $10,000, and any operator or excavator who knowingly and willfully violates any of the provisions of this law is subject to a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $50,000). “Operator” is defined broadly to include “any person … that owns, operates, or maintains a subsurface installation”; it does not include an owner of real property where subsurface facilities are exclusively located if they are used exclusively to furnish services on that property and the subsurface facilities are under the operation and control of that owner. “Excavator” is broadly defined to include “any person … that, with their, or his or her, own employees or equipment performs any excavation.” If you have questions, call your regional notification center.
Additional Source: Hot Diggity – Licensing Board Is Digging Into Excavation Mishaps