Nicor Gas reminds customers, community to call 811 during Safe Digging Month

Warmer temperatures have finally arrived, and before springing into outdoor home projects, Nicor Gas is reminding customers and communities to “call before you dig” in observance of Safe Digging Month this April.

This includes jobs such as mailbox and fence installations, planting trees or putting in a pool. It also applies to professional excavators when performing work such as paving, tunneling or blasting.

Contacting 811 is free and there is no cost to have underground utility lines marked. It’s also a law designed to help to protect both customers and communities to ensure the underground infrastructure that powers our lives is not damaged and stays safe and connected.

Customer pre-marking is required for all locate requests, by physically marking your proposed excavation or route with white paint, flags or chalk, electronic white lining (when software is available), or possibly by providing a verbal description that is narrow and explicit enough to limit markings beyond the actual excavation area.

Nicor Gas maintains more than 34,300 miles of natural gas infrastructure across northern Illinois. In addition to those lines, there are underground communications cables, water and sewer lines, and other utility lines on every property. Knowing where underground infrastructure is before putting a shovel in the dirt helps prevent injuries, property damage and inconvenient service outages.

To protect these underground utilities and help ensure communities stay safe and connected, Nicor Gas offers the following safe digging guidelines:

• Call before you dig. Before starting an outdoor digging project, contact 811 or visit www.illinois1call.com to request having underground utility lines marked at least two days prior to digging, excluding the day of the notice, but no more than 10 days prior to the proposed excavation.

• Allow the required time for marking. After contacting 811, allow time for the underground utility lines to be marked before digging. The approximate location of the lines will be marked with color-coded spray paint, flags or stakes that correspond to the utility. The natural gas markings will be yellow.

• Respect the marks. Only use hand digging tools in areas near the utility line markings.

• Excavate carefully. Make sure the marks remain visible during the project. If the markings are no longer visible, contact 811 to have lines remarked. If a natural gas line is damaged accidentally or the distinctive rotten-egg odor associated with natural gas is present, call 911 or the Nicor Gas 24-hour emergency phone line at 1-888-642-6748 from a safe location.

For more information about natural gas safety, visit nicorgas.com/811.