LO members in the Ottawa area are experiencing problems with the length of time it takes to receive underground locates. The best case scenario is two to three days, but in Ottawa it currently takes between 10 to 15 days.
According to Terry Murphy, who retired several years ago as LO’s manager of human resource development, and has since conducted a study on the current locate problem in Ottawa, “There is not one single cause for locate delay, but rather a combination of factors that have occurred all at the same time.” He went on to add, “And, the problem is not exclusively a landscape industry one, but rather for any and all Ottawa firms that do any work underground.”
Murphy outlined some of the causes of the increased locate demands:
• Early spring weather which advanced the outdoor locate demand
• New federal infrastructure money for municipalities (City of Ottawa) which requires shovels in the ground and certain completion by Mar. 2011
• More companies requesting locates, due to potential $50,000 fine enforcement for utility strikes without locates
• Increased demand up 53 per cent from last year without any warning, far increasing any logical projections
• While demand increased, training time to develop qualified locators is now longer.
Murphy said, “Our efforts are to alert as many of the key players as possible, that in most cases, the landscape industry makes a living in only eight months of the year. It is tremendously important that our industry’s small contractors get a fair shake to get locates, as the employee base and profitability depends on these locates. This is a serious problem for the landscape industry.”
“In 30 years of business, I have never had to slow down my production. We are now pulling guys off construction. This is ridiculous and already has cost significant sums of money and disappointed many of my clients,” said one Ottawa landscape company owner.
New fast track process
There is a new process that can help irrigation contractors and possibly landscape contractors. Called the Alternative Locate Agreement (ALA), it is a contract between the contractor and the utility. In most cases, this agreement eliminates the need for an actual locate. The agreement has specific requirements that allow the contractor to dig no more than a depth of 12 inches.
“For an irrigation contractor, this means they can potentially work without any locates required. If you estimate 50 irrigation contractors doing 100 jobs a year, this would eliminate 5,000 locates, which would increase the efficiency of the locate companies for jobs that require locates,” says Murphy.
The ALA process is as follows:
1— Call One Call to register the job as usual and get a contract number.
2 — Tell the One Call operator you have an ALA.
3 — Have your contract number or locator number from One Call present on the job in case you are inspected at the job site by ESA or TSSA.
“This can also help the landscape contractor who is sodding and knows that he is not digging more than 12 inches,” says Murphy.
Murphy estimates it could take about two to three weeks to set up an ALA with Enbridge or Bell.
“From what I have gathered, this is a unique problem in Ottawa. It doesn’t seem to be as critical in other areas of Ontario, or nobody is talking about it.