Wisconsin State Statute 182.0175 requires facility owners who own their facilities on public property to be a member of Diggers Hotline, but what about those people or business who own facilities on property they own? Those types of facilities are referred to as private facilities or private lines.

All types of business, schools, and even residential homes can have private facilities on them that are owned by the property owner. In some cases, you may not even know that you own them. Some examples of private facilities at a residence are: electricity to a detached garage or walkway lighting, underground sprinkler systems, invisible dog fences, pipes from LP tanks, pipes or wires from a well to a home, and water and sewer lines. Municipalities will mark mains and in some cases from the main to the lot line, but on private property those facilities are owned by the homeowner. Business facilities can be everything from fiber optic cables between buildings, to electric cables to a sign, to underground fuel storage tanks at gas stations.

In the past it was relatively common for the utilities to just mark all the underground facilities at a work site as a courtesy to the excavator. But times change, and with all the potential liability issues of a utility locating a line not owned by them, the utilities had to stick to locating only those facilities they own.

So what does that mean to the excavator? It means additional care needs to be taken any time work is going to take place on private property. The above types of facilities do not have to be registered with Diggers Hotline, and subsequently will not be marked when a locate is filed with the call center.

Property owners and excavators need to work together in these cases. To the property owners, if you hire an excavator or notice that some digging will occur on your property, let the excavator know about the potential for private facilities. Contract locating companies can be hired to locate private facilities. Excavators should not assume nothing is there, initiate dialog with the property owner. Let those people know of your work and if they are aware of any underground systems
they had put in place.