A question that is often asked in our industry is "What does a locate cost?" The answer to this simple question varies from stakeholder to stakeholder and from publicly to privately owned utility lines. For the sake of this conversation, a public utilty is a facilty owned and/or operated by a utility company or municipality thats belongs or should belong to a One Call system. Thinking about a neighborhood, this would be utilities like power, water, sewer, gas and telecommunications. They are public up to a point where they are metered or enter some transition point. From this point on, they are private. To the excavator or homeowner, the One Call system is typically a free service. A locate request can be made by calling 811 or entering the information into an online system, with no cost to the user.

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