Facility Owners

Facility Owners

Owners and operators of underground facilities in Pennsylvania are required to be members of Pennsylvania One Call System.  Pennsylvania Underground Utility Line Protection (UULP) law. PA Act 287 of 1974, as amended by Act 50 of 2017. 

The definition of a facility owner is any public utility or agency, political subdivision, municipality, authority, rural electric cooperative or other person or entity who or which owns or operates a line and the underground line serves one or more customers or consumers in Pennsylvania.

Beyond the legal requirements, being a member of Pennsylvania One Call System helps you avoid costly repairs to your underground facilities that were damaged because you did not know excavation work was occurring near your facilities.

Click to Apply for Membership

It is the duty of a facility owner to be a member and to give written notice to the Pennsylvania One Call System of the following information and notification for the: 

  • legal name of the facility owner
  • official mailing address, telephone number and fax number of the facility owner
  • list of counties and municipalities, including wards, in which the facility owner underground lines are located
  • street identifications within each of the municipalities in which the facility owner underground lines are located

You, as the facility owner, are required to provide Pennsylvania One Call System with any revised information within five business days. 

Damage Prevention Liaisons are available for questions regarding your requirements, guidance, and training.  

Contact Information

Member Services Representatives are available to answer your questions and provide you with technical support.  M-F, 8 am to 5 pm

1-800-248-1786 ext 7168

Online Tools for Ticket Management

Online Ticket Management
Pennsylvania 811 is excited to welcome you to Online Ticket Management (OTM), a new web application designed to easily combine ticket activities such as Facility Owner Member Web Access, Excavator/Designer Web Access, Web Ticket Response, and Tickets Nearby into one application.

•    Facility Owners can search for tickets received and post responses.
•    All users can navigate on a map to find tickets for their company near their current location.

Response Notes
Response notes are accepted, saved for viewing with each response in our online applications, and shared with the excavator. This new feature can be viewed by facility owners in Online Ticket Management, Web Ticket Response, IP Response Service, and Coordinate PA (Design only). 
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The content added to a note will not change the Act 287 as amended requirement to post a FINAL response to a ticket. Please use the field to convey additional information such as mark out detail or other instruction for the excavator.

For a quick tutorial on OTM, please visit our YouTube channel.

Apply for Ticket Management Online Tools

You must be a member of Pennsylvania One Call System to qualify for the ticket management online tools.

Online Tools for Membership Management

Member Mapping is a requirement under PA Act 287, as amended. 
The Member Mapping application allows for facility owner members to define which areas within a municipality they want to receive notifications. A geospatial mapping tool used by facility owner members to describe notification areas within the municipalities where you own or operate underground lines

With Member Mapping, you will no longer deal with the areas you do not have underground lines. You gain valuable time back in your schedule to deal with the locate requests where you have underground lines. 

Facility Owner members have reported seeing a 63% reduction in notifications, on average, with no compromise in safety. Pipelines have enjoyed 97% reductions while controlling the safety buffer around their facilities.

How does it work? 
  • Use of a Geospatial mapping tool
  • Define what areas within a municipality you need to receive notifications
  • Eliminate receiving tickets at a municipal level that you have no conflict
  • Upload GIS or CAD files online or manually define your service area(s)
  • Assign mapping access levels for each user
Three levels of mapping access:
  • Reader - The user can only view the map data 
  • Writer - The user can view and edit the map data, and save changes to the map data 
  • Approver - The user can view and edit the map data, save changes and approve any changes to the map data
For more information regarding the Member Mapping application, please click here. 

Apply for Membership Management Online Tools

You must be a member of Pennsylvania One Call System to qualify for the ticket management online tools.

Facility Owner Obligations

Receiving Locate Requests
Underground facility owners have the option to receive the information from the Pennsylvania One Call System using a variety of delivery methods, such as email, fax, XML, or viewing locate requests at www.paonecall.org. 

Responding to Locate Requests
The facility owner is required to respond to all notices they receive through the Pennsylvania One Call System, provided the request is made in the time frame set forth under PA Act 287 of 1974, as amended by Act 50 of 2017.
  • Complex project notifications - When a meeting is requested the response due at midnight the business day prior to the proposed meeting date
  • Demolition notifications - The response shall be made no later than the end of the 2nd business day following receipt of the notification by the Pennsylvania One Call System, excluding the business day upon which the notification is received, or no later than the day prior to the lawful start date of excavation if the excavator specifies a later date
  • Design notifications - The response is due at midnight 10 business days from the date the locate request was submitted 
  • Emergency notifications - To respond through the Pennsylvania One Call System as soon as practicable following receipt of notification of the emergency by the One Call System 
  • Routine notifications - The response shall be made no later than the end of the 2nd business day following receipt of the notification by the Pennsylvania One Call System, excluding the business day upon which the notification is received, or no later than the day prior to the lawful start date of excavation if the excavator specifies a later date
Facility owners have the option to add notes to their response, which will be accepted, saved for viewing, and shared with the excavator. Please note, the content added to a note will not change the Act 287 as amended requirement to post a FINAL response to a notification.

Facility owners can enter responses either online with a registered web account or by contacting KARL at 1-800-222-6470. 


 
​Additionally, facility owners are required to initially respond to a design request for information as to the position and type of the facility owner’s lines based on the information in their possession, or to mark the plans which have been provided to them by the designer, by field location or by another method agreed to with the designer.

For information about KARL and responding to tickets, please click here. 

The Direct Contact Rule
What does it mean to renotify? To renotify is a re-transmit of an existing ticket to advise one or more facility owners of locate-related issues. Upon the initial arrival of the excavator at their work site, they discover an unmarked or incorrectly marked facility they should contact 8-1-1; request to renotify the facility owner or facility owners. This is NOT a new ticket. The ticket version number will change.
 
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What are the three qualifying questions?:

  1. Is this your initial arrival to the site? [Yes] The crew is currently on site
  2. Is the site unmarked or incorrectly marked? [Yes] The original ticket was a routine ticket
  3. Has the excavation started? [No] Excavation has not started

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If these conditions are met, the facility owner or owners will be notified and will make direct contact with the excavator within 2 hours of the notification by telephone, show up on site to mark or by Facetime, Skype, or other electronic means. 

If these conditions are not met, the facility owner or owners will be notified and will respond based on their company policy.
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If a facility owner does not make direct contact within 2 hours, the excavator can begin to work AFTER three hours. The excavator must exercise due care and use prudent techniques in their work. Also, they are required to file an Alleged Violation Report to the Commission.
 
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Determining Conflicts with Existing Assets
After receiving and screening the non-design locate request, if a conflict exists within the excavation work site described on the locate request, the facility owner is required to mark the location of the facility owner’s underground lines within eighteen inches horizontally from the outside edge of the line, including known connections and appurtenances.

Facility owners may use standard locating techniques suitable to each type of line being located based on accepted engineering and operational practices, and mark with paint, stake, and/or flags, according to APWA/Common Ground Alliance Best Practices for Temporary Marking set in ANSI standard Z535.1 Safety Color Code.
 
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Facility owners are required to maintain existing records main lines abandoned on or after the effective date, April 28, 2018, and to mark, locate or identify the main lines if possible, based upon the existing records.

Four Components of a Correct Mark
Facility owners may use standard locating techniques suitable to each type of line being located based on accepted engineering and operational practices, and mark with paint, stake, and/or flags, according to APWA/Common Ground Alliance Best Practices for Temporary Marking set in ANSI standard Z535.1 Safety Color Code.

Markings will be done in a reasonable manner; in order to enable the excavator to easily recognize the location of buried facilities. The best way to ensure that the markings are recongnizable and understandable is to ensure that your markings include these four components: 
  1. Mark the facility in the appropriate color
  2. Indicate the facility owners name or initials or use a flag with the company logo
  3. Mark the type of material the facility is made of
  4. Inidicate the size of the facility
The Tolerance Zone
The tolerance zone is the horizontal space within eighteen inches of the outside wall or edge of a line or facility. Within the tolerance zone the excavator must employ prudent techniques, which may include hand-dug test holes or vacuum excavation.  

Participate in Preconstruction Meetings
A facility owner is required to attend and participate in preconstruction meetings for a complex project and to work with excavators on a schedule to mark the underground lines reasonably in advance of the actual start of excavation or demolition work for each phase of the work.

If an excavator determines a preconstruction meeting is not needed, facility owners with facilities at the work site may request a meeting with the excavator and a meeting shall be held between the two parties. The facility owner may designate a project as complex, and request a meeting with the excavator to determine a mutually agreeable locate schedule, if the work exceeds the scope of a routine locate request. 

For more information regarding complex projects, please click here.