The board shall develop a standard or set of standards relevant to safety practices in excavating around subsurface installations and procedures and guidance in encouraging those practices. When possible, standards should be informed by publicly available data, including, but not limited to, that collected by state and federal agencies and by the regional notification centers pursuant to subdivision (g) of Section 4216.6, and the board should refrain from using data about facility events not provided either to a state or federal agency or as statewide information, as defined in paragraph (2) of subdivision (h) of Section 4216.6. The standard or set of standards are not intended to replace other relevant standards, including the Best Practices of the Common Ground Alliance, but are to inform areas currently without established standards. The standard or set of standards shall address all of the following:

(a) Evidence necessary for excavators and operators to demonstrate compliance with Sections 4216.2, 4216.3, 4216.4, and 4216.10.

Terms Used In California Government Code 4216.18

  • Board: means the California Underground Facilities Safe Excavation Board, also known as the "Dig Safe Board. See California Government Code 4216
  • Excavation: means any operation in which earth, rock, or other material in the ground is moved, removed, or otherwise displaced by means of tools, equipment, or explosives in any of the following ways: grading, trenching, digging, ditching, drilling, augering, tunneling, scraping, cable or pipe plowing and driving, or any other way. See California Government Code 4216
  • excavator: means any person, firm, contractor or subcontractor, owner, operator, utility, association, corporation, partnership, business trust, public agency, or other entity that, with their own employees or equipment, performs any excavation. See California Government Code 4216
  • State: means the State of California, unless applied to the different parts of the United States. See California Government Code 18
  • Subdivision: means a subdivision of the section in which the term occurs unless some other section is expressly mentioned. See California Government Code 10
  • Subsurface installation: means any underground pipeline, conduit, duct, wire, or other structure, except nonpressurized sewerlines, nonpressurized storm drains, or other nonpressurized drain lines. See California Government Code 4216
  • Tolerance zone: means 24 inches on each side of the field marking placed by the operator in one of the following ways:

    California Government Code 4216

(b) What constitutes reasonable care, as required by paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) of Section 4216.4, in using hand tools around subsurface installations within the tolerance zone, considering the need to balance worker safety in trenches with the protection of subsurface installations. As part of determining reasonable care, the board shall consider the appropriate additional excavating depth an excavator should make if either of the following occur:

(1) The subsurface installation is delineated within the tolerance zone but it is not in conflict with the excavation.

(2) The location of a subsurface installation is determined, but additional subsurface installations may exist immediately below the located subsurface installation.

(c) What constitutes reasonable care, as required by paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) of Section 4216.4, in grading activities on road shoulders and dirt roads which may include standards for potholing.

(Amended by Stats. 2017, Ch. 26, Sec. 54. (SB 92) Effective June 27, 2017.)

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