Know What's Below
When you see a tree, you know it has roots sprawling underfoot. When you pull weeds, you know that to get rid of them, you’ll have to pull them up by the roots spread across the whole garden just beneath the surface. What you may not think of quite as intuitively is that modern infrastructure has roots too. This March, Aii will be taking a look at modern roots to explore what our infrastructure looks like beneath our feet and how to safely interact with it.
Under the buildings, homes, parks, rivers, and roads across America, well over 35 million miles of buried facilities are pulsing with the power, water, gas, and telecommunications services needed to keep modern life running. When you look up at a street lamp at night, you can rest assured that the cool light illuminating the street corner is powered by electrical lines at its base running under the sidewalk, street, or even the grass nearby.
It is not difficult to understand, only something most people don’t think about. Underground facilities are out of sight, out of mind. But it is critical that we keep these things in our minds.
Damage prevention is the practice of avoiding underground utilities when digging. It begins with a basic rule: call 811 before any digging project. More nuanced damage prevention rules govern how best to dig, what tools to use, and how different stakeholders (e.g. the excavator, locator, utility company) interact with one another.
Stay with Aii this month during our 5th Annual #ModernRootsMarch educational campaign. You may learn to recognize new aspects of the infrastructure around you. But most importantly, you can learn how to stay safe and protect others around you as well whenever you interact with the modern roots of American life!
More content coming soon! Want to help shape this year’s resources and messaging? Become a sponsor of the Modern Roots March campaign today.
Electricity. Gas. Information.
Water. Waste.
These are constantly flowing in and out of buildings and infrastructure. Modern infrastructure does not only exist on the surface. The systems and structures we depend on every single day have their own modern roots. For everything you see above ground, know there is an unseen world pulsing below your feet.
Videos
Check out our video content for #ModernRootsMarch! These new videos were designed specifically for this campaign, to help you think about buried infrastructure in different ways. Check back throughout the month for more!
Dig In
Under 60 Seconds
Fun Facts by State
Use interactive map below to learn something new about each state!
Learn to See What’s Below
Use the interactive sliders below to get you thinking and discover what lies beneath the surface! These graphics help depict how buried infrastructure is comparable to the roots of trees and plants. Just how different are modern roots from natural ones?
Why You Should Click or Call 811
811 is considered to be a tremendous accomplishment for preventing underground utility damage. Still, data submitted to the Common Ground Alliance indicates that over 500,000 pipes, cables, and wires are damaged during excavation projects every year. According to the International Risk Management Institute (IRMI), “the cost of one utility strike may rise to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and insurance will typically not cover that loss.”
If the strike to the line prevents other customers and communities from receiving service, fines can increase, about $10,000 per hour or lost service, according to IRMI.
In 2019, CGA published a report detailing a five-year rising trend in excavation damage and an estimate that it cost the U.S. over $30 billion in economic costs in 2019 alone. Those costs include both direct and indirect costs, such as power outages and internet loss, but also deaths and injury that can occur when natural gas lines are disrupted. With years of inflation and likely increases in excavation damage, the true cost likely exceeds $100 billion annually.
You can stop those costs, protect yourself, and maintain the resilience of the nation’s infrastructure by clicking on the app or website or calling 811 to reach your state or region’s One-Call center. There, professionals will connect you with all the utility companies and locators in the area. All you have to do is make one call or enter information yourself on their website. From there, wait a few days, and all the relevant parties do the rest – locating and marking the site you intend to dig so you can safely break ground without hitting a natural gas pipeline, electrical line, telecommunications cable, water or sewer line, or other buried infrastructure!
Spray Paint Markings
There are millions of miles of pipes, cables, and wires beneath us! The consequences for damaging these lines are significant, and yet some people are still unfamiliar with how to safely navigate their digging project. The rule of thumb is that every dig requires a notic. Even a simple tree planting or mailbox set up in your yard requires calling 811. As a homeowner or excavator, you can start the process yourself with white paint, stakes, or flags to designate the digging area before clicking or calling 811. Then locators visit your site with color-coded spray paint so you can see and know what is below before your tools go in blind!
Have You Seen These Markings?
Spray Paint Isn't All!
While spray paint markings may be the most familiar visual for damage prevention of buried utilities, there are more physical and virtual elements at play! On the visual side, you may also see stakes or flags that demonstrate the path of a buried pipe, cable, or wire. Just like spray paint, these help give excavators insight into what is buried and where. Don’t move them if you see them – but it is important for the right stakeholder to remove them when the job is done to reduce confusion and error, waste and environmental risks, and keep things clean. On the virtual side, online ticket entry often comes with electronic white-lining, giving excavators a chance to pre-mark their site from a computer and helping One-Call centers, utilities, and locators see the markings remotely. Locators can also provide virtual manifests and electronic sketches to offer a computerize version of the spray paint for extra clear communication!
Join The Campaign
Every year, the damage prevention industry comes together to increase awareness for 811. This is an incredible and valuable campaign, but we increasingly find that people need more education throughout the year. In 2021, Aii launched Modern Roots March to increase our nation’s infrastructure IQ and encourage Americans to think about what is below their feet. We all know that plants have roots, but the infrastructure we know and see every day like street lights, fire hydrants, traffic signals, and more all have roots extending beneath our feet for miles.
If you are a utility owner/operator, excavator, locator, one-call center, regulator, public works, or anyone in between, we welcome you to Modern Roots March and ask you to join the campaign. Before we get people thinking about Safe Digging in April, let’s ensure that everyone in America builds up the intuition that the things they rely on every day for modern life begin from roots underneath them in virtually every place they go.
Download from the Aii Toolkit
Choose from two different styles. Use the square graphics for Instagram and the taller posters as larger educational resources.
Read from our Research Library
Damage Prevention in the United States incorporates a range of public policies and technologies. At Aii, studying the underlying challenges and presenting factual information is the first step to building a safer, more efficient, and more resilient future. Learn more from our policy briefs and white papers:
Damage Prevention Champions
This educational and awareness campaign is made possible by the generous support and contribution of industry innovators, thought leaders, and critical stakeholders across the damage prevention ecosystem. Celebrate their impact as Aii Damage Prevention Champions, and amplify their message and work as we roll into Safe Digging Month in April!
Shape this year’s resources and put your name and brand in front of new audiences. Become a sponsor today.
Modern Roots March Sponsors
Company Supporters
OKIE811
Facility Notification Centers Association (FNCA)
Wealthy Leadership
Individual Supporters
Raymond Sonnier
K. Luna
Roger Cox
Phillip Chen
Owen Rogers
Casey Stempien
Clint Kalfell
Scott Landes
Benjamin R.
M.G. Govia
Andrew William
James Cross
More on Damage Prevention
Interested in learning more about damage prevention? Visit our issues page to learn about what supplies these modern roots.