A. Yes, all sites where drilling is being undertaken must have proper locates, regardless of occupancy.

A. Yes, although it is unlikely that there are buried utilities, it is a legal requirement that utility locates be completed.

A. Yes, you must provide all addresses to One Call. It is our understanding that this confusion may have contributed to the Bloor Street 2003 explosion.

A. Yes, all locates must be completed regardless of whether we are drilling on private or public property. For some unknown reason, many people have the impression that if it is on private property, you do not need public utility locates; this is completely false. Public utilities are owned by the utility up to the demarcation point, which is normally on the private property. Therefore, the locator contacted by One Call will locate to that point.

A. This may have happened in the past as even if you called Ontario One Call and you had a private locator, like it is required, you still may not have had complete locates. Not all hydro service providers were members of Ontario One Call and therefore you had to ensure that if the hydro provider for your site area was not a member, you had to contact them to request a locate. With the recent implementation of Bill 8 (Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act or “One Call Act”), it became mandatory for all owners of public utilities to be members of One Call.

A. Almost everyone has an opinion when it comes to witching, but until it becomes an acceptable practice to the scientific/geophysics community and becomes an industry standard procedure for utility locating, we will not be drilling based on the results of your witching clearance. We are glad though, that you have been successful (lucky?) in the past, as we hate it when we lose clients to electrocutions and explosions.

A. No, as-built drawings can be very useful in assisting a locator, but often as-built is not actually as-built. Proper utility locates must be completed regardless of drawings.

A. No – What does that mean, “take responsibility”? Regardless of locates, you are already responsible for anything we hit, because you instructed us to drill in that location. Being responsible for hitting something has nothing to do with protecting the health & safety of the drill crew, complying with the legal obligations, or protecting the utilities from damage, which are the three main reasons we get locates in the first place. Perhaps when people say they will take responsibility, they mean that they will tell the drillers family, at his/her funeral, that they “thought there was nothing there”. Although this is a frequently asked question, it is an extremely frustrating one, and we hope we never ever hear it again.

A. No – Memories are great things, and they may even be able to help the locators’ do their jobs, but we cannot drill on the basis of someone “knowing” where everything is located.

A. Kodiak will only drill when we are confident that all aspects of utility locating have been completed properly. The willingness of another drilling contractor to work at a site where the utilities are not adequately located is up to them and does not affect our drilling. Unfortunately we do not have consistent, enforced policies with regards to utility locating amongst the environmental and geotechnical drilling companies. We hope someday, our industry will do a better job in this regard. You can help with this, by advising other drillers when their work is not consistent with good locating practices.