TSSA Guidelines for Excavations

The TSSA document “Guidelines For Excavations In The Vicinity of Gas Lines” November 2004 has recently been updated.  For the update, TSSA worked with the Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) to produce a new document to harmonize the requirements with the electrical utility requirements.  The new document  “Guidelines For Excavations In The Vicinity of Utility Lines” is available from the TSSA by clicking here. 

The document is relatively short and easy to read.  We would strongly encourage all project managers and field technicians who are contracting drillers, undertaking construction excavations, or overseeing remediation excavations to review this information.

Specific attention should be given to Section 2.0:

Prior to excavation the person responsible for the work shall contact “Ontario One Call” at the telephone or facsimile numbers listed in Table 1 below, or the utility, and request a locate of utility lines in the areas where excavation will be taking place. The Excavator must receive the locate as described in Section 3.0 prior to commencing any excavation.

Consultants should be aware that the phrase “…. person responsible for the work…..” clearly identifies them as the responsible party should there be any problem with incomplete locates.  We always find it surprising that consultants show us the locates and then ask “are these okay with you?”, as if we are some sort of an approval authority.  If a consultant is taking on the responsibility for the excavation, shouldn’t they satisfy themselves that they know what it means to have proper and complete locates and govern their actions accordingly?