(Radio Iowa) – This Sunday is August 11th or 8-11, the day Iowans are reminded about the three-digit phone number they’re required to call before doing any digging on their property. Ben Booth is spokesman for Iowa One Call which is marking what it calls 8-1-1 Day in advance of the fall planting season.  “Iowa law says you have to notify Iowa One Call prior to doing any type of digging, not just contractors and professionals, anyone in Iowa planning to do any type of digging or disturbance of the earth,” Booth says. “The reason is because there’s a lot of stuff underneath the ground that you can’t see.” The state law was enacted in 1993, mandating that Iowans use the service before taking a shovel to dirt, and especially before using anything larger to dig.

Call at least 48 hours in advance, and crews will mark the underground utilities with flags or spray-paint so you can know where -not- to dig. “I’m talking about your fiber optic, your broadband, your satellite cables, and then real serious stuff like high voltage electricity and pressurized natural gas,” Booth says, “of course, your water and sewer, all these fundamental services that we need that we just don’t think about because they are literally out of sight and out of mind.” Booth notes, digging can mean much more than just taking a shovel to dirt. “If you’re pounding a stake or a fence post or something like that in the ground, you could pierce one of those underground facilities, and that could have devastating consequences,” Booth says. “It could be hazardous, and of course, there’s the liability on the other side of that, because if you break something, typically, you’re going to get a bill to repair it.”

time an Iowan phones the call center, it typically triggers several more calls, depending on how many utilities may be buried on the property. Booth says they field about 600,000 calls a year, which equates to more than 3.6 million notices back to the utilities.

IowaOneCall.com