Okaloosa County BOCC — October 21, 2014 — Florida Statutes

556.105 Procedures (1)(a) Not less than 2 full business days before beginning any excavation or demolition…. an excavator shall provide the following information through the system: (b) The excavator shall provide the information by notifying the system through its free-access notification system during business hours…, (c) Information provided by an excavator is valid for 30 calendar days after the date such information is provided to the system. (3) The system shall provide the person who provided notification with the names of the member operators who shall be advised of the notification and a notification number that specifies the date and time of the notification. (4) The notification number provided to the excavator under this section shall be provided to any law enforcement officer, government code inspector, or code enforcement officer upon request. (5) All member operators within the defined area of a proposed excavation or demolition shall be promptly notified through the system, except that member operators with state-owned underground facilities located within the right-of-way of a state highway need not be notified of excavation or demolition activities and are under no obligation to mark or locate the facilities. (a) If a member operator determines that a proposed excavation or demolition is in proximity to or in conflict with an underground facility of the member operator..….the member operator shall identify the horizontal route by marking to within 24 inches from the outer edge of either side of the underground facility by the use of stakes, paint, flags, or other suitable means within 2 full business days after the time the notification is received under subsection (1). If the member operator is unable to respond within such time, the member operator shall communicate with the person making the request and negotiate a new schedule and time that is agreeable to, and should not unreasonably delay, the excavator. (c) When excavation is to take place within a tolerance zone, an excavator shall use increased caution to protect underground facilities. The protection requires hand digging, pot holing, soft digging, vacuum excavation methods, or other similar procedures to identify underground facilities. Any use of mechanized equipment within the tolerance zone must be supervised by the excavator. (6)(a) An excavator shall avoid excavation in the area described in the notice given under subsection (1) until each member operator underground facility has been marked and located or until the excavator has been notified that no member operator has underground facilities in the area described in the notice, or for the time allowed for markings set forth in paragraphs (5)(a) and (b), whichever occurs first. If a member operator has not located and marked its underground facilities within the time allowed for marking set forth in paragraphs (5)(a) and (b), the excavator may proceed with the excavation, if the excavator does so with reasonable care and if detection equipment or other acceptable means to locate underground facilities are used. (9)(a) After receiving notification from the system, a member operator shall provide a positive response to the system within 2 full business days, or 10 such days for an underwater excavation or demolition, indicating the status of operations to protect the facility. (b) The system shall establish and maintain a process to facilitate a positive-response communication between member operators and excavators. The system is exempt from any requirement to initiate a positive response to an excavator when an excavator does not provide a valid electronic address to facilitate a positive response by the system.