TransCanada Helps Make Safe Digging Even Easier

With TransCanada’s support, a new national website, “Click Before You Dig” was launched by Canadian One-Call Centres that will be useful for workers and landowners who need buried pipelines and utilities located and marked before digging or excavating this summer.

Before the launch of the new web portal, anyone wielding a shovel only had the “Call Before You Dig” option to reach their provincial One-Call Centres and receive the free locate service showing them where it was safe to dig.

“This website will enable anyone proposing a ground disturbance to contact the appropriate One-Call Centre and obtain the location of underground infrastructure quickly and easily,” said Brad Watson, a damage prevention specialist at TransCanada.

Watson is chair of the Alberta Common Ground Alliance and a director of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance – a stakeholder-driven damage prevention organization dedicated enhancing public safety and reducing damages to critical buried infrastructure.

Through TransCanada employees such as Watson, TransCanada was able to work with the Canadian Common Ground Alliance and the Canadian One-Call Centres Committee to promote the web concept and help bring “Click Before You Dig” to life.

TransCanada is committed to supporting public safety and damage prevention and our support of One-Call Centres’ mandate is key to that commitment as unauthorized digging by contractors, farmers, landscapers and homeowners is a leading cause of pipeline incidents.

Thanks to the new website, accessing One-Call Centres across the country has been made just a little bit easier. One-Call Centres are able to handle four to five times more web requests per hour than phone requests.

“Web-based notifications are more effective and efficient,” Watson said. “The requestors input the information directly so there is less room for error. Since the website is available 24/7, requests can be made outside normal business hours and there is no waiting for operators to answer the phones.”

Once a request is made online, the information is sent to a customer service representative at the appropriate provincial One-Call Centre for processing and is then sent to affected stakeholders such as utilities and pipeline companies. Confirmation of the request and location information is forwarded to requesters by email.

TransCanada wants to ensure the safety of anyone digging near our facilities – so the launch of Click Before You Dig is another step in the right direction.

For more information, visit the Click Before You Dig Portal or TransCanada’s Public Safety and Awareness webpage.