Section 177 - Duties of facility owners. It shall be the duty of each facility owner:
(1) To be a member of and give written notice to the One Call System. Such notice shall be in a form acceptable to the One Call System and include: (i) the legal name of the facility owner and their official mailing address;(ii) As follows: (A) The names of the counties and municipalities, down to and including wards in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie, in which its lines are located and other related information as may be required by the One Call System regarding the location of a member's facilities.(B) The One Call System may not require its members to locate lines or facilities installed before the effective date of this clause unless the member has existing maps of the lines or facilities and the member's existing maps meet the specifications of the One Call System's Member Mapping Solutions. Nothing under this clause shall prohibit the One-Call System members from voluntarily submitting to the One Call System maps of lines or facilities installed before the effective date of this clause.(iii) the facility owner's address (by street, number and political subdivision) and the telephone number and fax number, if available, to which inquiries may be directed as to the location of such lines;(iv) the street identifications or like information within each of the municipalities in which its lines are located. This information shall be in a form acceptable to the One Call System. Upon acceptance of the information from a facility owner, the One Call System shall provide the facility owner with notification within the boundaries described. All facility owners shall agree to indemnify and hold harmless the One Call System for any errors and omissions on the part of the facility owner or the excavator or designer providing the information as the agent of the facility owner; and(v) any other information required by the One Call System.(2) To provide the One Call System, within five business days, with any revised information required under this section.(4) Not more than ten business days after receipt of a request from a designer who identifies the work site of excavation or demolition work for which he is preparing a drawing, to initially respond to his request for information as to the position and type of the facility owner's lines at such work site based on the information currently in the facility owner's possession or to mark the plans which have been provided to it by the designer by field location or by another method agreed to by the designer, excavator and facility owner, or their agent. The facility owner shall so advise the person making the request of the facility owner's status at the work site through the One Call System.(5) After receipt of a timely request from an excavator or operator who identifies the work site of excavation or demolition work he intends to perform and not later than the business day prior to the lawful start date of excavation:(i) To mark, stake, locate or otherwise provide the position of the facility owner's underground lines at the work site within eighteen inches horizontally from the outside wall of such line in a manner so as to enable the excavator, where appropriate, to employ prudent techniques, which may include hand-dug test holes, to determine the precise position of the underground facility owner's lines. This shall be done to the extent such information is available in the facility owner's records or by use of standard locating techniques other than excavation. Standard locating techniques shall include, at the utility owner's discretion, the option to choose available technologies suitable to each type of line or facility being located at the work site, topography or soil conditions or to assist the facility owner in locating its lines or facilities, based on accepted engineering and operational practices. Facility owners shall make reasonable efforts during the excavation phase to locate or notify excavators of the existence and type of abandoned lines .(i.1) To identify the location of an actually known facility's point of connection to its facilities, where the point of connection is not owned or operated by the facility owner. A facility owner may identify the location of a known facility connected to its facilities, but not owned or operated by the facility owner, as a helpful guide to the excavator or owner. The identification shall not be deemed to impose any liability upon the facility owner for the accuracy of the other facility's identification.(ii) To timely elect to excavate around its facilities in fulfillment of this subparagraph, at its option.(iii.1) To propose mutually agreeable scheduling by which the excavator, facility owner or designer may locate the facilities.(v) To respond to all notices through the One Call System, provided the request is made in the time frame set forth under this act. The response shall be made not later than the end of the second business day following receipt of the notification by the One Call System, excluding the business day upon which the notification is received, or not later than the day prior to the lawful start date of excavation if the excavator specifies a later date or, in the case of an emergency, to respond through the One Call System as soon as practicable following receipt of notification of the emergency by the One Call System.(v.1) To, if a facility owner failed to respond to an original, proper, nonemergency locate request from the One Call System or to a renotification under section 5(20), communicate directly to the excavator within two hours after renotification of the information about its facility location and, if necessary and possible, go to the proposed work site to mark, stake or locate its underground lines or to verify to the excavator that the facility owner's underground lines are not within the area of the proposed work site.(vi) In marking the approximate position of underground lines or facilities, to follow the Common Ground Alliance Best Practices for Temporary Marking set forth in ANSI standard Z535.1. Should the Common Ground Alliance Best Practices be amended, the amended guidelines shall be applied and followed. If the Common Ground Alliance Best Practices no longer publishes guidelines for temporary markings or if the responsibility for publishing the guidelines is transferred to or assumed by another entity, the facility owner shall follow the guidelines approved by the One Call System's board of directors.(vii) To respond to emergency notifications as soon as practicable following receipt of notification of such emergency. The response by the facility owner shall be consistent with the nature of the emergency information received by the facility owner.(viii) To participate in preconstruction meetings for a complex project or as described in section 5(3).(ix) If notification is received pursuant to section 5(8), to give priority to responding to notification as an emergency.(9) If a facility owner fails to become a member of the One Call System in violation of this act and a line or lines of such nonmember facility owner are damaged by an excavator by reason of the excavator's failure to notify the facility owner because the facility owner was not a member of the One Call System serving the location where the damage occurred, such facility owner shall have no right of recovery from the excavator of any costs associated with the damage to its lines. The right herein granted shall not be in limitation of any other rights of the excavator.(10) To submit a report of alleged violation to the commission through the One Call System not more than thirty business days after receipt of notice that the facility owner's lines have been damaged by excavation or demolition work or if the facility owner believes a violation of this act has been committed in association with excavation or demolition work. The report of alleged violation shall be in a form and manner as required by the commission. No report may be required where the cost to repair the damage to the facility owner's lines is less than two thousand five hundred dollars ($2, 500), unless the same person damaged the facility owner's lines two or more times within a six-month period.(11) To comply with all requests for information by the commission relating to the commission's enforcement authority under this act within thirty days of the receipt of the request.(12) To participate in the One Call System's Member Mapping Solutions as determined by the One Call System's board of directors.(13) To maintain existing records of main lines abandoned on or after the effective date of this paragraph and to mark, locate or identify the main lines if possible, based upon the existing records. The records shall include written or electronic documents or drawings in the possession of the facility owner that show the location of an existing line or facility.Amended by P.L. TBD 2017 No. 50, § 3, eff. 4/28/2018.1974, Dec. 10, P.L. 852, No. 287, § 2, effective in 120 days. Amended 1986, Dec. 12, P.L. 1574, No. 172, § 1, effective in 180 days; 1991, Dec. 12, P.L. 364, No. 38, § 2, imd. effective; 1996, Dec. 19, P.L. 1460, No. 187, § 1, imd. effective; 2004, Nov. 30, P.L. 1567, No. 199, §2, effective in 60 days [ 1/31/2005]; 2006, Nov. 29, P.L. 1593, No. 181, §3, effective in 120 days [ 3/29/2007]; 2008, Oct. 9, P.L. 1507, No. 121, § 1, imd. effective.