Underground Safety Board workshop targets 'failure to notify 811' with training, partnerships

The California Underground Safety Board’s Education Outreach Committee picked “failure to notify 811” as the focus for a statewide education campaign and discussed a mix of training, partnership and regulatory options to reduce excavation damage and improve safety.

Committee member Johnson said the workshop — the second in a coordinated statewide series — would build on the January session and move from identifying problems toward developing implementable solutions. Workshop staff and industry representatives used a live poll that produced 28 responses and selected failure to notify 811 as the root cause to address during the current series of workshops.

Participants said durable outreach will require partnerships, consistent training materials, and changes to existing education channels. Steve Cleaver, senior manager for PG&E’s damage prevention and compliance group, urged broadening outreach beyond utility operators and 811 centers and said enforcement tools available to operators are limited. "The only thing that we can do is recover the costs that it took for that," Cleaver said, adding that stronger regulatory…