811 Message to Agriculture

IAMU works closely with Common Ground Iowa (CGI).  CGI is the regional partner of Common Ground Alliance that has established consensus standards (best practices) to prevent underground facility damages.  IAMU participated in two CGI vendor events this past month to get the word out to agriculture on the One Call requirements for farming operations.   

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Most farming operators and contractors have heard of the 811 requirement to call but it is amazing that they really don’t know when they are supposed to call.   Here are the One Call requirements for farming operations:

Iowa law does not exempt farmers from making notifications to the Iowa One call System prior to engaging in a variety of farming operations. Iowa farmers are required to notify Iowa One Call prior to engaging in any of the following operations:

• --All drain tiling operations
• --All terracing operations
• --All operations that penetrate the soil more than fifteen (15) inches in depth:
• --Chisel plowing more 15 inches in depth
• --Sub-soiling more 15 inches in depth
• --Ripping more 15 inches in depth
• --Other operations penetrating the soil more than 15 inches in depth
• --Digging or driving a post in a new location other than replacing a post in its existing location.

Asking farmers if they know to call 811, the answer would be yes.  But when pressed about when they are penetrating the soil more than 15 inches or when they are digging a new post hole they were amazed they had to call 811. 

What this tells us is that we as a utility are getting the message out about calling 811, but farm operations still don’t know for what circumstances they should call.  Utilities that have gas, electric, broadband lines in farm right-a-ways or in the fields this could be critical.  You might need to change your messaging that we are sending out to our farm operations.