WHAT'S IN THE EXTENT?
While there are many pieces of information gathered during the locate request process, one of the most under, or over, utilized pieces is the “extent” field. The over or under issue depends on which side of the ticket you are on.
“The extent field is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle that is a JULIE locate request,” said Dave Van Wy, JULIE’s Damage Prevention Manager in Northern Illinois. “As always, pre-marking the path or area is a great way to minimize the scope within the verbalized extent field.”
As an excavator, “locate entire area” or “locate ROW to ROW” may be overutilization and those same phrases are quite possibly underutilization if looked at by the member facility locator. Some projects require the phrase, but most do not and this causes a huge strain on the finite resources that are the time and manpower required to facilitate the marking of underground lines. Any mark placed by a utility locator that is not disturbed by excavation within 20 plus feet could be considered a waste of time for the locator. In addition, make sure that the contact and phone number are both accurate on every locate request.
The Act (220 ILCS 50/10) has stipulations about what is reasonable to request because of size and or time. There are numerous reasons given for asking for the “entire” something, including: