Own Your Safety
News & Insights

April 1 has long marked an important moment in the damage prevention calendar for many years as Dig Safe month. This year is no exception. After years of field experience, industry engagement, and program development, Own Your Safety is preparing to take the next step in advancing how private and public infrastructure risk is understood and managed.

In March 2025, Own Your Safety expanded its training program beyond Ontario with the launch of Know Before You Dig – Private & Public Utility Infrastructure Awareness (North America). The program reflects the shared challenges faced across jurisdictions when working near buried infrastructure, particularly on private property, and was designed to focus on understanding, judgment, and risk recognition rather than region-specific compliance.

In February 2025, Own Your Safety formally relaunched its Ontario training program under the updated name Know Before You Dig – Private & Public Utility Infrastructure Awareness (Ontario). While the program builds on foundations established in 2018, the relaunch reflects significant updates made over a seven-year period, including changes to legislation, industry practices, and the evolving realities of both public and private utility locating. The revised course represents a substantive modernization of the original program while maintaining its core focus on understanding buried infrastructure risk before ground disturbance begins.

Utility damage prevention is not learned from a rulebook. It is learned through experience, often the hard way. This article traces the real-world path that led to the development of modern private locate guidance, Utility Infrastructure Awareness training, and the Know Before You Dig philosophy.

Beginning in the early 1990s, the author’s work in environmental consulting involved subsurface investigations carried out with limited or unreliable utility information. Repeated encounters with unmarked, misidentified, or undocumented buried facilities exposed a systemic gap in how excavation risk was being managed across North America. These incidents were not the result of reckless behavior, but of an industry that lacked consistent training, clear roles, reliable records, and a practical understanding of locate limitations.

Through years of field experience, utility locating, damage investigations, and client education, it became clear that damage prevention requires more than obtaining a locate ticket. It requires understanding utility structures, recognizing uncertainty, verifying information, and managing risk collaboratively between excavators, locators, and property owners.

This article explains how those lessons shaped the creation of formal training programs and private locate guidelines designed to address the human, technological, and work site factors that continue to drive utility damages today. It reinforces a central message: true damage prevention begins with knowledge, accountability, and a commitment to owning safety before ground disturbance begins.

When a buried facility is missed and damaged, the first question is almost always, “Who is responsible?” The answer is rarely simple.

Responsibility for a missed utility locate depends on the roles, actions, and decisions of multiple parties involved in the public and private locate processes. In my experience investigating utility damage claims for insurers, lawyers, and asset owners, most incidents are not caused by a single reckless act. They are the result of miscommunication, missing information, misunderstood roles, and unmanaged limitations.

This article outlines the distinct responsibilities of public locators, private locators, private landowners, and excavators, and explains how liability may arise when any one of these parties fails to fulfill their role. Understanding these responsibilities is essential for reducing risk, assigning accountability fairly, and preventing damage before ground disturbance begins.

Private utility locating on private property presents one of the most misunderstood and unmanaged risks in ground disturbance work across North America. Unlike public locates, private locates operate in an environment with limited regulation, inconsistent information, and unclear role ownership. As a result, private locate accuracy is often compromised, not due to lack of technical capability, but due to missing records, lack of access, and insufficient landowner support.

This guideline was developed to clearly define the roles, responsibilities, and information requirements necessary to perform accurate private utility locates. It outlines the expectations of excavators, private landowners, and private locate service providers, and establishes a consistent methodology for conducting private locates under both supported and unsupported conditions.

By documenting common limitations, defining minimum information requirements, and establishing a practical step by step locate methodology, this guideline provides a risk based framework to help reduce facility damages, clarify accountability, and support informed decision making before ground disturbance begins.

Schedule pressure, delayed locates, and client demands routinely place ground disturbance professionals in difficult positions. Across North America, excavators are often asked to proceed without complete locate information, rely on assurances from owners or internal teams, or accept liability shifting language that provides no real protection when an incident occurs.

This article examines common real world scenarios where pressure to proceed conflicts with safe and compliant locating practices. It reinforces a core principle that has remained consistent throughout the evolution of industry best practices: no schedule, assumption, or written assurance replaces the requirement to understand what exists below ground before work begins. Managing expectations, not cutting corners, is essential to protecting workers, the public, and those directing the work.

In 2020, industry delegates were once again cautioned that private land locates remain one of the most significant unresolved risks in ground disturbance work. Coverage from the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association conference reinforced concerns that have existed for years around responsibility, competency, and consistency in private utility locating. This article reflects on that recognition, why the issue persists, and how it aligns with long-standing industry observations about private property risk.

Across North America, regulations and best practices consistently require hand digging or hand exposure within the tolerance zone when working near buried infrastructure. However, very few documents explain how hand digging should actually be performed in the field. This gap has created a false sense of safety around hand excavation and continues to contribute to preventable buried facility damages.

This guideline addresses that gap by outlining practical, field proven methods for safely hand exposing buried facilities, both directly above and alongside known infrastructure. It clarifies the limitations of hand digging, reinforces the importance of utility owner specific requirements, and highlights why hand excavation should be treated as a precision task rather than a low risk activity.

By providing clear, actionable guidance, this article reflects early principles that later became formalized in industry best practices and training programs. Understanding how to hand dig safely within the tolerance or hand exposure zone is a critical component of due diligence and an essential step toward truly owning safety when performing ground disturbance activities.

The ORCGA 2018 Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) data reveals a critical truth about damage prevention in Ontario. While public awareness campaigns have successfully reduced incidents where excavators fail to request locates, the majority of buried facility damages continue to occur after locates have been obtained.

This article examines why 75 percent of reported damages happen despite compliance with the One Call process and identifies the underlying human, technological, and work site risk factors that influence the quality of locate information and excavation decisions. It highlights a fundamental gap between regulatory compliance and real world competency.

True damage prevention requires more than marks on the ground and paperwork. It requires excavators, supervisors, and those directing work to understand utility infrastructure, interpret locate information in context, and take ownership of safety through proper training and situational awareness. Utility Infrastructure Awareness training was developed to address this gap and support safer outcomes across the excavation industry.

Competency in excavation is often assumed, rarely verified, and frequently misunderstood. For asset owners and organizations that hire or direct excavation work, relying on experience alone is not enough. When buried facilities are involved, a lack of understanding of the public and private locate process can expose workers, owners, and the public to significant risk.

True competency requires more than equipment skills. It requires knowledge of how locate systems work, what locate reports do and do not tell you, and how to recognize when conditions on site do not make sense.

Public and private utility locates rely on similar technical methods, but the risks associated with each are fundamentally different. The key distinction lies not in the equipment used, but in ownership, information availability, and accountability.

Understanding these differences is essential for excavators, property owners, supervisors, and anyone responsible for ground disturbance. When private locates are treated the same as public locates, critical gaps in information, access, and support can lead to increased risk, incomplete locates, and preventable damages.

When ground disturbance occurs on private property, commercial and industrial property owners play a critical and often misunderstood role in damage prevention and worker safety. While contractors, locators, and utility owners each have responsibilities, property owners cannot delegate accountability for privately owned buried utility infrastructure.

This article outlines the essential steps property owners should take to reduce risk, support due diligence, and ensure that locate information, site conditions, and underground realities align before any work begins. Understanding what exists below ground, and how it connects to visible structures above ground, is foundational to owning safety on private property.

Locate reports are a critical part of damage prevention, but they do not make a work site safe on their own. True due diligence requires understanding what should be on a locate report, what may be missing, and how above ground utility structures signal what exists below ground. Organizations and workers cannot rely solely on paperwork to manage risk. Safety is owned by those performing the work, and ownership starts with knowledge.

In 2018, Daily Commercial News featured Own Your Safety and its founder, Grant Piraine, recognizing the growing risk associated with buried utility infrastructure and the lack of practical training for those performing ground disturbance work. This coverage validated a problem that had long existed in the industry: compliance alone does not keep workers safe. Understanding what is buried below ground, how locate information is generated, and where its limitations exist is essential to preventing serious incidents and fatalities.

April 1, 2018 marks the launch of Utility Infrastructure Awareness training through Own Your Safety. Introduced during Dig Safe Month, the course establishes a structured approach to helping workers understand buried infrastructure risk, locate limitations, and the realities of ground disturbance work. This training sets the foundation for a new way of thinking about safety that goes beyond procedural compliance.

Workplace fatalities and serious injuries continue to occur despite increased regulation, awareness campaigns, and safety legislation. In ground disturbance work, the most severe risks are often invisible and misunderstood. This article reflects on the National Day of Mourning and reinforces a core Own Your Safety principle: people cannot protect themselves from hazards they do not understand. True safety begins with knowledge, not assumption, and responsibility cannot be delegated to systems, paperwork, or others.

In damage prevention, no one is more responsible for safety than the person performing the work. While regulations, locate systems, and procedures play a role, they do not replace personal accountability.

“Own Your Safety” reflects a simple but often overlooked truth: understanding what is below ground is the foundation of every safe decision made on a job site. Others may provide information, but the responsibility to understand, question, and act safely ultimately rests with the individual and the organization performing the work.

This article outlines why knowledge precedes accountability, how compliance alone has failed to reduce risk, and why safety must be owned, not delegated.