Dig Safe safety seminar co-sponsored by CIRI.

February 26 event held in conjunction with National Grid.

A free service funded entirely by its member utility companies, Dig Safe® is a not-for-profit clearinghouse that notifies participating utility companies of contractors’ plans to dig underground. On February 26 at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick, approximately 400 attendees benefitted from a four-hour seminar which covered a number of topics including:

Attendees speaking to Lisa Powers of Dig Safe/M.U.S.T and Tim Sullivan of National Grid.

• The potential hazards of utility damage from unsafe excavation
• Laws and rules governing the notification and marking process
• Best practices for working safely around underground facilities
• Pre-marking and marking techniques
• The enforcement process for underground digging violations

Speakers at this Managing Underground Safety Training (M.U.S.T.) seminar included Lisa Powers, Dig Safe public relations director and regional chair of M.U.S.T., Tim Sullivan, National Grid public awareness liaison for pipeline safety and compliance, Stephen A. Cardi II, CIRI president and Peter Robbins, CIRI safety director.

During the 2018 excavation season, the Dig Safe 811 call center processed 586,132 digging requests over the five-state region it serves (MA, ME, NH, RI & VT) — including 45,624 requests in Rhode Island alone. In 2016, the service added Google street data to its mapping database to further refine the location accuracy of its request tickets.