Nearly 440,000 excavation-related damages to U.S. underground facilities occurred in 2017, up 5.5 percent from 2016, according to the Common Ground Alliance’s latest Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT). Half all reported damages occurred between June and September, with August logging the most total damages in 2017.
While estimated damages increased year over year from 2015 to 2016 and again from 2016 to 2017, damages effectively plateaued during this three-year span when considering the increase in construction spending and excavation activity.
Among all damage reports with an identified and known root cause, 52.2 percent occurred because of insufficient excavation practices (e.g., deciding to dig without calling 811 because workers thought their project was too shallow interfere with buried utilities).
Visit commongroundalliance.com/dirt for an interactive DIRT dashboard offering analysis of root causes and state activity.
