26 Del. C. § 802: Definitions.

As used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:

(1) “Abandoned” means no longer in service or use and physically disconnected from a facility.

(2) “Approved notification center” means the communication system established within this State pursuant to § 807 of this title to:

a. Provide a toll-free number, 811 access, or internet access for excavators or designers or any other person covered by this act to contact facility owner/operators and notify them of their intent to perform excavation.

b. Maintain an owner/operator/excavator information exchange system.

(3) “Backfill” means to fill the void created by excavating.

(4) “Business day” means any day except a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday prescribed by § 501 of Title 1, beginning at 12:01am and ending at 11:59pm.

(5) “Cathodic protection” means the process of arresting corrosion on a buried or submerged structure by electrically reversing the natural chemical reaction. This includes installation of a sacrificial anode bed, use of a rectifier-based system, or any combination of these or similar systems. Wiring is installed between the buried or submerged structure and all anodes and rectifiers; wiring is also installed to test stations that are used to measure the effectiveness of the cathodic protection system.

(6) “Commission” means the Public Service Commission of Delaware.

(7) “Complex project” means a single project, or series of repetitive, small, short-term projects that are related in scope, that impact facilities over a long period of time or a large area.

(8) “Compliance” means adherence to the statute and its regulations.

(9) “Damage” means any impact or exposure that may result in the need to repair an underground facility due to a weakening or the partial or complete destruction of the facility, including the protective coating, tracer wire, lateral support, cathodic protection, or the housing for the facility, device, or facility.

(10) “Demolish or demolition” means any operation by which a structure or mass of material is wrecked, razed, rendered, moved or removed by means of any tools, equipment or discharge of explosives capable of damaging underground or submarine facilities.

(11) “Designer” means any architect, engineer or other person, acting either as an employer or employee, who prepares or issues a drawing for a construction or other project which requires excavation or demolition work.

(12) “Design ticket” means a request for facility information as an aid to design a project that may impact utility facilities when initiated. No excavation can be performed under this ticket.

(13) “Discrepancy” means a lack of compatibility between the facility marks and the physical environment.

(14) “DNREC Regulated Site” means any parcel of land or portion thereof for which a final permit, remediation plan, institutional or administrative control, use restriction or similar limitation is imposed under the authority granted to the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control under Title 7 and for which due process opportunities have been provided.

(15) “Emergency” means a sudden or unforeseen occurrence involving a clear or imminent danger to life, health, or property; the interruption of essential utility services; or the blockage of transportation facilities that requires immediate action.

(16) “Emergency notice” means a communication to the approved notification center to alert the involved underground facility owners or facility operators of the need to excavate as a result of a sudden or unforeseen occurrence, or national emergency, involving a clear and imminent danger to life, health, environment, or property (including the interruption of essential utility services or the blockage of transportation facilities) that requires immediate excavation.

(17) “Engineering control” means man-made controls designed to isolate or contain in the ground waste or materials hazardous to human health and the environment. The term includes all of the following:

a. Hazardous, municipal, residual and radioactive waste landfills.

b. Vaults, repositories, and in-situ stabilization.

c. Caps on residual contamination.

d. Groundwater pump and treatment systems, leachate collection systems and monitoring and containment systems.

(18) “Excavate” or “excavation” means any operation using nonmechanized or mechanized equipment, demolition, or explosives in the movement of earth, rock, or other material below existing grade. It includes augering, blasting, boring, digging, ditching, dredging, drilling, driving-in, grading, plowing-in, pulling-in, ripping, scraping, trenching, and tunneling. It does not include the surface cultivation of the soil for agricultural purposes, such as tilling, or patch-type paving where the same, including cutback, does not exceed 12 inches in depth measured from the surface of the pavement being patched. Unless visible and obvious evidence of the presence of an unmarked facility exists, driving nonmetallic stakes by use of hand tools to a depth of 6 inches or less below existing grade does not constitute excavation.

(19) “Excavation ticket” means a document developed by the approved notification center pursuant to an excavator’s request for underground facilities to be marked. A ticket is valid for 12 business days after the day on which the ticket is transmitted by the approved notification center to a member. On the thirteenth day, the ticket will expire, and an update, remark, or new excavation ticket shall be required.

(20) “Excavator” means any person proposing to engage in or engaging in excavation or demolition work for that person or for another person.

(21) “Facility” means an underground or submerged conductor, pipe, or structure used to provide electric or communications service (including traffic control loops and similar underground or submerged devices); or an underground or submerged pipe used in carrying, providing, or gathering (typically between the wellhead and transmission line) gas, oil or oil product, sewage, water, or other liquid service (including irrigation systems), and appurtenances thereto.

(22) “Facility owner” or “facility operator” means the public utility or agency, political subdivision, municipality, authority, independent homeowner’s association, mobile home park, rural electric cooperative, or other person or entity who owns, operates, or controls the operation of an underground facility. The term does not include the following:

a. A person serving the person’s own property through the person’s own facility if the person does not provide service to any other person.

b. A person using a facility which the person does not own or operate if the facility serves only that person’s property.

(23) “Final design” means the engineering and construction drawings that are provided to a bidder or other person who is asked to initiate construction on the bid date or the date the project is set for construction in the absence of a bid.

(24) “Grade” means the surface of the earth (i.e. ground level) upon which a structure is built or prepared.

(25) “Locate” means to indicate the existence of a line or facility by establishing a mark through the use of stakes, paint, flagging, whiskers, or some other customary manner that approximately determines the location of that facility.

(26) “Locate request” means a communication between an excavator or designer and the approved notification center in which a request for locating underground facilities is processed.

(27) “Locator” means a person whose job is to locate facilities.

(28) “Meeting ticket” means a request for any combination of locators, excavators, designers, or facility owners or facility operators, to assemble on the site and discuss the project or proposed work. Such assembly and discussion must occur on all complex projects. Excavation may not be performed on a meeting ticket. Excavation tickets may not be submitted for the project until after the meeting ticket.

(29) “Notice” means the timely communication by the excavator or designer to the approved notification center that alerts the involved underground facility owner or facility operator of the intent to excavate.

(30) “Owner/operator/excavator information exchange system” means an interactive communication process or processes whereby all facility owners or facility operators that received an excavation notice from the approved notification center respond back to the approved notification center regarding the status or response that the facility owners or facility operators have made to the excavation notice; and whereby the approved notification center may post such notices for use by the excavator making the excavation notice.

(31) “Person” means any individual or public or private legal entity.

(32) “Positive response” means communication with the excavator prior to excavation to ensure that all contacted facility owners or facility operators have located their underground facilities and have appropriately marked any potential conflicts within the areas of planned excavation.

(33) “Private service” means a buried facility wholly owned and operated, on private property, by an entity or individual that is not in the business of providing a product or service via that buried facility.

(34) “Project owner” means any person who or which engages an excavator for any project which requires excavation work.

(35) “Public” means the general population or community at large.

(36) “Site” means the specific place denoted on the locate request when excavation or demolition work is being or is planned to be performed. A site should be denoted as a clearly defined bounded area, including relevant identifiable points of reference such as a specific address with a specific description as to the portion of the property, including descriptions such as front, back, left side as facing, right side as facing and directions such as north, south, east, west, or variants thereof. Where possible, the points should also reference the size and radius or circumference of the excavation, utility pad or pedestal numbers, utility pole numbers, markers, landmarks and the like, and latitude and longitude.

(37) “Staff” means full-time professional employees of, and outside counsel and consultants retained by, the Public Service Commission, who render advice to the Commission. The staff may participate in any Commission proceeding and may advocate particular positions concerning the issues raised in such proceeding and file supporting material and testimony for the Commission’s consideration.

(38) “Test Holes” means the exposure of a facility by safe excavation practices to ascertain the precise horizontal and vertical position of underground facilities. Accepted safe excavation practices vary by local jurisdiction, but the preferred techniques include hand digging with extreme caution and vacuum excavation.

(39) “Ticket” means a numbered document issued by the approved notification center to notify facility owners or facility operators that a person intends to perform excavation or demolition, or a designer has requested information on the location of underground facilities.

(40) “Tolerance zone” means the horizontal space within 24 inches of the outside wall or edge of a facility where special care is to be taken, when located by the facility owner or facility operator. No mechanized equipment will be allowed within the tolerance zone, except to remove the pavement or other manmade hard surface if used during the initial penetration only to the depth necessary and if an individual other than the equipment operator visually monitors the excavation activity. Vacuum excavation will be permitted within the tolerance zone.

(41) “Trenchless technology” means a family of methods, materials, and equipment capable of being used for the installation of new or replacement, or rehabilitation of existing, underground infrastructure that requires excavation with minimal disruption to surface traffic business and other activities. “Trenchless technology” includes:

a. Tunnelling.

b. Microtunnelling,

c. Horizontal directional drilling or directional boring.

d. Pipe ramming.

e. Pipe jacking.

f. Moling.

g. Horizontal auger boring.

h. Any other method for the installation of pipelines and cables below ground with minimal excavation.

(42) “Underground pipeline facility operator” means an operator of a buried pipeline facility used in the transportation of gas, such as propane and natural gas, subject to the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 1968 (49 U.S.C. § 1671 et seq.) [repealed by Act July 5, 1994, P.L. 103-272], or used in the transportation of hazardous liquid subject to the Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Act of 1979 (49 U.S.C. § 2001 et seq.) [repealed by Act July 5, 1994, P.L. 103-272]; underground pipeline facility operators include, without limitation, natural gas, propane gas, master meter, LP gas and interstate and intrastate gas and liquid distribution facility operators as defined by these acts.

(43) “Vacuum excavation” means a means of soil extraction through vacuum. Water or air jet devices are commonly used for breaking the ground.

(44) “White lining” means the process by which an excavator identifies where proposed excavation will occur by marking extents of the excavation area or by drawing a polygon shape on a GIS map. That shape is delivered electronically by the approved notification center to its member facility operators