Shared Responsibility
Damages to underground infrastructures can usually be avoided since they are often the result of a missing link in the damage prevention process. When various stakeholders within a construction or renovation project adopt Best Practices, better is the chance of seeing the project carried out without incidents or damages.
Damage prevention is a shared responsibility for all stakeholders.
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Designing a project, placing a locate request with the notification center, locating underground infrastructures, safe digging practices respected by excavators, developing appropriate mapping as well as raising awareness to different targeted groups are all interlinked stages of the damage prevention process.
Damages to underground infrastructures can result in the disruption of essential services for the citizen. It can also translate into significant impacts on the environment as well as jeopardize worker and public safety. Even if there have been no serious injuries related to damages of underground infrastructures in Quebec, the situation is quite different in other provinces and in certain countries where many were injured and some even found death.
Telecommunication cables, water lines and drainage systems, electrical cables as well as natural gas pipelines are among essential services that can all be disrupted by damages. Costs for repairing underground networks are easily measurable, social or indirect costs, on the other hand, are much harder to quantify but are just as important.
Just like sustainable development is first and foremost a social choice by placing human beings at the heart of our attention, damage prevention to underground infrastructures is a social choice as well.