Some contractors in northeastern Ontario are saying their construction projects are being held up one to three months as they wait for utility companies to identify their underground infrastructure such as natural gas and hydro water lines.
In Ontario, anyone who wants to dig is required to go through Ontario One Call. That agency then contacts respective utility companies that have underground infrastructure at the site. It is a law that each company has five days to provide details on where the infrastructure is located or they will be penalized. No work can take place until the locates are all labelled.
CBC reports that according to the president of the Timmins Construction Association, builders have been waiting between one and three months for locate requests on construction projects.
In construction, a locate is a marking on the ground that shows the location of underground infrastructure.
"A locate has to be done legally so that people know what's in the ground from wires to gas lines so that nobody does get hurt. In turn this is really affecting the livelihood of contractors because of the small window to do their construction time within. These delays with locate requests are creating a ripple effect with deadlines and budgets for builders."
"Say we're supposed to be done by September 1st and we have two months of excavating to do and the line locates aren't done in the proper amount of time. That job ends up being delayed and penalties can come back to the contractor."
President of Timmins Construction Association | Jamie Clarke
The City of Timmins was forced to wait three weeks for utilities to conduct infrastructure locates on a section of Algonquin Boulevard before it could proceed with work on a connecting link.
Clarke stated that he is worried that people are going to get fed up with waiting and start digging without knowing what's in the ground and that could be catastrophic.
PiPa News states that Ian Simpson, director of marketing and training for Ontario One Call said utilities should do their best to identify underground infrastructure within five business days if a contractor wants to dig in a specific area. It is not a guarantee that it will be done, but it is something they are legally required to do. There could be four or five different communications in the excavation area and each of these utilities are responsible for sending someone to the area or to tell them its ok to dig there. When that happens, the utility company provides the excavator with paperwork that allows them to continue to work.
"You, as an excavator or digger, cannot continue until each of these utilities provides this location. Sometimes some of these utilities can be a little late and you need to wait for this utility to complete its locate work before you can continue. Late or delayed location fixes are an ongoing problem not only in Ontario, but also in other provinces with similar legislation. This is bad for the economy. It's bad for the parties involved to try to dig."
"Staffing problems with utilities often cause delays too. They need to make sure they have enough resources before the start of the excavation season, which usually starts in April and lasts until October and beyond, in order to have enough resources to meet demand. They need to find a way to educate more people quickly, and since this is a highly skilled profession, it can take a long time for them to pay off."
Dir. of Marketing & Training for Ontario One Call | Ian Simpson
Several changes have been made to Ontario law to help eliminate delays in whereabouts requests. These include:
- Expansion of the validity period at the location
- Several contractors working on the same project may share a location
- There may be a dedicated locator for multiple utilities working on a larger project
Danny Whalen, president of the Federation of Municipalities of Northern Ontario and councilor for the city of Themiscumming Shores said delays from utilities discovering their underground infrastructure has slowed the ability to build homes and repair municipal infrastructure.
Whalen discussed the issue with several provincial ministers while attending an Association of Ontario Municipalities conference in Ottawa last week. He and other provincial ministers made a suggestion that they could train municipal employees about this and they were very receptive to the idea.
