Down With the Poles? Up With The Costs

Calling Miss Utility, a clearinghouse that aims to help construction companies avoid cutting utility lines, is just the beginning of the process to avoid damage while digging. While utility mapping has improved in recent years, the reality is that in many urban areas, the underground network is so tangled, and underground records so inaccurate, it's amazing repair crews can function at all.

When utilities went underground beginning in the late 1960s, much of the documentation was on an "as-planned" basis, rather than an "as-installed" basis. On-site zigs and zags to get around pipes, tree roots or buried structures often were not transferred to utility maps.

For example, in the community of Wilton Hall, south of Alexandria, built with underground utilities in the early 1970s, a recent project required workers to dig more than a dozen test holes in Janice Simmons's yard to accurately locate water pipes and gas lines so they were not damaged in the repair process.

"It was a mess," said Simmons, whose lawn was torn up and whose son couldn't use the backyard swing set for several weeks.

No single map shows all underground utilities in a community , said Barny Ratliff, vice president of Pike Electric Inc. in Mount Airy, N.C. Cable, telephone and electricity all have their own mapping systems. "There are a lot of utilities going underground, all looking for a corridor," he said.

Ratliff noted that while electrical lines are often located 30 to 36 inches below ground, once landscaping is done or berms are built, "some older cables may now be seven feet below ground." Cable locating devices start to lose reliability beyond four feet, he said, although technology is rapidly developing more efficient ways to find underground utilities, such as ground-penetrating radar.

The lifespan of overhead utilities is estimated to be 50 years, while those put underground back in the early 1970s were expected to last 30 years.

With new technologies and better materials, today's underground utilities are expected to last considerably longer. The telecommunications industry's switch to fiber optics will provide longer lasting, more reliable service, and fiber optic cable is considerably smaller, requiring smaller conduits. It is less intrusive, presents less risk of damage to other utilities, and if damaged, can be fixed more quickly than copper, said Creager, noting that Verizon's fiber optic installations now exceed those of copper lines by 4 to 1.

Technology should eventually make installation, mapping and repairing of underground utilities easier and less costly. In the meantime, Mary Wharton, a real estate agent in Alexandria, noted one oft-overlooked advantage of overhead utilities: "If there were no telephone poles, where would you put your yard sale signs?"