SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of ISM Radio Um Gage. And we are here tonight at ISM's executive networking event in the library at Ohica Castle. And I have the pleasure of sitting here tonight with Roger Sampson, the executive director of New York 811. Welcome to Ohica Castle. Thanks for joining us tonight.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Give me the opportunity to talk a little bit about New York 811.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Yeah, no doubt about it. You know, we just talked, uh, you you heard a couple of guys in there, and uh, just did a podcast with Anthony from uh one of the f local fence companies, and we talked about it, you know. Everybody knows the sign, call before you dig. But I don't think they understand how important that sign really is. And we just talked about it off air of the implications that you know what can happen if you don't, and somebody does something with an excavator and causes some damage, you know, there's so many things that can go wrong. So why don't we touch on a few of those uh now and let people know why they should call New York 811?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Well, you know, just from the basic safety aspect of it, um uh damage to a utility, gas line, electric line, uh could have uh real bad consequences. Uh you hit a gas line, uh you could cause a leak uh that could be ignited and lead to an explosion. Lead to an explosion. Or you could do something, some something as simple as maybe pull the gas line out from the meter that is inside the house, and you don't realize it. And the house fills up with gas, and next thing you know, uh an ignition source and you have a light a stove and now a catastrophic explosion. Oh my god. Um we don't like to think about that, but that is definitely a reality and a possibility. And there's there's numerous cases across the country that have uh uh had situations like that. Not to mention that if you uh uh damage an electric line, there's the potential of electrocution. Right. Um those are the big safety aspects of it that go into why it's so important to make that call, to contact us uh to get those utility lines marked. Uh but other things such as communication cables uh have a big impact. Um we rely heavily on the internet, we rely heavily on communication cables. So if we knock out a communication cable or if an excavator fails to call and knocks out a communication, well that's a big inconvenience. Um new cables are expensive. Exactly. You have fiber optic cables, fiber optic. You have E911, which is the emergency 911 system that runs off of those communication cables. So you could knock out E911 for a whole community if you're not paying attention and not following the rules and the state law. Um, New York 811 is mandated by state law.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Uh so excavators, professional excavators, are required to make that contact to New York 811. Um, when they make that contact, they are providing all the information relative to where they're doing the excavation, what type of excavation, what type of equipment, and that gets relayed to the utilities, all of the utilities that are particularly in that area. Um the utilities take that information and they send out, um locate technicians and locate where those facilities are. And if you've ever been driving around and you've seen marks on the street, um different colors uh denote different utilities, um that's that's the New York 811 system in progress. Right. Uh those marks on the ground uh basically tell the excavator that there is something under there that they have to be uh cautious of.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Right. They have that pole in their hand with the upside-down spray paint can, and they're making the arrows and they're drawing lines and showing you where these utilities are.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Absolutely. Um, you know, we we you know that there's everything from sewers to water, water mains to telecommunications, gas, electric. Um it it covers a wide um array of utilities. Um and as I said, it it's mandated by law. So all anybody who or any company that owns underground utilities are required by law to be a member of New York 811.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

So we have uh close to 200 members that get notifications, that want to get notifications. Uh we have everything from the guide dog uh foundation of Smithtown, okay, who have a facility that they want to be notified, uh all the way up to the major players of National Grid, Con Edison, Verizon Communicates, B S C and G, all the big companies who utilize our service. Uh and when an excavation is happening, um we notify them, um, and that's our job. Uh we also do marketing, we do outreach, we do education. Um, so we encompass a very broad swath of services um as being part of New York 811.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Sure, we've all seen those signs. Everybody's seen a sign that says call before you date out of it. Absolutely. You'd have to live under a rock if you didn't see one of those signs. Seriously.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

100%. We do radio advertising, we do print media advertising, we do social media advertising. Uh, we hold special events 811 Day, which is August 11th. Okay. Uh, we hold a special event out at our corporate headquarters. Uh, we do an excavation safety expo, which is an industry-specific uh exposition where we bring all stakeholders together and we learn about new technologies, uh, new processes, any potential legislation that might impact uh our stakeholders.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Now, what is a turnaround time? You know, people call up, they're gonna get, you know, I you know, people thought maybe it's a week, maybe it's two weeks, I gotta wait for 811. It's really not that long.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

No, um, actually, uh, when you make the call, um, the utility has uh two full business days to mark out where their facility is in relation to the excavation. Um it's actually two full business days to 10 business days for the excavator to actually start the excavation. So within that time frame, um, it's a very short turnaround. Sure. The excavator um will get all of the notifications from the utilities as to the status of where they are on their locations. Um when they when the utility gets it, they send the locating. Sometimes some utilities use locate contractors who actually their only job is to go out and mark out where those facilities are. And some utilities actually do it themselves, have their own employees mark out where their location is. Um once those are done, and again, this is prescribed by law, the utilities respond back to the excavator to say that your location request has been completed.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

So it's been fulfilled, it's been marked. Correct. You're good to go, you're clear to proceed with work.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Exactly, exactly. And that is so important. That aspect of it is so important to give that excavator the uh frame of mind to know.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

He's not taking out a utility line based on what you told him to dig because you want a hot tub over here.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

You know, that's that's crazy to think about that this does happen.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah, what 100%. I mean, it it's it's one of those things that we may take for granted, but it's so necessary. In uh, you know, we look at New York City and Long Island, we have one of the most vast infrastructures, underground infrastructures in the entire country, quite possibly the world. Right. Uh when you look at uh areas like Manhattan, the five boroughs, even Long Island, right uh with the densely populated uh areas that we have, we have a vast amount of underground infrastructure, and that needs to be protected. And making that call is the first step in protecting those infrastructures. Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

It was in the 80s they started putting cable underground for television. It was you talked about it with Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Absolutely. Um yeah, I mean when you look back, um New York City, interesting fact, was the first uh city to actually bury, start to bury their infrastructure. Um there are photos out there of uh millions of lines crossing in the overhead, what we call the overhead, the aerial. Um there were tons of lines, and it looked like a spaghetti mass. Um New York City back in the turn of the century had the wherewithal to recognize that that was unsustainable, and they started to put the uh facilities underground. That created a different uh problem um all through the 60s and the 70s, um, where excavation activity started to pick up. Right. And um there needed to be a national effort uh to address this. Um from a national uh point of view, um they they left that role to the individual states to create what we call a one-call notification law.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Um and what's the birth of 811, New York NY811?

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Right, right. 811 is the national number. Okay. So no matter where you are in the country, if you're doing an excavation, you call 811. Right, you will get the local uh in your area state notification center. Right. Um, so that was actually a relatively new um um policy uh in the advent. That was actually done in the 90s, uh 2000s, uh, where 811 actually became a prominent number of the three-digit number. Um, so but prior to that, what excavators used to have to do was to call each utility individually.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Wow, yeah, that's gotta be a nightmare. It was, it was a probably made everything more proficient to be able to call one place, get it all done.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Right. And that was the advent of the what we call the one call. Sure. Uh one call does it all. It gets you all of the utilities who are members and gets you that notification out to them so that they can mark their facilities. Made it easy for the excavator. And by the way, that that process is free to the excavator. Excavator doesn't bear any cost in that.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Right. Now, this isn't just on personal properties. You got to remember when the internet first came out and they brought T1s and T3 lines that they were running across the entire state. Absolutely. You had major corporations that were construction companies that were digging these up that had to call, and now where are they calling? You know, how did this happen?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

It was it was uh New York State uh basically uh put the responsibility into the utility operators. Wow. So the utility operators put formed this organization, uh, what we know now as New York 811, which is a non-for-profit organization. Sure. Uh and it is run by a board of directors. I report to the board of directors, I'm the executive director. I was a serving member on the board of directors. My background comes from Verizon. I was a Verizon employee. Okay, uh, I was a Verizon manager, and I served as a board member representing Verizon as well as the president of the board uh prior to uh becoming the executive director. So I had a uh I had a big hand in um the evolution of this organization to what we are today.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

So so you've seen it grow, so you know what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about T3 lines that don't have to fiber optic now.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

So just to give you an idea of the impact of what we've grown over the years, when I when I came uh onto this organization and I would say it was 2002, uh we had roughly 700,000 notifications a year. Um today uh we are over uh 1.6 million notifications.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

That's unbelievable. Yeah, so it's grown, but it needed to.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

This was a necessity.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

This was built on growth of a necessity because it's something that's needed. Now, when people we're saying it, I you know, we're telling the people to call 811 in your local area, and they should know it's a pretty simple number 811, and that's all you got to dial. It is so is there a website that we could promote that they have to go to?

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Absolutely. You there is a there is a uh uh an enormous amount of information on our web website, which is uh new york-811.com.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

There you go. Um it's got a hyphen and it's got the dash.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Absolutely. And as a matter of fact, with the advent of the internet, um about 90% of our volume is handled uh via internet ticket submission.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

On the website, they could submit a ticket and it gets taken care of there.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Absolutely, absolutely. Um that that is a much more efficient system. Um we have you know uh technology that you know mapping tools that can be very precise into where the excavation site is located. Um that actually creates a lot of efficiencies in the system um for uh utilities to actually know exactly where the excavator is is planning to dig. Sure. Um it works out really, really well.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Now, Roger, this was a this was a very informative podcast, for real. A lot of people are gonna learn from this, you know. And I learned a little bit about 811 sitting with Anthony that you met in there that owns a fence company locally, and uh, you know, he was explaining that people don't just hit sprinkler lines, there's a lot more stuff down there. But this podcast was super informative, helps people learn why it's so important to go call 811 before you dig and why that phrase is in existence. Call before you dig.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Absolutely. Uh we always have an expression. Uh, if if you don't call 811, you might have to call 911.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, and that's not the call you want to make.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

That's not the call you want to make.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

So call 811 first and eliminate that second phone call. There you go. We appreciate you having on the podcast. What do you think of the event here tonight at O'Heek?

SPEAKER_00 15:27

I think it's great. I think it's fantastic. It's a great location. Uh meeting a lot of great uh people that we can network with, and and it's gonna be fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Uh yeah, absolutely. So once a month, ISM hosts an event here. It's called the Executive Networking Event. We bring a few guys into the into the library here, privately like yourself, to sit and talk about and give more of a promotion to and let everybody see you guys online as far as the podcast is concerned. So we greatly appreciate you coming in here and getting on the ASM even. Yeah, no doubt.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Anytime I can talk about New York A11.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Um Yeah, you told me you were gonna have no problem talking about it, and you didn't you didn't let me down. Thank you. So, Roger Engage signing off here at ISM Radio at Ohica Castle. Thanks for tuning in, guys. We'll see you soon. Thanks for listening to ISM Radio. Join us for our invitation only executive networking event at the legendary Ohica Castle. For more information, visit idexpreamarketing.com.