As used in KRS § 367.4903 to KRS § 367.4917:
(1) “Underground facility” means an underground line or system used for producing, storing, conveying, transmitting, or distributing telecommunications, electricity, gas, petroleum, petroleum products, cable television, hazardous liquids, water, steam, or sewerage, including storm drainage;
(2) “Damage” means weakening of structural or lateral support or penetration of a facility coating, housing, or other protective device. It also means the partial or complete dislocation or severance of underground facilities or rendering any underground facility permanently inaccessible by the placement of a permanent structure having one (1) or more stories;
(3) “Demolition” means any operation by which a structure or mass of material is wrecked, razed, moved, or removed by means of mechanized equipment, or discharge of explosives;
(4) “Excavator” means any entity or individual, other than those exempted by KRS
367.4915, engaged in excavation, demolition, or timber harvesting using mechanized equipment;
(5) “Operator” means any entity or individual owning or operating underground facilities to serve the public, but does not include any entity or individual owning or operating underground storage tanks that are subject to Subchapter 60 of KRS Chapter 224;
(6) “Excavation” means any activity that results in the movement, placement, probing, boring, or removal of earth, rock, or other material in or on the ground by the use of any tools or equipment, by the discharge of explosives, or by the harvesting of timber using mechanized equipment. Forms of excavating include but are not limited to auguring, backfilling, digging, ditching, drilling, driving, grading, piling, pulling-in, ripping, scraping, trenching, and tunneling. Driving wooden stakes by use of hand tools to a depth of six (6) inches or less below existing grade shall not constitute excavation;
(7) “Emergency” means there exists substantial likelihood that loss of life or property, the inability to restore interrupted utility service, an imminent danger to health or the environment, or the blockage of public transportation facilities will result before procedures required under KRS § 367.4909 to KRS § 367.4913 can be completed;
(8) “Protection notification center” means an operator-provided notification center through which an excavator can contact the operator to enable the operator to provide the excavator with the approximate location of underground facilities;
(9) “Kentucky Contact Center” means Kentucky Underground Protection, Inc., organized as a nonprofit corporation and a multimember protection notification center providing a single telephone contact number and designated by the Kentucky Public Service Commission to be the sole recipient of 811 dialed calls through which an excavator may contact all Kentucky Contact Center members and all affected member operators may receive information to enable them to provide the excavator with the approximate location of underground facilities;
(10) “Routine road maintenance” means preservation, including road repairs and resurfacing, and the replacement of signs, posts, and guardrails at the exact same location when no additional penetration of existing grade is necessary, but does not include road construction, installation of signs, posts, and guardrails, or any activity that requires penetration of existing grade;
(11) “Approximate location,” when referring to an underground facility, means:
(a) For underground metallic facilities and underground nonmetallic facilities with metallic tracer wire, a distance not to exceed the combined width of the underground facility plus twenty-four (24) inches measured from the outer edge of each side of the underground facility; or
(b) For unmapped or untonable facilities, the underground facility shall be located as accurately as possible from field location records and shall require notification from the operator of the inability to accurately locate the facility;
(12) “Working day” means every day, except Saturday, Sunday, and holidays established by federal or state statute. For purposes of measuring any period of time prescribed or allowed under the Underground Facility Damage Prevention Act of 1994, a working day shall commence at 12:01 a.m. eastern time and end at 12 midnight eastern time excluding the day the locate request was made;
(13) “Nonintrusive excavating” means excavation using hand tools or equipment that uses air or water pressure as the direct means to break up soil for removal by hand tools or vacuum excavation;
(14) “Mechanized equipment” means mechanical power equipment, including trenchers, bulldozers, power shovels, augers, backhoes, scrapers, drills, cable and pipe plows, skidders, and yarders;
(15) “Normal excavation locate request” means a notification made to a protection notification center where a request for locating utility facilities is processed;
(16) “Emergency locate request” means a notification made to a protection notification center by an excavator to alert facility owners or operators of the need to begin immediate excavation in response to an emergency;
(17) “Design information request” means a notification made to a protection notification center by a person providing professional services and making a request in preparation for bidding, preconstruction engineering, or other advance planning efforts. A design information request may not be used for excavation purposes;
(18) “Large project request” means an area of excavation occurring on or after July 1,
2016, measuring more than two thousand (2,000) feet in length. Multiple excavation notifications in an area may be considered together in determining if the excavations are part of a large project;
(19) “Commission” means the Kentucky Public Service Commission;
(20) “Person” means an individual, an entity, a foreign entity, or other legal or commercial entity;
(21) “Positive response” means an automated or written communication system provided by each protection notification center for all locate requests the center receives pursuant to KRS § 367.4909 that allows excavators, locators, operators, and other
interested parties to determine the status of locating an underground facility and requires response and verification by operators and excavators to comply with their respective requirements of the Underground Facility Damage Prevention Act of
1994;
(22) “Unique identification number” or “locate request number” means a unique number that any protection notification center or operator pursuant to KRS § 367.4913 has assigned to a locate request for excavation;
(23) “Locator” means any entity or individual that locates lines or facilities for an operator;
(24) “Second notice” means a notice that is made by an excavator to a notification center when an operator has failed to comply with the positive response requirements under KRS § 367.4909(5);
(25) “Tolerance zone” means a strip of land at least four (4) feet wide but not wider than the width of the underground facility plus two (2) feet on either side of the outer limits of the facility;
(26) “Untonable facility” means an underground facility that cannot be located from the surface using locating methods which meet industry standards and that requires additional efforts and extended time;
(27) “Work site contact” means an individual that will be present at the excavation site when the excavation will occur; and
(28) “Fiber-to-the-premises” means a service that provides network connectivity between a location and a subscriber using fiber.
Effective: January 1, 2022
History: Amended 2021 Ky. Acts ch. 80, sec. 1, effective January 1, 2022. — Amended
2018 Ky. Acts ch. 70, sec. 2, effective July 14, 2018. — Amended 2015 Ky. Acts ch.
31, sec. 1, effective June 24, 2015. — Amended 2014 Ky. Acts ch. 100, sec. 1, effective July 15, 2014. — Amended 2012 Ky. Acts ch. 137, sec. 1, effective July 12,
2012. — Amended 2008 Ky. Acts ch. 180, sec. 1, effective July 15, 2008. — Amended
2000 Ky. Acts ch. 222, sec. 1, effective July 14, 2000. — Created 1994 Ky. Acts ch.
425, sec. 2, effective January 1, 1995.