Spring has officially sprung in Minnesota, and you know what that means - digging season has arrived. With increased excavation comes increased excavation-related hazards, something we at Gopher State One Call (GSOC) are keenly aware of. To help combat these hazards, every spring GSOC hosts a series of free educational meetings throughout Minnesota. They’re an important tool in keeping the excavator community of greater Minnesota informed and apprised of the newest changes to excavation law, safe digging best practices, and improved ways to file locate requests. They also allow GSOC to get some much needed face time with our valued partners in damage prevention.
This year GSOC kicked off the tour at the Hutchinson Event Center on Feb 28th, with over 200 registrants. Altogether we’ve conducted over 30 meetings this year, ranging as far north as Baudette and as far south as Austin. Several important topics were covered, including the importance of using Meet tickets to reduce the frequency of ticket updates, the proper procedure for white-marking your dig site, and how to handle private facilities in your work area. We were also able to highlight a number of new educational and outreach materials, which can be found in the links below.
Although we’ve completed this cycle of damage prevention meetings, we’re eager to help Minnesotans dig safely. As such, we’ve made a wide variety of materials available to you in our resource center. We also host ITIC Webinars year-round to help get you comfortable with filing your locate requests online. Click here to register for an educational webinar in the near future.