State Codes and Statutes
Statutes > Vermont > Title-30 > Chapter-86 > 7001
§ 7001. Definitions
In this chapter:
(1) "Board" means the public service board.
(2) "Company" means any public utility company which supplies gas, electricity, or telecommunications service and which maintains underground utility facilities, and any cable television company operating a cable television system as defined in section 501 of this title and which maintains underground utility facilities.
(3) "Damage" includes, but is not limited to, the substantial weakening of structural or lateral support of an underground utility facility, penetration or destruction of any underground utility facility's protective coating, housing or device, or the partial or complete severance of any underground utility facility.
(4) "Excavation activities" means activities involving the removal of earth, rock or other materials in the ground, disturbing the subsurface of the earth, or the demolition of any structure, by the discharge of explosives or the use of powered or mechanized equipment, including but not limited to digging, trenching, blasting, boring, drilling, hammering, post driving, wrecking, razing, or tunneling, within 100 feet of an underground utility facility. Excavation activities shall not include the tilling of the soil for agricultural purposes, routine home gardening with hand tools outside easement areas and public rights-of-way, activities relating to routine public highway maintenance, or the use of hand tools by a company, or the company's agent or a contractor working under the agent's direction, to locate or service the company's facilities, provided the company has a written damage prevention program.
(5) "Person" means any individual, trust, firm, joint stock company, corporation including a government corporation, partnership, association, state, municipality, commission, political subdivision of the state, or any interstate body.
(6) "Public agency" means the state or any political subdivision thereof, including any governmental agency.
(7) "Approximate location of underground utility facilities" means a strip of land extending not more than 18 inches on either side of the underground utility facilities.
(8) "System" means the public utility underground facility damage prevention system referred to in section 7002 of this title.
(9) "Underground utility facility" or "facility" means any pipe, conduit, wire or cable located beneath the surface of the earth and maintained by a company, including the protective covering of the pipe, conduit, wire or cable, as well as any manhole, vault or pedestal maintained by a company.
(10) "Premark" means to identify the general scope of excavation activities using white paint, stakes or other suitable white markings, in a manner that will enable the operators of the underground utility facilities to know the boundaries of the proposed excavation activities.
(11) "Powered or mechanized equipment" means equipment that is powered or energized by any motor, engine, or hydraulic or pneumatic device and that is used for excavation or demolition work.
(12) "Hand tools" means tools powered solely by human energy.
(13) "Verified" means the location and depth have seen physically determined by hand digging.
(14) "Damage prevention program" means a program established to ensure employees involved in excavation activities are aware of and utilize appropriate and safe excavating practices. (Added 1987, No. 86, § 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1988; amended 1993, No. 118 (Adj. Sess.), § 1; 2001, No. 51, § 1; 2003, No. 56, § 56, eff. June 4, 2003; 2007, No. 145 (Adj. Sess.), § 1.)
