“Nuclear is a specialty niche,” explains Carl Beitner, operations manager at Elite Pipeline Services. As a contractor, “if you haven’t worked in nuclear, you won't work in nuclear without support. Safety is first and foremost throughout the industry, where even walking is considered working. And to work in nuclear, you must have conscientious, trustworthy employees and a clean record.”

Utility locators use a variety of equipment to perform their job. Locators decide which tools to use based on both the type of work being done and the kind of utility they are trying to locate. Reliable locating technologies keep excavation crews and communities safe from hazardous utility strikes. 

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Utility locating is a necessary service that keeps utilities operational, construction sites efficient, and communities safe. Effective locating requires the cooperation of locators, utilities, diggers (including homeowners, construction crews and contractors), and 811 operators to function correctly.

Utility locating is the process of finding and marking utility assets, such as sewer and gas lines, that are buried underground. Utility locates protect the public from disasters such as gas line explosions or electrocution, which can occur if excavators strike a buried utility. Failure to locate underground assets before any digging project can have serious, even life-threatening consequences. Utility locating services also limit disruptions like power outages, boil-water advisories and evacuations; minimize construction delays; and significantly reduce the possibility of bodily harm occurring on worksites. 

Without looking, there’s no way to know for sure what your sewer cleaning crew will face underground. That makes choosing which jetter nozzle to use mostly a matter of guesswork. And without any pre-inspection visual information on pipe condition, cleaning crews risk wasting their time and money. A 2015 study even found that up to 35% of sewer lines are jetted unnecessarily as part of scheduled cleaning and maintenance. While CCTV crawlers are great inspection tools, they require a lot of manpower and can be pricey to operate on every cleaning job.

Utility locating is more complicated in urban, highly-populated areas where underground utilities are more dense. The population of metropolitan areas in the U.S. increased 9% between 2010 and 2020. However, less than half of all U.S. counties gained population during this period--which means, in general terms, more people are living in denser areas.

These trends suggest that demand for utility locating will only grow, and that locating itself will become a more and more difficult but essential task as time goes on. To meet the country’s changing needs, wastewater, construction and utilities professionals need to invest in understanding and expanding utility locating services.

In the last few years, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have come under harsh scrutiny for the risks they pose to human health and to our surrounding environment. Governing bodies like the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are studying them to determine what kind of regulations must be instituted to protect public health. This includes limitations on these chemicals in wastewater—PFAS contaminate our collection systems, and current methods are insufficient to eliminate or remove them during treatment.

When Shawn and Sara Wenner acquired Empire Pipe in North Mankato, Minnesota, in 2009, they were taking a gamble. The company exclusively worked with excavating contractors performing post-inspections, and demand had slowed to a trickle during the recession. “It was a baptism by fire,” notes Shawn.

Expanding a business requires hard work, good economic sense and often a bit of luck. These four contractors experienced major growth in the wastewater, utilities and locating industries in recent years. Read on to learn how.