A line got hit. What New Jersey law actually says next.
The Underground Facility Protection Act, N.J.S.A. 48:2-73 and following, decides who reports, who pays and what it costs to get it wrong. Read off the statute, with the section number on every claim so you can check it.
In New Jersey, an excavator must immediately report any damage to a buried utility to its operator, and damage includes a dent, gouge, groove or a nicked coating even if nothing stopped working. Cost follows fault in both directions: an excavator who damaged a facility in violation of the act owes the operator’s costs, labor, parts, equipment and personnel downtime, and an operator who failed to mark owes the excavator the same. Disputes under $25,000 go to an alternative dispute resolution process in the Office of Dispute Settlement in the Office of the Public Defender. Digging with no 811 notice is prima facie evidence of negligence.
The one that surprises everybody
Practically everything written about dig-ins assumes the excavator pays. The statute does not say that. Section 48:2-80(d) is written twice over, once in each direction:
An operator that fails to mark, locate or otherwise provide the position and number of its facilities is liable for the costs, labor, parts, equipment and personnel downtime incurred by the excavator who damages it. And an excavator that damages a facility in violation of the act is liable for those same categories of cost incurred by the operator.
Which way it runs is not decided by whose lawyer writes better. It is decided by whether the paint was there, what colour it was, how far it sat from the facility, and how deep the facility actually was. Every one of those is a physical fact in an open trench with a very short shelf life, which is the whole reason the damage documentation service exists.
The numbers, in one table
| What | The number | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Notice before you dig | Not less than 3 and not more than 10 business days | 48:2-82(a) |
| Operator has to mark within | 3 business days of the notice | 48:2-80(a)(2) |
| Marking accuracy, from the outside wall | 18 inches horizontally | 48:2-80(a)(2) |
| No mechanized equipment within | 2 feet horizontally of the outside wall, unless hand dug first | 48:2-82(d)(1) |
| A markout stays valid for | 45 business days, if you maintain the marks | 48:2-82(f) |
| Report damage to the operator | Immediately | 48:2-82(e) |
| Disputes below this go to ADR | $25,000 | 48:2-80(d) |
| Civil penalty, general | $1,000 to $2,500 per day, max $25,000 per related series | 48:2-88(a) |
| Civil penalty, gas and hazardous liquid | Up to $200,000 per day, max $2,000,000 per related series | 48:2-86(c) |
| Third degree crime threshold | Death, serious bodily harm, over $50,000 damage or lost service revenue, or over 50 barrels released | 48:2-87 |
| Operators report their damages to the BPU | Quarterly | 48:2-80(c) |
Penalty figures are statutory maximums, not typical outcomes. The Board weighs culpability, history, good faith and ability to pay, and may compromise a penalty. Reviewed 2026-09-19.
Damage is a much wider word than you think
Section 48:2-75 defines it as any impact or contact with an underground facility, its appurtenances or its protective coating, or any weakening of the support for the facility or its protective housing. It then names a break, leak, dent, gouge or groove, and includes damage to the coating or the cathodic protection.
Nothing in there requires the line to stop working. A bucket tooth that scraped the coating off a steel main is damage, and 48:2-82(e) requires it to be reported to the operator immediately, by an excavator who caused it or merely discovered it. That second word does real work: finding somebody else’s old damage in your trench puts a duty on you.
It is also the version of this that costs the most later. An unreported gouge is a corrosion site with a five year fuse, and when it finally goes there is nobody left who can say what happened in that hole.
Two feet and eighteen inches are not the same rule
This one puts machines into pipes. They are two separate promises made by two different parties.
Eighteen inches is what the operator owes you.Section 48:2-80(a)(2) requires the facility to be marked at the site within 18 inches horizontally of its outside wall, from the operator’s records or by standard locating techniques, in a way that lets you employ prudent techniques including hand-dug test holes to find the precise position.
Two feet is what you owe the pipe. Section 48:2-82(d)(1) prohibits operating mechanized equipment within two feet horizontally of the outside wall of a marked facility unless it has first been located by hand digging.
Read them together and the envelope is wider than either number. The paint is only promised to be within a foot and a half of the facility, and your two feet is measured from the facility rather than from the paint. Anybody pacing two feet off the orange line and putting a machine down is working on an assumption the statute never made.
And the marks are yours to keep once work starts: 48:2-82(d)(4) requires the excavator to protect and preserve the marking, staking or other designation until it is no longer needed for safe excavation. Paint walked off by the third day is not just inconvenient, it is a failure of a duty somebody will ask about.
What the act does not cover, which is where people get hurt
Storm drains and gravity sewers are excluded by definition. The definition of underground facility at 48:2-75 ends by carving them out. Nobody is required to mark them, no ticket produces them, and if you are digging near where you think a gravity lateral runs, the absence of green paint proves nothing. What each colour does and does not mean is on what markout colors mean.
Pre-1994 non-metallic water. Section 48:2-81(a) relieves an operator of the duty to mark an underground non-metallic water pipe or distribution facility installed before the act took effect. The operator must still cooperate in reasonable efforts to find it. In older New Jersey towns that is a large amount of live plastic with no obligation attached to it.
Homeowner-owned residential facilities. The definition of operator excludes a homeowner who owns only residential underground facilities such as a lawn sprinkler system or low-voltage lighting. Nobody marks the irrigation, the dog fence, the propane run to the grill or the feed to the detached garage, and those are a surprising share of the holes we get called to.
Some of what you are doing may not be excavation, and some of what is not digging is. Boring, grading, milling deeper than six inches, tree and root removal, cable or pipe plowing and fence post or pile driving are all excavation under 48:2-75. Routine residential and right-of-way maintenance with non-mechanized equipment, work inside the pavement box in the right of way, and agricultural tilling to 18 inches or less are not.
The forum nobody uses
Buried at the end of 48:2-80(d): any dispute arising under that subsection where the claim is less than $25,000 shall be subject to an alternative dispute resolution process as established within the Office of Dispute Settlement in the Office of the Public Defender. Above $25,000 the statute adds that nothing in the act discourages parties from pursuing ADR anyway, and that the parties may by mutual agreement designate a different ADR association for all matters.
A great many dig-in claims sit under $25,000. A named state forum for them has existed since 2005 and it comes up in almost no conversation about a damaged service. Whether it is the right move on any particular claim is a question for your counsel, but it is worth knowing it is there before writing something off as not worth chasing.
If it happened this morning
Gas, or anything you can smell or hear escaping, is a 911 call and an evacuation before it is anything else. Nothing on this page comes before that.
After that, the order that protects everybody: report it to the operator immediately as 48:2-82(e) requires, even if it still works. Photograph the marks before anyone walks through them, because they are evidence and they are about to be destroyed by the repair. Measure the depth of cover while the facility is exposed. Keep the ticket number, the markout, the date and who was on site. Then let the repair happen.
The part that disappears is the middle. If you want somebody whose job that morning is only to record it, that is utility damage documentation and repair, and it works only while the trench is open.
Questions people ask
Do I have to report it if the line still works?
Yes. New Jersey defines damage at N.J.S.A. 48:2-75 as any impact or contact with an underground facility, its appurtenances or its protective coating, or any weakening of the support for the facility, and it lists a break, leak, dent, gouge or groove by name. A nicked coating on a steel main is damage under the statute even though nothing leaked and nobody lost service. Section 48:2-82(e) then requires the excavator to immediately report it to the operator. The gouge that went unreported is the one that corrodes through in four years, and by then the only question anybody can answer is who was digging there.
Who pays for the repair?
It depends on a fact in the trench, which is why these are worth documenting properly. Section 48:2-80(d) runs both directions. An excavator that damages a facility in violation of the act is liable for the operator's costs, labor, parts, equipment and personnel downtime. But an operator that failed to mark, locate or otherwise provide the position and number of its facilities is liable for those same categories of cost incurred by the excavator. Almost everything written about dig-ins assumes the excavator pays, and the statute does not say that.
Is there a process for arguing about it short of a lawsuit?
Yes, and hardly anyone uses it. Section 48:2-80(d) provides that any dispute under that subsection where the claim is less than $25,000 is subject to an alternative dispute resolution process established within the Office of Dispute Settlement in the Office of the Public Defender. Above $25,000 the statute says nothing discourages parties from ADR either, and the parties can agree on a different ADR body for all matters. A large share of dig-in claims land under $25,000, which means a good many of them are being litigated or written off when there is a named forum for them.
What is the difference between the 18 inches and the two feet?
They are two different promises and people run them together constantly. The 18 inches is the operator's accuracy standard: section 48:2-80(a)(2) requires the facility to be marked at the site within 18 inches horizontally of its outside wall. The two feet is the excavator's rule: section 48:2-82(d)(1) says no mechanized equipment within two feet horizontally of the outside wall of a marked facility unless it has first been located by hand digging. So the paint is only promised to be within a foot and a half of the pipe, and your machine has to stay two feet off the pipe rather than two feet off the paint. Run those together and you can be inside the facility while you believe you are clear of the mark.
How long is a markout good for?
Forty-five business days from the notification, not calendar days, which is roughly nine weeks. That is section 48:2-82(f), and it carries a condition: it only holds if the excavator maintains the markout. Section 48:2-82(d)(4) requires you to protect and preserve the marking after work starts, for as long as it is needed for safe excavation. Anything past 45 business days needs a fresh notice.
What if nobody called 811 at all?
Then the argument is mostly over before it starts. Section 48:2-89 says evidence that an excavation which damaged a facility was performed without the required notice is prima facie evidence, in any civil or administrative proceeding, that the damage was caused by the negligence of the excavator. Separately, section 48:2-87 makes knowingly excavating without using the One-Call system, or without heeding the markings, a disorderly persons offense, rising to a crime of the third degree where it causes death, serious bodily harm, property damage or lost service revenue over $50,000, or the release of more than 50 barrels from a hazardous liquid pipeline.
What are the actual penalties?
Two tiers, and both are maximums rather than going rates. Section 48:2-88 sets a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 and not more than $2,500 per day for each day a violation continues, capped at $25,000 for any related series of violations, and it applies to operators, excavators and the One-Call system alike. Where the facility is a natural gas or hazardous liquid pipeline or distribution facility, section 48:2-86(c) raises that to not more than $200,000 per violation per day and up to $2,000,000 for a related series. The Board of Public Utilities can compromise a penalty and weighs culpability, history, good faith and ability to pay. None of that displaces the ordinary civil claim for the repair, which section 48:2-86(d) preserves expressly.
Does any of this cover storm drains or gravity sewers?
No, and it is the single most expensive gap in the act. The definition of underground facility at 48:2-75 expressly excludes storm drains and gravity sewers. They are not member facilities, nobody is required to mark them, and no amount of calling 811 produces green paint for them. If you are digging where you believe a gravity lateral runs, the absence of a mark tells you nothing at all. What the colors do and do not cover is on our markout page.
Is my old plastic water main exempt from marking?
It may well be. Section 48:2-81(a) excuses an operator from marking an underground non-metallic water pipe or non-metallic water distribution facility installed before the act took effect in 1994. The operator still has to cooperate with the excavator in reasonable efforts to locate it, but the marking duty itself does not apply. Pre-1994 plastic water in older New Jersey towns is common, so treat an unmarked water run near a 1970s or 1980s main as a question rather than an answer.
Does a road opening permit cover me?
Not on its own, and not until you have the ticket. Section 48:2-83 provides that any road opening, building, blasting, demolition or excavation permit granted by a public entity is not effective until the excavator gives that entity proof of the One-Call notification, which can be the confirmation number assigned to the notice. So a permit in hand and no ticket is a permit that has not taken effect. Permits generally are on our NJ excavation permits page.
What counts as excavation in the first place?
More than digging. Section 48:2-75 defines it to include drilling, grading, boring, milling to a depth greater than six inches, trenching, tunneling, scraping, tree and root removal, cable or pipe plowing, fence post or pile driving, and demolition. Pulling a stump and driving a fence post are both excavation. Excluded are routine residential or right-of-way maintenance and landscaping done with non-mechanized equipment, work within the pavement box in the right of way, and tilling for agriculture to 18 inches or less.
What about an emergency?
Section 48:2-84 disapplies the act where excavation is undertaken in response to an emergency, provided the One-Call system is notified at the earliest reasonable opportunity and all reasonable precautions are taken. Emergency is itself defined at 48:2-75 and it is narrower than people assume: a clear and present danger to life, health or property from escaping material, or the interruption of a vital communication or public service requiring immediate action, or a condition affecting a transportation right of way that risks injury or property damage. A deadline is not an emergency.
Sources
- Underground Facility Protection Act, N.J.S.A. 48:2-73 et seq. Definitions at 48:2-75, operator duties and the two-way liability provision at 48:2-80, the non-metallic water exemption at 48:2-81, excavator duties at 48:2-82, permit effectiveness at 48:2-83, the emergency exception at 48:2-84, penalties at 48:2-86 and 48:2-88, criminal exposure at 48:2-87, and the negligence presumption at 48:2-89. New Jersey One Call’s courtesy copy of the act. The official version governs and is in the New Jersey Statutes Annotated.
- N.J.A.C. 14:2, the Board of Public Utilities rules under the act, for the markout colors, letter designation codes and marking materials. Summarised on what markout colors mean.
- New Jersey One Call. Call 811 before any excavation, including on your own property.
This is a working excavation contractor reading a statute, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your own counsel on a live claim. Penalty figures are maximums. If a line is damaged, report it to the operator first and argue about the rest afterwards.
Line hit and the trench still open?
Call 862-268-2510. We record what is in the ground before it is covered, and we can make the repair with the same crew.
Call 862-268-2510