There is paint on your lawn. Here is what it means.
The colors are not a convention somebody chose, they are written into New Jersey’s One Call rules along with a letter code most people never notice. Below: what each color marks, what the letters mean, and the lines that nobody marks at all, which is the part that gets people into trouble.
In New Jersey: red is electric, yellow gas and petroleum, orange telephone, fiber, cable TV and emergency communications, blue water, green sewer, and white is not a utility at all. White is the excavator marking where they plan to dig, before the 811 call. Each mark also carries a letter code, W for water, S for sewer, FOC for fiber, and so on. What you will never see marked: sprinkler systems, landscape lighting and dog fences, which the rules exclude by name.
The colors, with the letter codes
| Color | What it marks | Code | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safety Red | Electric power, distribution and transmission | E | Also traffic control on the power side. Treat every red mark as live. |
| High Visibility Safety Yellow | Gas distribution and transmission | G | Petroleum products and oil (PP) and steam (ST) share yellow. |
| Safety Alert Orange | Telephone and telecommunications | T | Fiber optic cable is FOC, cable television is TV, police and fire communications are FA. All orange. |
| Safety Precaution Blue | Water systems | W | Slurry systems (SP) are blue too. |
| Safety Green | Sewer lines | S | Read the section below before trusting a green mark, or the absence of one. |
| White | Proposed excavation, marked by the excavator | n/a | Not a buried utility at all. This is where somebody intends to dig, marked before the 811 call. |
Colors and letter designation codes as set out in New Jersey’s One Call rules, N.J.A.C. 14:2. Reviewed 2026-08-30.
The letters are the part people miss
Orange does four jobs at once. Telephone, fiber optic cable, cable television, and police and fire communications are all safety alert orange, which is why New Jersey requires a letter code with the paint: T, FOC, TV, FA. Cutting an orange line you assumed was somebody’s cable TV drop and discovering it was the fire department’s communications is a different kind of afternoon.
Elsewhere the codes do quieter work. Yellow covers gas (G), petroleum products and oil (PP) and steam (ST). Blue covers water (W) and slurry (SP). Traffic control is TC and appears in orange or red depending on whether it is the communications or the power side.
White is the one you might be asked to put down yourself
White is not a buried anything. It is the excavator marking the perimeter of the intended dig before notifying the One Call center, and New Jersey encourages it in the rules because it makes everybody’s job smaller and sharper.
The mechanism is worth understanding. Where a site has been marked in white, the operator marks the facilities inside the white perimeter and everything within ten feet outside it. Without white, on a large parcel, the locators are working from an address and a description. With it, they are working to a boundary. That is faster for them, clearer for you, and it is the single cheapest thing that reduces the chance of a strike.
The lines nobody marks, which is where people get hurt
This is the most important section on the page, because the markout system is narrower than it appears and its gaps are exactly where a shovel finds trouble.
- Sprinkler systems and landscape lighting. New Jersey excludes a homeowner who owns only residential underground facilities, naming underground sprinkler systems and underground lighting structures specifically, from the definition of an underground facility operator. They are outside the system.
- Invisible dog fences, pool and pond lines, and feeds to detached garages, barns and sheds. Same category: privately owned, on private property, marked by nobody.
- Gravity sewers and storm drains. Excluded from the definition of an underground facility outright. Your sewer lateral will not be marked, whoever calls it in.
- The private side of a service.An operator marks what it owns. The run from the curb stop to the house is the property owner’s, and blue paint stopping at the curb does not mean the pipe does.
Put together, that is a long list of live things in a typical yard that no amount of calling 811 will reveal. The only reliable way to find them is to ask the person who lives there, walk the property, and hand dig where the answer is uncertain. It is also why we treat that walk as part of the job rather than a courtesy.
Paint, flags and whiskers
Operators must paint their markouts, but paint fails on grass, dirt, gravel and sand, so on those surfaces, or where weather makes paint hard to see, stakes or flags in the matching color are required as well. To avoid painting decorative gravel, stone or pavers, an operator may instead lay eight inch whiskers of the correct color flat on the ground where the paint would have gone. Different material, identical meaning: do not dig there without knowing what it is.
How long the marks are good for
The paint is required to last through the excavation but not to be permanent. The legal clock is the one that matters: a notice for work started within ten business days stays valid for 45 business days, and only while the excavator maintains the marks. A job that has dragged past that with faded paint does not have an old markout, it has no markout, and needs a fresh notice.
The rest of the markout process, including the three to ten business day notice window and the two foot hand digging rule near a marked line, is in our 811 markout walkthrough, and the reason we take it seriously is in what is actually down there.
Questions people ask
What do the white utility markings mean?
White is the one color that is not a buried utility. It is the excavator marking out where they intend to dig, put down before the One Call notice goes in, and New Jersey's rules encourage it. It matters more than it looks: if a site is marked in white, the utility operators mark their facilities inside that white perimeter and everything within ten feet outside it, rather than guessing at the whole property. So white paint on a lawn means a dig is coming, the boundary has been declared, and the locators have been given a target.
What color is a water line marked in New Jersey?
Safety precaution blue, with the letter code W. Slurry systems are blue as well and carry SP. If you are looking for your own water service line, be careful about what blue paint actually promises: the operator marks the facilities it owns, which usually means the main and up to the curb stop, not the private line running from the curb to your house.
What color is a sewer line marked in New Jersey?
Safety green, letter code S. But green is the color most likely to be missing when you expect it, because New Jersey's One Call rules define an underground facility in a way that expressly excludes storm drains and gravity sewers. A gravity sewer lateral is not a member facility, so nobody comes out to mark it. If you are digging near where you think the sewer runs, absence of green is not evidence of absence of pipe.
Are sprinkler systems and dog fences marked by 811?
No, and the rules name them. New Jersey excludes a homeowner who owns only residential underground facilities, specifically including an underground sprinkler system or an underground structure for lighting, from the definition of an underground facility operator. That means those lines are outside the markout system entirely, along with invisible dog fences, low voltage landscape wiring, pool and pond lines, and the feed to a detached garage or barn. Nobody is coming to mark them. The only way to find them is to ask the person who owns the property, which is exactly why a walk of the site with the homeowner is worth doing before a machine arrives.
What do the letters next to the paint mean?
New Jersey requires a letter designation code alongside the color, and it removes the ambiguity the colors leave. Orange covers four different things, so T is telephone, FOC is fiber optic cable, TV is cable television and FA is police and fire communications. Elsewhere W is water, S is sewer, E is electric, G is gas, PP is petroleum products and oil, ST is steam, SP is slurry and TC is traffic control. If you see orange with no letter, you know a line is there but not what it carries.
Why are there flags or little plastic whiskers instead of paint?
Because paint does not work on everything. New Jersey requires operators to paint markouts, but on grass, dirt, gravel or sand, or where weather makes paint hard to see, they must add stakes or flags in the matching color. And to avoid painting decorative gravel, stone or pavers, an operator may lay eight inch whiskers of the right color flat on the ground where the paint mark would have been. Different material, same meaning.
How long do utility markings last?
The marks themselves are required to survive traffic during the excavation but to fade rather than be permanent. The legal clock is separate: notice for an excavation started within ten business days stays valid for 45 business days from the notification, and only if the excavator maintains the markings. After that it takes a fresh notice. So faded paint on a job that has dragged on is not a technicality, it is an expired markout.
Can I dig if I see no markings at all?
No. No paint can mean the locators have not been out yet, that the notice was never called in, or that everything near you is one of the things nobody marks. New Jersey requires notice to the One Call center not less than three and not more than ten business days before excavation, and that requirement applies to homeowners digging on their own property exactly as it applies to a contractor. Call 811, wait it out, and mark your dig area in white while you wait.
Sources
- N.J.A.C. 14:2, New Jersey One Call: the colors and letter designation codes for markouts, the paint, stakes, flags and whiskers specifications, the white perimeter marking provision and the ten foot rule that follows from it, the 45 business day validity, and the definitions excluding storm drains, gravity sewers and homeowner-owned residential facilities.
- New Jersey One Call. Call 811 before any excavation, including on your own property.
General information, not a substitute for a markout. If there is paint on the ground and you are not sure what it means, do not dig and ask.
Digging soon and not sure what is down there?
Call 862-268-2510. We call the markouts in, whiteline the site, and hand dig where the marks say we have to.
Call 862-268-2510