HOUSE BILL No. 2743 An Act concerning the Kansas underground utility damage prevention act; amending K.S.A.
1997 Supp. 66-1802 and 66-1810 and repealing the existing sections. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas:

    Section 1. K.S.A. 1997 Supp. 66-1802 is hereby amended to read as
follows: 66-1802. As used in this act:

    (a) ``Damage'' means any impact or contact with an underground fa-
cility, its appurtenances or its protective coating, or any weakening of the
support for the facility or protective housing which requires repair.

    (b) ``Emergency'' means any condition constituting a clear and pres-
ent danger to life, health or property, or a customer service outage.

    (c) ``Excavation'' means any operation in which earth, rock or other
material below the surface is moved or otherwise displaced by any means,
except tilling the soil, or railroad or road and ditch maintenance that does
not change the existing railroad grade, road grade and/or ditch flowline,
or operations related to exploration and production of crude oil or natural
gas, or both.

    (d) ``Excavator'' means any person who engages directly in excavation
activities within the state of Kansas, but shall not include any occupant
of a dwelling who: (1) Uses such dwelling as a primary residence; and (2)
excavates on the premises of such dwelling.

    (e) ``Facility'' means any underground line, system or structure used
for gathering, storing, conveying, transmitting or distributing gas, elec-
tricity, communication, crude oil, refined or processed petroleum, petro-
leum products or hazardous liquids; facility shall not include, any pro-
duction petroleum lead lines, salt water disposal lines or injection lines,
which are located on unplatted land or outside the corporate limits of any
city.

    (f) ``Marking'' means the use of stakes, paint or other clearly identi-
fiable materials to show the field location of underground facilities, in
accordance with the resolution adopted August, 1984, by the utility lo-
cation coordination council of the American public work association.

    (g) ``Municipality'' means any city, county, municipal corporation,
public district or public authority located in whole or in part within this
state which provides firefighting, law enforcement, ambulance, emergency
medical or other emergency services.

    (g) (h) ``Notification center'' means the statewide communication sys-
tem operated by an organization which has as one of its purposes to
receive notification of planned excavation in the state from excavators and
to disseminate such notification of planned excavation to operators who
are members and participants.

    (h) (i) ``Operator'' means any person who owns or operates an un-
derground facility, except for any person who is the owner of real property
wherein is located underground facilities for the purpose of furnishing
services or materials only to such person or occupants of such property.

    (i) (j) ``Preengineered project'' means a public project or a project
which is approved by a public agency wherein the public agency respon-
sible for the project, as part of its engineering and contract procedures,
holds a meeting prior to the commencement of any construction work on
such project in which all persons, determined by the public agency to
have underground facilities located within the construction area of the
project, are invited to attend and given an opportunity to verify or inform
the public agency of the location of their underground facilities, if any,
within the construction area and where the location of all known and
underground facilities are duly located or noted on the engineering draw-
ing as specifications for the project.

    (j) (k) ``Permitted project'' means a project where a permit for the
work to be performed must be issued by a city, county, state or federal
agency and, as a prerequisite to receiving such permit, the applicant must
locate all underground facilities in the area of the work and in the vicinity
of the excavation and notify each owner of such underground facilities.

    (k) (l) ``Person'' means any individual, partnership, corporation, as-
sociation, franchise holder, state, city, county or any governmental sub-
division or instrumentality of a state and its employees, agents or legal
representatives.

    (l) (m) ``Tolerance zone'' means the area within 24 inches of the out-
side dimensions in all horizontal directions of an underground facility.

    (m) (n) ``Working day'' means every day, except Saturday, Sunday or
a legally proclaimed local, state or federal holiday.

    Sec. 2. K.S.A. 1997 Supp. 66-1810 is hereby amended to read as
follows: 66-1810. When any contact with or damage to any underground
facility occurs, the operator shall be informed immediately by the exca-
vator. Upon receiving such notice, the operator shall immediately shall
dispatch personnel to the location to provide necessary temporary or per-
manent repair of the damage. If a serious electrical short is occurring the
protective covering of an electrical line is penetrated or dangerous gases
or fluids are escaping from a broken line, the excavator shall immediately
shall inform emergency personnel of the municipality in which such elec-
trical short or broken line is located.

    Sec. 3. K.S.A. 1997 Supp. 66-1802 and 66-1810 are hereby repealed.

    Sec. 4. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its
publication in the statute book.

I hereby certify that the above Bill originated in the House,
and passed that body

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House concurred in
Senate amendments __________________________

__________________________________

Speaker of the House.

__________________________________

Chief Clerk of the House.

Passed the Senate
as amended __________________________

__________________________________

President of the Senate

__________________________________

Secretary of the Senate.

Aproved __________________________

__________________________________

Governor.