Minutes for HB2226 - Committee on Utilities

Short Title

Extending the time period for notice of excavations and permitting use of virtual whitelining for excavations.

Minutes Content for Wed, Mar 15, 2023

The Chairman opened the hearing on the bill and called for a revisor overview of the bill.

(Attachment 1) The Revisor's Office submitted a corrected updated version that should be substituted for the first version uploaded during the meeting.

(Attachment 2) Amended correct revisor bill memo.

Committee questions and comments ensued.

The Chairman called for proponent testimony on the bill.

Leo Haynos explained that the bill would allow an excavator to provide:

a virtual excavation path when applying for a ticket;
lengthen the life of a locate ticket from 15 to 20 days;
allow utilities more time to complete locates;
require notification of possible damage "dig-up" tickets to operators; and
several other minor clarifications of the law.

Mr. Haynos estimated that since each of the requests for action exceeding over 600,000 requests requiring five utilities to place markings represents over 3 million utility actions. He pointed out that up to 30% of these calls sometimes can represent an update regarding a previous call.

Committee questions and comments ensued raising the following points:

A committee request was made regarding how many damage reports are experienced per 1,000 dig-up requests.
Discussion regarding the proposed bill's time requirements.

(Attachment 3)

Patrick Vogelsberg stated agreement for the previous testimony and support for the bill because:

electronic white-lining increases project efficiency and communication and communications between excavators, utility operators and its locators;
the extended ticket times will reduce the number of unnecessary tickets; and
helps operators and locators better manage resources for more efficient responses to requests.

(Attachment 4)

Committee questions and comments ensued.

James Jamison stated support of previous proponent testimony and an referenced an amendment that would allow installation technicians to hand bury the first one-to-two feet of a new service line at either end when installing broadband services at a home or business. Mr. Jamison stated that the decision has made the decision to withdraw the amendment proposal and now stands in complete support of the bill as introduced.

(Attachment 5)

Written-Only Neutral Testimony:

Steven Cowen, Black Hills

(Attachment 6)

Michael Koss, City of Overland Park, Kansas

(Attachment 7)

Committee questions and comments ensued.

Seeing no more testimony, the Chairman closed the hearing on the bill.