by James H. Anspach, P.G.
Chair – CI/ASCE 38-02
Chair – Construction Standards Council
Member – ASCE Board Committee, Codes and Standards Activities
Engineers have always been responsible to some extent for managing the risks that existing utilities present on projects. Much of this risk is associated with knowing what utilities are present and where they are located. When utility information is inaccurate or incomplete, management of risk also expands into other areas, such as conflict mitigation during construction. Additional risk is realized through ambiguous scopes of work for the engineer throughout the planning, design, and construction process.
Engineers may have received, made, or obtained a mixture of evidence of the existence, character, and location of utilities. Evidence may vary widely as to its credibility. There has been no standard for utility mapping or for developing a scope of work between the engineer and project owner regarding utilities. Problems with existing utilities are routinely handled through change orders, extra work orders, insurance pay-outs, and contingency pricing. When problems create significant costs, the finger of blame is pointed everywhere, including at the engineer certifying the plans, regardless of disclaimers. Common sense suggests that engineers benefit from better information for the management of risk and from a better defined scope of work regarding utilities.
In 1996, ASCE began developing a standard that would address how data on existing underground utilities should be collected and depicted on design and construction documents. This action was precipitated by many events: the success of the burgeoning subsurface utility engineering (SUE) market, court and settlement decisions that watered down the standard disclaimers of engineers regarding utilities on stamped plans; the increased costs and time ramifications of utilities on projects; a lack of clarity in project scopes regarding utilities; and so forth. In 2002, ASCE published CI/ASCE 38-02 Standard Guideline for the Collection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data.
38-02 serves basically as a guide for developing a scope of work between the engineer and the project owner for mapping utilities. Its most important component is its protocol for ascribing an attribute of quality to utility information. The four “Utility Quality Levels” tell how utility data was researched and correlated to the project survey control. An increase in quality results in a decrease of risk to the users of the data.
38-02 is becoming a fact of life for design engineers in many states. At last count, ten state DOTs reference it in their standard contracts, and others are getting ready to do the same. AASHTO, FHWA, FAA, and the Common Ground Alliance tout it as a “best practice.” Illinois and Minnesota are getting ready to write it into their One-Call Damage Prevention Law Designer ticket sections; Pennsylvania has already done so. A recent utility damage in California has lawmakers also looking at 38-02 as a means to increase public safety. 38-02 has figured in several case settlements where utilities were blamed for costs and damages.
CI/ASCE 38-02 is available for download from www.asce.org. 38-02 is in its second printing. The committee is developing a revision, based upon comments received to date, that will be ready for publication in 2012 or before. The Construction Institute and ASCE’s Continuing Education Division have developed one and two day classes in 38-02 that fill in all the “who, what, why, where, when, and hows.”
Construction Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers