New Jersey Administrative Code › Title 14 - PUBLIC UTILITIES › Chapter 2 - UNDERGROUND FACILITIES: ONE-CALL DAMAGE PREVENTION SYSTEM › Subchapter 1 - SCOPE › Section 14:2-1.2 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 56, No. 14, July 15, 2024
The following words and terms, when used in this chapter,
				  shall have the following meanings, unless the context clearly indicates
				  otherwise. Additional definitions that apply to this chapter can be found at
				  N.J.A.C.
				  14:3-1.1.
"Act" means the Underground Facility Protection Act.
"Business day" means any day other than Saturday, Sunday, or
				  a State recognized holiday.
"Damage" means any impact or contact with an underground
				  facility, its appurtenances or its protective coating or any weakening of the
				  support for the facility or protective housing, including, but not limited to,
				  a break, leak, dent, gouge, groove, or other damage to the facility, its lines,
				  or their coating or cathodic protection.
"Emergency" means:
1. Any condition constituting a clear and
				present danger to life, health or property caused by the escape of any material
				or substance transported by means of an underground facility, or by the
				interruption of a vital communication or public service that requires immediate
				action to prevent or mitigate loss or potential loss of the communication or
				public service; or
2. Any condition
				on or affecting a transportation right-of-way or transportation facility that
				creates a risk to the public of potential injury or property damage.
"Excavate," "excavating," "excavation," or "demolition" means
				  any operation in which earth, rock, or other material in the ground is moved,
				  removed, or otherwise displaced by means of any tools, equipment, or explosive,
				  and includes, but is not limited to, 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 wrecking,
				  razing, rending, or removing any structure or mass material, but does not
				  include routine residential property or right-of-way maintenance or landscaping
				  activities performed with non-mechanized equipment, excavation within the
				  flexible or rigid pavement box within the right-of-way, or the tilling of soil
				  for agricultural purposes to a depth of 18 inches or less.
1. Routine maintenance of residential
				property or of a residential right-of-way, performed with non-mechanized
				equipment;
2. Routine use of a hand
				tool on a residential property or a residential right-of-way, to remove earth
				for the repair of a sprinkler system or to locate a property boundary marker,
				which does not remove earth to a depth of more than six inches;
3. Excavation or demolition that remains
				entirely within the flexible or rigid pavement box within a right-of-way, such
				that it does not disturb any material except for the pavement;
4. Tilling of soil for agricultural purposes
				to a depth of 18 inches or less, on land that has received or is eligible to
				receive a farmland assessment under the New Jersey Farmland Assessment Act,
				54:4-23.1
				et seq.; or
5. Routine landscaping
				activities with mechanized equipment that are intended to cut only vegetation,
				including lawn edging and de-thatching.
"Excavator" means any person performing excavation or
				  demolition, including a homeowner or person performing excavation or demolition
				  on a residential property on behalf of a homeowner.
"Hand digging" means any excavation involving non-mechanized
				  tools or equipment, including, but not limited to, digging with shovels, picks,
				  probe bars and manual post-hole diggers.
"Mark" means any line, arrow, curve, whiskers, flag, stake,
				  or other symbol, placed or made as part of a markout.
"Markout" means letters, symbols and marks, as defined in
				  this section, placed on the ground or other surface in order to show the
				  location and characteristics of an underground facility.
"Mechanized equipment" means equipment powered by a motor,
				  engine, or hydraulic, pneumatic or electrical device, including, but not
				  limited to, trenchers, bulldozers, power shovels, augers, backhoes, scrapers,
				  drills, cable and pipe plows, and other equipment used for plowing-in cable or
				  pipe, but does not include tools manipulated solely by human power.
"Nominal" means, in relation to the size of a pipe or other
				  underground facility, a stake, or other object, the commonly used name of the
				  size of the object, rather than the actual size of the object. For example,
				  since dimensional lumber is named based on its size before drying and planing,
				  the nominal or common-named sizes of dimensional lumber are usually expressed
				  in terms of the nearest inch, regardless of the actual size of the lumber.
				  Thus, a board that is two by four inches in nominal size is closer to 1 1/2
				  inches by 3 1/2 inches in actual size.
"One-Call Damage Prevention System" or "system" means the
				  communication system established pursuant to
				  48:2-76.
"One-Call incident" means any of the following, if it
				  involves an underground facility and results from excavation or
				  demolition:
1. The death of
				a person;
2. A serious disabling or
				incapacitating injuries to one or more persons, including employees or
				contractors of an excavator or underground facility operator;
3. The evacuation of a building that normally
				is occupied by more than 25 people;
4. The evacuation of a school, hospital,
				public transit station, or similar public building;
5. Damage to the property estimated at more
				than $ 122,000;
6. Damage to the
				property of the underground facility operator, which materially affects
				electric, gas, water or wastewater service to the public;
7. A major disruption of traffic, business,
				media operations, transportation, or any other vital communication or public
				service;
8. A significant
				environmental impact;
9. An event
				that attracts the presence of media personnel at the event, or that attracts
				telephone or other contact from media personnel at the time of the event;
				or
10. Any other occurrence similar
				to those at 1 through 9 above, which has a significant impact on community or
				public safety functions.
"One-Call System operator" or "System operator" means the
				  person, as defined at
				  14:3-1.1,
				  that the Board has designated to operate the One-Call Damage Prevention System.
				  The System operator's duties are detailed in a tariff, approved by the
				  Board.
"Operator" means a person owning or operating, or controlling
				  the operation of, an underground facility, but shall not include a homeowner
				  who owns only residential underground facilities, such as an underground lawn
				  sprinkler system or an underground structure for a residential low-voltage
				  lighting system.
"Person" means any individual, firm, joint venture,
				  partnership, corporation, association, State, county, municipality, public
				  agency or authority, bi-state or interstate agency or authority, public
				  utility, cooperation association, or joint stock association, and includes any
				  trustee, receiver, assignee, or personal representative thereof.
"Probe bar" means a rigid bar that is pushed through the
				  earth in order to determine the exact location of underground
				  facilities.
"Rented equipment" means mechanized equipment which is rented
				  complete with its operator for use in an excavation or demolition.
"Rented equipment operator" means a person that performs
				  excavation or demolition using rented equipment.
"Responsible contractor" means a person that takes
				  responsibility for ensuring that excavation or demolition that is performed by
				  a rented equipment operator complies with this chapter.
"Routine" means an activity which is conducted on a cyclical
				  basis, such as annually or seasonally, which is unlikely to result in damage to
				  an underground facility.
"Routine maintenance of residential property or of a
				  right-of-way" means an activity which:
1. Is repeated on a cyclical basis, such as
				annually or seasonally;
2. Is
				conducted on a residential property or a right-of-way;
3. Is conducted with a hand tool and without
				the use of mechanized equipment, as defined in this section; and
4. Is unlikely to result in damage to any
				underground facility.
"Site" means the specific place where excavation or
				  demolition is performed or is to be performed and shall be identified by street
				  address referenced to the nearest intersecting street and sub-division name, if
				  applicable, as well as by lot and block number, if available, and by kilometer
				  or mile marker for railways. The boundaries of a site are determined by the
				  excavator that will be doing the excavation or demolition.
"State department or agency" means any department, public
				  authority, public agency, public commission, or other political subdivision of
				  the State, including any county, municipality or political subdivision
				  thereof.
"Underground facility" means any public or private personal
				  property:
1. Which is buried, placed
				below ground, or submerged on a right-of-way, easement, public street, other
				public place or private property; and
2. Which is being used, or will be used:
i. For the conveyance of water, forced
				sewage, telecommunications, cable television, electricity, oil, petroleum
				products, gas, optical signals, or traffic control; or
ii. For the transportation of a hazardous
				liquid regulated pursuant to
				49
				U.S.C. §§
											60101 et seq.
"Terrestrial LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging)" means an
				  optical sensing technology that acquires XYZ coordinates of numerous points on
				  land by emitting laser pulses toward these points and measuring the distance
				  from the device to the target.
This term does not include storm drains or gravity sewers.
				  For the purpose of this definition, "personal property" means a single conduit,
				  or multiple conduits of the same facility type within a rigid envelope such as
				  a concrete envelope. This envelope shall be considered one facility for the
				  purposes of these rules, except as otherwise specifically provided.
"Underground facility operator" or "operator" means a person
				  that owns or operates, or controls the operation of, an underground facility,
				  except that this term does not include a homeowner who owns only residential
				  underground facilities, such as an underground lawn sprinkler system or an
				  underground structure for a residential low-voltage lighting system.
"Whiskers" means a small sheaf of plastic fibers, bent double
				  and fastened together at the bent end, used to create a marker that may be used
				  in place of paint under
				  14:2-5.2(c).