The Common Ground Alliance’s CGA Index, which measures year-over-year damage trends to buried infrastructure, rose from 94.0 in 2023 to 96.7 in 2024, signalling that the industry is moving in the wrong direction in reducing damages to buried utilities and the use of locate services across North America. (Image courtesy of CGA)
The Common Ground Alliance (CGA) Index, which measures year-over-year damage trends to buried infrastructure, rose from 94.0 in 2023 to 96.7 in 2024, signalling that the industry is moving in the wrong direction in reducing damages to buried utilities and the use of locate services across North America.
CGA, the international, non-partisan, non-profit trade association that works to prevent damage to buried infrastructure, publishing the figures in its recently released 2024 Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) Report.
The annual DIRT Report provides the most comprehensive accounting of damages to buried power, water, fibre, natural gas and other utility lines in Canada and the United States. This year’s report analyzed 196,977 unique damage reports from 2024, finding that despite organization-level success stories and sector-specific improvements, the industry is not on track to meet CGA’s “50-in-5” goal of reducing damages by 50 per cent over five years.
And while the Canadian figures for 2024 indicate some improvement over the prior year, going from 9,660 damage reports in 2023 to 7,996 in 2024, there is still a significant opportunity for improvements in both using “call before you dig” services as part of a standard safety protocol, and in avoiding contact with buried utilities.
“The 2024 DIRT Report makes it clear: Incremental change is not enough,” said CGA president and CEO Sarah Magruder Lyle. “We know what works — effective, balanced enforcement, accurate mapping and timely locates — but without coordinated investment and accountability across all stakeholders, damages will continue to rise alongside ever-increasing construction activity. The stakes for public safety, service reliability and economic productivity are simply too high to accept the status quo.”
The 2024 DIRT Report shows that the top 10 root causes accounted for 85 per cent of all reported damages, with patterns remaining remarkably consistent year-over-year. Utility work, particularly water/sewer and telecommunications/CATV, dominated nine of the top 10 root causes, underscoring the need for targeted, sector-specific interventions.
The leading causes were:
- Failure to notify 811/Call Before You Dig (24.54%)
- Excavator failed to maintain clearance after verifying marks (16.07%)
- Facility not marked due to locator error (11.94%)
- Marked inaccurately due to locator error (8.58%)
- Improper excavation practice not listed elsewhere (6.75%)
- Excavator dug prior to verifying marks by potholing (4.94%)
- Facility not marked due to no response from operator/contract locator (4.71%)
- Excavator failed to shore excavation/support facilities (3.27%)
- Marks faded, lost or not maintained (2.17%)
- Facility not marked due to incorrect facility record/map (2.16%)
“The CGA Index tells us that damages are tracking with construction activity, not with the improvements we know are possible,” said Louis Panzer, executive director of North Carolina 811 and co-chair of CGA’s Data Reporting and Evaluation Committee. “The solutions are in front of us. What’s needed now is the will to implement them at scale, across every sector and with consistent accountability.”
Analysis of data from eight 811 centres in the United States revealed that excavators faced an average 38 per cent chance of being unable to start work on time due to incomplete locate responses. Jurisdictions with active enforcement programs for facility operators to properly locate and provide positive responses achieved significantly higher on-time rates than those without, suggesting the challenge is solvable with the right policies.
CGA’s Board of Directors issued a statement highlighting the attention these findings demand, and calling upon stakeholders in the industries represented at CGA to commit to damage prevention and accountability initiatives.
The complete 2024 DIRT Annual Report, along with the Interactive Dashboard featuring data from 2022-2024, is available at www.dirt.commongroundalliance.com.
