What do you have planned on Aug. 11, also known as 811 Day? Will you tell neighbors and friends about the importance of calling 811 before starting an outdoor digging project? Or will you attend a local 811 event?
On Aug. 2, Washington811 partnered with the Tacoma Rainiers baseball team to help spread the word about 811. They had free admission for 500 attendees, free 811 T-shirts, food, and 811 glow necklaces.
On Aug. 10, the Grant County UCC will host its 4th Annual 811 Golf Tournament at the Moses Lake Golf and Country Club. Proceeds from this event go towards damage prevention, safety, education, public awareness, and training. For more information go to www.811golf.com or contact Todd Knittle.
From Aug. 30–Sept. 1, the Kittitas County UCC will host a booth at the County Fair. The booth will feature the 811 motorcycle and the recently unveiled 811 trike. For more information contact Heather Forgey.
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The
excavator seat on the Safety Committee is held by Christie Coulter, who was
born and raised in Coeur d’Alene, ID, with her three brothers and one sister.
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Christie thought she wanted to go into law enforcement due to the influence of her grandfather, who was an officer and one of the area's first fingerprint specialists back in the ’60s. She attended North Idaho College while still in high school, with a focus on obtaining a degree in law enforcement. However, life got busy, and she withdrew. Since math was her favorite subject, she eventually went back to school and graduated with a bachelor's degree in accounting from Ashford University.
Christie had great examples of hard work from her dad,owned a gym and a moving company, and from her mom, who was a banker and branch manager. She also learned about hard work with some of her first jobs. She remembers moving irrigation pipe for a farmer, earning about $.07 per pipe and never making a paycheck over $20. During harvest, Christie and her brother would work in the barn filling bags with grain and stacking them on a pallet.
Christie later went on to work as a prep-cook at a retirement home, a teller for a bank, a door-to-door vacuum salesperson, a finance manager for car dealerships, a bartender, and as the senior accountant for a local company that managed 60+ non-profit companies. Christie now works for T. LaRiviere Equipment and Excavation and is the secretary/treasurer of her local NUCA chapter.
Christie loves spending time with family and doing outdoor activities like camping, hiking, and riding her Harley. She has recently discovered some amazing resorts in Mexico but says her favorite vacation destination is Costa Rica. She has participated in two Spartan Obstacle runs of 13+ miles and 31 obstacles.
Christie’s two daughters, Bethanie, 17, and Morgan, 15, are her pride and joy. The three of them share their home with two dogs named Tucker and Diesel and their cat, Jax.
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Washington's dig law, RCW 10.122.030, requires individuals to first mark the boundary of an excavation
site with white paint before planning to dig.
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The purpose of that clause is to aid communication between the excavator and the utility locator, however you will not find “how to” mark the ground in white in the dig law. I have two simple suggestions on how to mark the boundary of your
excavation site.
Small jobs: If you
stand in a spot on the edge of your worksite and can see all the edges of the
job without moving, paint a solid white line around the planned
digging area.
Large jobs: Use “arrow L” brackets. At one
corner of the large excavation worksite, paint an “L” bracket with arrows.
Write the distances to opposite corners at the tip of each arrow. If you
have marked correctly, each corner of your large footprint dig site will have
an arrow “L” bracket that shows distances to the opposite edges of the work
area.
Add your company name and
date within the circled area or near one of the brackets, take a picture with
your mobile, and then notify 811. On your ticket, be sure to include these words
with your description of your work: “Dig area circled in white” or “Dig area
marked with brackets at the corners.”
To really step up your game,
use ITIC, an internet ticket processing system, to submit your 811 tickets, and
attach the picture you took of your white marks. Call (877) 668-4001 and ask for an ITIC specialist for assistance.
Was this helpful? In my next
article, I will describe a surefire method of organizing and keeping track of
your 811 tickets.
- Don Evans |
