HB 213 - Underground Facility Damage Prevention and Safety

• Revises definition of "premark" to include electronic markings and other industry-accepted methods for delineating excavation scope.

• Requires all member operators, including those with state-owned underground facilities on state highway rights-of-way, to be notified through the free-access notification system of proposed excavation or demolition activities.

• Creates additional noncriminal infraction for excavators' failure to notify member operators of start date and time for planned excavations near high-priority subsurface installations when timely notice was provided.

• Expands definition of "high-priority subsurface installation" to include all underground pipelines or facilities and authorizes member operators to designate facilities as high-priority; establishes that decisions not to designate do not create liability.

• Authorizes the Division of Administrative Hearings to approve settlement in incident cases within established parameters and changes venue for hearings from where the facility is located to where the incident occurred; effective July 1, 2014.