N.J. Admin. Code § 14:2-1.2

Current through Register Vol. 56, No. 9, May 6, 2024

Section 14:2-1.2 - Definitions

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).

N.J. Admin. Code § 14:2-1.2

Amended by R.1997 d.164, effective 4/7/1997.
See: 28 N.J.R. 5144(a), 29 N.J.R. 1345(a).
Added "Emergency", "Excavation", and "Routine"; and "One-Call Damage Prevention Center" was renamed "One-Call Damage Prevention System".
Amended by R.2002 d.107, effective 4/1/2002.
See: 33 N.J.R. 2606(a), 34 N.J.R. 1458(a).
Added "Business day", "Damage", "Excavator", "Hand digging", "Mechanized equipment", "Person", "Probe bar" and "State department or agency"; replaced "Excavation" with "Excavate" or "excavation" or "demolition"; in "One-Call Damage Prevention System", inserted "or system" preceding "means"; rewrote "Site".
Recodified from N.J.A.C. 14:2-2.1 and amended by R.2007 d.298, effective 10/15/2007.
See: 39 N.J.R. 1232(a), 39 N.J.R. 4422(b).
Section was "Words defined". In the introductory paragraph, inserted the last sentence; deleted definitions "Board" and "Operator"; in definition "Business day", deleted "nationally or" preceding "State"; rewrote definitions "Excavate" and "Underground facility"; added definitions "Mark", "Markout", "Nominal", "One-Call System operator", "One-Call incident", "Rented equipment", "Rented equipment operator", "Responsible contractor", "Routine maintenance of residential property or of a right-of-way", "Underground facility operator" and "Whiskers"; in definition "Probe bar", substituted "rigid" for "steel"; and in definition "Site", substituted "or demolition" for "work", inserted the second occurrence of "is" and added the last sentence.
Amended by R.2009 d.250, effective 8/17/2009.
See: 40 N.J.R. 6928(a), 41 N.J.R. 3096(a).
In the introductory paragraph of definition "Excavate", deleted a comma following "rock", "removed", "equipment", "driving" and "rending"; in paragraph 4 of definition "Excavate", inserted "or" at the end; in paragraph 5 of definition "Excavate", substituted a period for "; or" at the end; and deleted paragraph 6 of definition "Excavate".

Amended by 54 N.J.R. 1417(a), effective 7/18/2022