Wide Area Locates (WAL)
Wide Area Locate (WAL)
The WAL process is designed for handling large areas or long-term excavations. Updates and relocates could be considered a violation of excavation law in the state of NM. The WAL process is proposed for excavations that are longer than 5 miles in length, greater than 3 acres in size, or excavations that will last longer than 30 days.
The purpose of the WAL is to prevent unnecessary burden to locators, ensure safe excavation, promote damage prevention, and to provide an active ticket for continuous excavation in accordance with NM excavation laws.
Key Information
- Excavators must call the NM811 Center to place a wide area conference ticket.
- At the scheduled conference everyone must sign an agreed upon work plan, then the excavator may call in for a wide area locate.
- The work plan must include the ten things required for a standard locate ticket and a schedule of what needs to be located and by when.
- The excavator is responsible for ensuring the communication between excavator and UFOs occurs and is documented in the work plan.
- The wide area locate ticket must be reaffirmed within every 15 working days or the ticket will expire, and the process will need to be restarted.
- A template of a work plan can be found on NM811’s web site, nm811.org.
- To sign up for a wide area class that covers what a wide area locate is and how to submit a conference ticket please contact us via email at Membership@nm811.org.
Download Template for Work Plan
WAL Conference Brochure