Locator Safety Week: Expanding the Conversation

It’s Locator Safety Week, and we recognize and appreciate the private locators who work continuously across changing environments to keep their clients safe.

Locator Safety Week highlights the hazards locators face every day, and the 811 and One Call Center community plays a critical role in protecting workers, the public, and buried utility infrastructure. The risks outlined are real. Traffic, weather, environmental exposure, slips and falls, animal encounters, confined spaces, driving, and constant time pressure are all part of the job for public locators working across large service areas, the right of way, and typically the front portions of private property.

However, that is only part of the picture. Private locators and Damage Prevention Specialists, including those performing Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE), operate within those same conditions, but the scope expands significantly beyond the right of way and into private property, where conditions are less controlled and risk becomes more immediate. In addition to the hazards already identified, private locators are regularly exposed to:

• Active construction sites and heavy equipment operations

• Industrial facilities and refineries

• Electrical systems within buildings and complex sites

• Chemical and environmental hazards

• Confined and restricted access areas outside standardized programs

• Unpredictable site conditions requiring immediate hazard recognition

This is not occasional exposure. It defines the daily operating environment. Private locators move between these conditions continuously, often working across multiple sites in a single day, each with different safety expectations, access limitations, and risk profiles. There is no single program or consistent baseline to rely on, which means adaptation is required in real time and decisions are made based on field conditions rather than assumptions.

Most private locate companies recognize this and develop internal training programs to prepare their teams for that level of variability. The role requires more than technical locating ability. It demands the ability to recognize hazards quickly, understand changing site conditions, and adjust approach before any work begins. Over the course of a career, private locators complete repeated site specific orientations across industrial, commercial, and construction environments. The cumulative exposure to safety systems, hazards, and protocols becomes extensive and directly shapes how risk is identified, interpreted, and managed in practice.

The conversation around locator safety is often centered on public locating, but the execution phase of ground disturbance extends beyond that system. Private locators are operating at the point where conditions are least controlled and where risk becomes immediate. They are not only identifying buried utility infrastructure, they are working within environments where physical hazards and subsurface uncertainty intersect in real time, and where decisions made in the field directly influence safety outcomes.

NAPUA supports our private locator stakeholder group by providing guidance, structure, and resources aligned with the execution phase of ground disturbance. Locator Safety Week is an opportunity to recognize all locators and acknowledge the full scope of conditions they operate within, from public right of way to private property where risk is less controlled and more complex.