Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil (Will Martin) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Massive Service Outage in Northern Illinois! Message-ID: <13789@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 18 Oct 90 15:13:36 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 103 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 744, Message 1 of 7 >Michael Glodek must feel like a million dollars today. He's the >landscaper who was building a new lawn for a home at 3521 Madison >Avenue in Oak Brook, IL on Monday morning when his digging machine >uprooted what Illinois Bell termed a 'very major, very important' part >of their interoffice network covering northern Illinois. >Glodek said, "I didn't do a JULIE because no one said there were any >lines in the immediate vicinity." JULIE is the organization which >keeps track of underground telephone and electric cables, plus water >and gas pipelines in northern Illinois. A spokesperson for Illinois >Bell retorted that "Every contractor is to do a JULIE before they >start work, and he knew it as well as anyone..." >Mr. Michael Glodek just stood there watching ... he admitted 'this is probably >going to cost me a lot of money, but that is what my insurance is for ...' >"You bet it will cost him a lot of money," said a Bell spokesperson. >"He'll get sued I'm sure." >Hinsdale and May, 1988 are still sensitive issues here; Glodek opened an old >wound, and will no doubt rue the day he didn't bother to 'do a JULIE' before >starting his work. He'll be getting sued for a long time to come. There's something missing here. Why would this guy be sued, and by whom? 1) Is there a *law* to the effect that someone digging on private property must "do a JULIE" or otherwise investigate what may be underground there before digging? Sure, doing that is a good idea, but is it actually legally required? 2) This was work on ordinary (it appears) residential property. Why would a major utility service trunk, as opposed to a feeder, be located under such property, as opposed to under municipal-owned or public property like a right-of-way, where one would expect such utility services to be run? Would there be something in the homeowner's deed or title-search papers showing an easement for this use, that the homeowner would be expected to know about? Or is this all "hidden" and secretive? There obviously was no sign there indicating an underground cable ran that way; I've seen such signs many places, and I would have thought it was the duty (and good business sense!) of the telco to keep such signs maintained and in-place over such an important cable run. 3) If the telco doesn't even keep warning signs there, how could they sue this contractor? Sure, they have infinite lawyers and anybody can sue anybody else for *anything*, but, aside from that practical consideration, what basis would they have for this suit? 4) Who else would/could sue this guy? Any and every phone user who was inconvenienced? Again, if he broke a law about digging without checking first, I could see that, but if there wasn't any law, what would be the grounds for such suit? 5) Suppose he had "done a JULIE" and checked and that system had been wrong, and told him the area was clear, and he dug and the same thing had happened? (Something for comp.risks. :-) Who would then have been at fault? Who owns/runs "JULIE" and how does it work? 6) This was a pretty obvious situation; you've got a guy with a backhoe in open land with a big hole and two broken ends of cable sticking out. Suppose the work had been done by one of those horizontal-digging underground-boring machines, putting in a drainage pipe or something, that chewed through the cable under an undisturbed surface, and the machine just chomped the cable like it was a tree root and continued on. No one doing the work might even notice. Now here you have "n" miles of underground cable, no obvious hole anyhere, and a break somewhere. With copper wire, you can use time-domain reflectometry or something like that to get some idea of where to start looking, but can you do that with fiber optics? You know, if these cable locations are public info, and a lot of them are under private residential property, this sounds like a great terrorist scenario -- just buy up strategically-placed houses and secretly tunnel underground to those cables/pipes/conduits. At one time, all over the country, just chop them in a combined strike. The whole infrastructure falls with no visible cause! You could be obvious about it and use bombs to cut the lines, but just cutting them without visible actions would be much more effective. Regards, Will wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil OR wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil [Moderator's Note: Effective soon, a new law here requires contact and approval from JULIE prior to digging in the ground. After a review of appropriate platt maps and easement documents, JULIE will approve the dig or decline its approval. If approved, JULIE will issue a unique authorization code to the person(s) doing the digging which, in the event of a cable cut or other damage such as a broken gas pipe will serve to indemnify the person(s) digging. We have *lots* of buried cable and pipelines here. And, they run under all sorts of private property. At the present time, the law (being changed) does not *require* JULIE approval, but recommends it. The law in Illinois grants easement rights to utilities, meaning if they have a cable running under your land, they have a right to examine/repair it without your permission, and you must obtain their permission to remove it or otherwise injure it. Who would sue him? The telco (or other utility), for damaging their property, as per their easement rights. Bell did in fact file suit Wednesday to the tune of one million dollars against the contractor. PAT]