AWWA member finds success at Int'l Utility Locate Rodeo

By Ann Espinola

Don Conner loves his job. Every weekday, the AWWA member studies old maps to pinpoint underground utility lines, hooks up a box that energizes the lines, then waves a Merlin-like wand to nail their locations even more precisely. When he hits pay dirt, he gets to spray paint roads and people’s lawns.

Conner is so good at finding buried lines that he took 2nd place in the water main competition at the recent International Locate Rodeo in Atlanta. In the past decade at Clayton County Water in Georgia, Conner has located more than 120,000 buried water and sewer lines, missing just three times.

“They call me a graffiti artist here because I get to spray paint all day,” Conner said. “One of the older guys at the water authority used to call me Mr. Wizard.”

Conner says his calling is important because it tells homeowners, construction supervisors and municipal workers where a line is before they dig up a street or lawn. Federal law requires anyone planning to dig to call their state’s 811 one-call center, which dispatches crews to mark the earth above water, gas, power and cable lines.

“If the lines aren’t marked exactly right, things can go wrong,” Conner said. “Your house can get flooded. If the workers hit a sewer and gas line at the same time, gas can get in the house and cause an explosion. People can get hurt, lives can be lost.”

And about those three misses?

“Each time, I had two utilities close together and one stole my signal. It caused me to think I had the right utility marked, but I had actually marked the other one. Fortunately, there was no major damage,” said Conner, who sometimes lies awake at night wondering, “Did I put all the marks in? Was I off?”

This year, 81 utility workers representing 37 companies competed in the 14th annual locate rodeo – dubbed “The Olympics of the Locate Industry.” Sponsored by Georgia 811 and the National Utility Locate Contractors Association, workers combined high-tech equipment and their ingenuity in a race against the clock and each other. 

In addition to maps, locators use a device that is actually two pieces of equipment -- a transmitter case, which is a square box that resembles a battery, and a receiver, which looks like a large tube. The locator uses the transmitter case to connect a ground stake to a cable box, sending a signal to the pipe that energizes it. The receiver detects the energy, which pinpoints the location of the line.

Problem is the maps are often flat-out wrong. “Your map may show the main on the north side of the road, but it’s actually on the south side,” Conner said. “They could be old records from before the land was bought by the county. You could be searching for stuff that’s not there. You may find a water line that’s not on the map, and you’re like ‘Man, what do I got here?’”

Good locators are organized and patient, Connor said. “You may have a 400-foot locate and think it will take you 30 minutes, but it could take all day. It can be like an obstacle course out there with the water line overlapping phone and power lines.” They also understand their area’s topography, which gives them a sixth sense in pinpointing the lines.

If they are uncertain about their markings, they will gingerly dig with a shovel, making it far less likely that they’ll hit something than a contractor or homeowner with a backhoe.

For his second-place finish, Conner won $500 and promptly took his wife on a “mini-honeymoon” to Daytona Beach.

Last week, Conner left his job at Clayton County Water to work at another utility, where he started on Monday. Now, he finds electrical lines and the utility’s private water lines. He plans to keep his AWWA membership.

Another AWWA member, Chad Wetherington of the City of Marietta Water in Georgia, placed 4th in this year’s locate rodeo, but did not win a prize.

Like park-scouring treasure hunters, both Conner and Wetherington have unearthed far more than water lines. Conner found an old drainage system, a road sign, a water meter that was paved over during a road-widening project, and a horseshoe now nailed above his front door.

Wetherington and his crew discovered Coke bottles dating to the 1950s and 60s that they lined up on their supervisor’s desk. Some of the bottles are worth money, “but nothing that made me retire.”

Wetherington and Conner said locating is a social occupation. Bystanders often watch them work, they said, and pepper them with questions about what they’re doing and why.

“I give them a history of why it’s important to call before you dig,” Conner said. “Once I explain it to them, they always thank us and say, ‘That’s pretty cool.’”