Passport to Texas

Know what’s below before you start planting your wildscape. Image: Texas811 blog.

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This is Passport to Texas

As the weather cools, a wildlife loving homeowner’s thoughts turn to creating a wildscape. But before picking up a shovel, pick up the phone, and call Texas 811.

Texas 811 is the statewide “call before you dig” service.

Mike Losawyer is President and CEO of Texas 811, a nonprofit organization based in Dallas. He says many gas lines—as well as utility lines—lie just below the soil’s surface.

Anytime you’re going to be digging in the state of Texas, call 811 from anywhere in Texas, and you’ll get our call center. We’ll take a little bit of background information from you, and we’ll send the utilities out in your area, and they’ll come out and mark their underground facilities for free, so you don’t damage them when you’re excavating.

Calling Texas 811before you begin work on any outdoor digging isn’t a suggestion—it’s the law.

There is a law regarding this that says you actually need to call two working days prior to beginning excavation; we’ll send somebody out to mark those lines. The service is free. It just takes a little bit of planning ahead. So, really the gardens, trees, fence post, a mailbox post—any of those things would require that you give us a call.

Homeowners who call 811before digging to have underground utility lines marked on their property can plant a wildscape with confidence. Find details at Texas811.org.

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For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 5th, 2016 at 12:00 am and is filed under Wildscaping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.