Background

The Village of Northbrook is a member of the Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators (JULIE) as mandated by state law. With membership in JULIE, the Village is notified by the call center of excavations where the Village may have utilities. The Village locates and marks it utilities including storm and sanitary sewers, water mains, street light cabling, and fiber optic cable in advance of excavations to prevent damage to Village-owned infrastructure. If the Village does not mark its utilities and the infrastructure is damaged during excavation by a contractor, the Village is liable for the repairs.

Receiving Requests

The Public Works department currently receives notification of locate requests through a web-based computer program called DigTrack. Prior to March 2010, locate requests were received through a tele-printer connected to the JULIE. One-Call Center that necessitated a dedicated phone line. Tickets are classified into one of three 3 categories:

• 0 (Emergency, the Village must respond within 2 hours)
• 1 (Priority, must be completed in 24 hours)
• 2 (Normal, must be completed within 48 hours)

For additional information about utility locating or if you plan on excavating on your property, please visit JULIE's website.

Program Service Level

The Village of Northbrook responds to an average of 5,938 locate tickets each fiscal year. Prior to fiscal year 2008-2009, 1.5 employees were assigned to locate utilities on a regular basis. Under this structure, one employee located sanitary and storm sewers and water mains while the other employee (assigned to perform utility locates part-time) was responsible for locating street light cables. Because of cross training, only one employee has been assigned to locate all Village utilities on a daily basis since fiscal year 2008-2009. Beginning in 2009-2010, the Village transitioned from contractual locating of its fiber optic lines to performing this task with Village staff.