April marks the ninth annual National Safe Digging Month, reminding Pennsylvania residents to always dial 811 three business days before any digging project.

When dialing 811, homeowners and contractors are connected to Pennsylvania 811, the local one call center, which notifies the appropriate utility companies of their intent to dig.Professional locaters are then sent to the requested digging site to mark the approximate locations of underground lines with flags, paint or both.Every six minutes an underground utility line is damaged because someone decided to dig without first dialing 811. Striking a single line can cause injury, incur repair costs, fines and inconvenient outages. Every digging project, no matter how large or small, warrants a call to 811.The depth of utility lines can vary for a number of reasons, such as erosion, previous digging projects and uneven surfaces.Pennsylvania 811 encourages area residents to visit

www.pa811.org or

www.pa1call.org for more information about digging safely.