In some parts of Illinois, it’s taking longer than usual to get underground utility locations marked. Kevin Chmura, a spokesperson for JULIE or the Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators service, says there are lot more calls for the service than usual. JULIE covers all of Illinois outside of Chicago. He says JULIE took 177,000 requests in August. That’s 8% more than August last year.
If you need the service, Chmura advises calling more than two days in advance. If your project is on a small part of your property, you can ask for the utility companies to check just that part of your property. You can even mark your own project area to let the utility locators know where to look.
The JULIE number is 811.