_How this section is sourced and cited, what belongs to whom, and how to reach us about a correction or a removal request._

1. What Ground Truth is

Ground Truth is an educational and industry-tracking section published by High Desert Scan & Locate, LLC. It contains two kinds of material:

  • Field Guides and Training — original explanatory writing prepared by us.
  • Industry Watch — short, independent summaries of third-party reporting, public records, regulatory documents and industry data, each linking to the source.

We publish it for the information of our clients and the trades we work with. It is not advertising copy, and we do not accept payment to cover, feature or omit any story, product, company or event.

2. Third-party material — we do not own it

Industry Watch entries summarize material we did not create and do not own.

We are not the author or publisher of the source material. All underlying articles, reports, data sets, photographs, headlines, trademarks, logos and other content referenced in this section remain the property of their respective owners, and all rights in that material are reserved to those owners. Nothing on this site transfers, licenses or diminishes any of those rights, and nothing here should be read as a claim of ownership over them.

Our contribution to an Industry Watch entry is limited to the selection, arrangement, summary and commentary — nothing more.

Every Industry Watch entry carries a numbered Sources list naming the publisher and linking to the original. Those originals are the authority; this page is not. Where an entry and its source differ, the source governs. We encourage readers to follow the link and read the original reporting in full, and we summarize only so much as is needed to identify the development and explain why it matters to people who dig, cut or design around buried utilities.

Quotations are kept short, attributed, and used for the purpose of reporting, comment and education.

3. No representation or warranty

The material in this section is provided "as is" and "as available."

To the fullest extent permitted by law, High Desert Scan & Locate, LLC makes no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, as to:

  • the accuracy, completeness, reliability or currency of any content here or of any third-party material we summarize or link to;
  • the accuracy of any statute, rule, standard, code, data set or industry publication as described here; or
  • the fitness of any of it for any particular purpose.

All warranties, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement, are disclaimed to the extent the law allows.

Content is accurate only as of the date shown on it, if at all. Laws, rules, standards, event dates, product specifications and industry data change. We do not undertake to update any entry after publication, and an entry that was correct when written may be out of date when you read it.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from reliance on anything in this section.

4. Not professional advice

Nothing in Ground Truth is legal, engineering, surveying, safety or other professional advice, and reading it creates no professional or client relationship of any kind.

In particular:

  • Regulatory summaries are orientation, not compliance. Where we describe Chapter 251 of the Texas Utilities Code, New Mexico's excavation rules, a PHMSA bulletin or any other legal requirement, the statute, rule or agency document is the authority and should be read directly. Consult a qualified attorney about your own obligations.
  • Nothing here substitutes for a site-specific scope. General guidance about scanning or locating cannot account for the conditions on your site.
  • Nothing here clears any area for excavation or cutting. No article, summary or guide on this site certifies any area as safe to excavate, cut or core, and none should be relied on for that purpose.

Private utility locating supplements, and does not replace, public one-call (811) notification.

4a. Training content is education, not training

Some material in this section describes how utility locating and related work is performed. It is published for educational purposes only.

Reading it confers no qualification, certification or authorization to perform this work, and it is not a substitute for supervised field training under a qualified person. This is a trade practised around energized electrical conductors, pressurized gas and open excavations, where errors cause serious injury and death.

Anyone performing this work should rely on their employer's procedures, the equipment manufacturer's instructions, the facility owner's requirements, applicable OSHA and state regulations, and the direction of the qualified or competent person on site. Those authorities govern; our articles do not. If you are not qualified and authorized for a task, do not attempt it.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, High Desert Scan & Locate, LLC accepts no liability for any injury, loss or damage arising from anyone's use of, or reliance on, educational material published in this section.

5. Standards and codes are cited, not reproduced

This section refers to published standards and codes — among them ASTM, ACI, ASCE/UESI/CI, PTI and model building codes — by designation, and describes their requirements in our own words.

We do not reproduce the text of any copyrighted standard. Those documents are the property of their publishing organizations, and access to them is generally by purchase or licensed subscription from the publisher. Where a standard governs your work, obtain the current edition from the publisher and read it. Our description of a standard is a paraphrase for orientation and may be incomplete, and the published standard controls in every case.

Editions change. We name the edition we relied on where we can, but a standard cited here may since have been revised, superseded or withdrawn.

6. Trademarks and no endorsement

Product names, company names, logos and trademarks mentioned in this section are the property of their respective owners and are used for identification and descriptive purposes only. Their use does not indicate any affiliation with, sponsorship by, or endorsement from those owners, and does not indicate that we endorse them.

Where we describe equipment, techniques or organizations, we are describing them — not recommending or certifying them. We receive no compensation, commission, consideration or free product for any mention in this section. If that ever changes for a given entry, the relationship will be disclosed on that entry.

Links are provided for reference and convenience. We do not control third-party sites and are not responsible for their content, accuracy, availability, security or privacy practices. A link is not an endorsement of the site, its publisher or its views. Some linked material may sit behind a paywall or registration, or may move or disappear without notice.

8. Reporting on identified parties

Some Industry Watch entries describe enforcement actions, litigation, incidents or regulatory proceedings involving named parties.

Those entries are summaries of published reporting or public records, they are attributed and linked to the source, and they are written to describe what was reported — not to allege anything of our own. Allegations described in a complaint, a filing or a news report are allegations, and we identify them as such. Where a matter is later resolved, appealed, corrected, withdrawn or reported differently, we will update or remove the entry on request.

We do not publish these entries to disparage any person or company. We publish them because damage prevention is a field where other people's failures carry transferable lessons.

9. Corrections, and requests to remove material

We want to get this right, and we will act on a well-founded request.

If you are a rights holder, a named party, a publisher, or simply a reader who has spotted an error, contact us at info@highdesertscan.com with:

  • the page or entry concerned;
  • what specifically is inaccurate, outdated or objected to; and
  • where you are the rights holder or a named party, enough detail for us to verify that.

Our practice on receiving such a request:

  • Factual corrections are reviewed against the cited source and corrected promptly where the objection is well founded.
  • Rights-holder requests — if you own material you believe is used here beyond what is appropriate, tell us and we will amend the entry, shorten the summary, or remove it. We would rather fix it than argue about it.
  • Named parties may ask us to note a development, correct the record or remove an entry, and we will consider the request in good faith.

Removal or amendment of an entry is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing by anyone.

10. Changes to this policy

We may revise this policy. The version in force is the one published here, with the review date shown at the top of the page.

11. Contact

High Desert Scan & Locate, LLC Email: info@highdesertscan.com Phone: 915-216-7360 Service area: El Paso, West Texas, Las Cruces and Southern New Mexico

This policy is a general statement of how we publish, and it is not legal advice. It has not been prepared by an attorney.