Industry Events
6 sources
Texas811 Damage Prevention Summit — Galveston, October 7–9, 2026
The Texas damage prevention calendar's main event, six weeks out. Early registration pricing ends September 2.
Region
Texas
Published Ground Truth entries in this archive.
Law & Regulation
6 sources
Texas’s underground facility safety bills died in 2025 — the work moved to an interim subcommittee
Three bills touching Texas's dig law died in committee in 2025 without a hearing between them advancing. The story didn't end there: the House stood up an interim Subcommittee on Underground Facility Safety, and it has already taken testimony.
Field Guides
9 sources
Caliche, clay and the river valley: what our ground does to radar
Ask what radar can do here and the honest answer is a question back: mesa or valley? The region's ground splits into two radar environments — and the soil surveys, not the sales brochure, explain which one your site is.
Field Guides
7 sources
What to have ready before a locate, so the visit goes faster
Most of what slows a locate down is decided before anyone arrives. Five minutes of preparation on your end usually buys back an hour on site, and it materially changes how much of the site we can actually cover.
Field Guides
5 sources
Septic, irrigation, and the lines nobody drew
Every developed lot accumulates buried lines the way a garage accumulates boxes — steadily, quietly, and with no inventory. The ones that get hit are rarely the ones on a drawing.
Field Guides
10 sources
What 811 covers, what it doesn’t, and why the meter is the dividing line
A free 811 ticket is the first thing you should do before you dig, and it is not the last. In both Texas and New Mexico the law that makes one-call work also draws a line around what it covers — and on most job sites that line sits at the meter.
Field Guides
5 sources
Who pays when a private line gets hit? A plain description of how the responsibility falls
When a public utility gets hit, a whole statutory machine engages. When a private line gets hit, there is no machine — just the property owner, the excavator, and whatever they knew and did beforehand. That difference is worth understanding before you dig, not after.
Industry News
3 sources
Texas has logged more than 4,800 excavation-related pipeline strikes so far in 2026
Railroad Commission data reported in June puts Texas past 4,800 excavation-related pipeline strikes for the year — and roughly a third of the excavators involved had not contacted 811 before digging.
