WHEREAS, damage to underground facilities, such as pipes, mains, cables or conduits, can result in dangerous or costly leaks, fires, explosions and injuries, environmental mishaps, and the disruption of vital utility services, even though this damage and its consequences are often preventable; and

WHEREAS, all individuals, entities, corporations, and government bodies planning to dig, blast, or demolish need to first determine the location of underground utilities; and

WHEREAS, Dig Safe System, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation, is a free service for property owners and excavators, established to promote public safety and to protect underground facilities; and

WHEREAS, this “One-Call” system accepts notices of digging from excavators and transmits these notices to the designated utilities which respond by locating and marking out their facilities prior to the work; and

WHEREAS, notifying Dig Safe toll free by phone at 811 or online at www.digsafe.com prior to excavation work helps excavators to comply with safety rules and regulations in an effort to prevent unnecessary accidents from occurring;

NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved that I, Janet T. Mills, Governor of the State of Maine, do hereby proclaim the month of April 2024 as

Safe Digging Month

In Maine, and I urge all the citizens of Maine to participate fittingly in its observance.

In testimony whereof, I have caused the Great Seal of the State to be hereunto affixed GIVEN under my hand at Augusta this sixth day of March Two Thousand Twenty-Four