Published
How far ahead do you have to call 811 before digging in Island Park?
The clock is statutory
The two-day figure isn't utility-company folklore — it's in the Idaho Code:
The notice shall be communicated by the excavator to the one-number notification service… not less than two (2) business days nor more than ten (10) business days before the scheduled date for commencement of excavation…
— Idaho Code § 55-2205(1)(c), retrieved August 2026
Business days, which trips people up twice: weekends don't count, and neither does the day you call. A Thursday afternoon request does not make Monday morning legal. The ten-day ceiling matters too — call absurdly early and the ticket goes stale before the dig.
The process, in the order it happens
- Mark your dig path in white — paint, flags, whatever makes the route unmistakable. The statute asks for it, and it is why the locator marks the right ten feet instead of guessing
- Call 811 (or digline.com, or 1-800-342-1585) and answer the operator's location questions. You get a ticket number and a list of utilities being notified
- Wait out the two business days while each utility's locator marks its lines in its own color
- Confirm every listed utility has actually marked before digging — each facility owner has two business days from receipt of the notice to respond and mark. If you later hit something nobody marked, § 55-2205(5) puts that owner on an eight-hour clock to supply locate information, and caps your compensation at actual cost or $2,000, whichever is less
- Dig with the marks respected — hand-expose near marked lines rather than trusting a bucket's precision
Why this rule earns its keep in the caldera
Island Park buries almost everything. Fremont County's own building paperwork requires utilities to the property to run underground, and forty years of cabin improvements leave a lot in the ground that no drawing shows. A locate ticket is free; a severed power line, a gas strike, or a cut fiber trunk is the opposite.
There are statutory exemptions — six of them — but read the sentence that governs all six before relying on one. Idaho Code § 55-2210 opens with a condition, not a permission:
Unless facts exist which would reasonably cause an excavator to believe that an underground facility exists within the depth of the intended excavation, the following excavations shall not require notice…
— Idaho Code § 55-2210, retrieved 2026-08-13
The exemption homeowners reach for is the first one: excavation less than fifteen inches in vertical depth, outside a recorded underground-facility easement, on private property. On a lot with a buried service run, a meter, a pedestal, or a well head in view, that opening condition is doing most of the work — and it is the excavator's belief that is being tested, after the fact, by someone looking at a damaged line.
What it means for your schedule and your bids
Fold the locate into the plan and it costs nothing; forget it and it can cost a week of a very short season. When an operator bids your job, the 811 call for the dig is their legal obligation, and the good ones mention locate timing without being asked — treat that as a quality signal. If you're doing owner-scale digging (a fence line, a few trees, a culvert), the same 811 call is yours to make, two business days ahead, white paint first.
The pattern repeats all over Island Park: a public rule sets a floor, and everything above it is a private arrangement you make yourself. The locate is the summer version of that. The winter version is whether Fremont County will ever plow the road to your cabin — its criteria sheet answers that at question one, and the answer is usually no. Both sit in the dated guide index, newest first.
Common questions
How many days before digging do I call 811 in Idaho?
At least two business days and no more than ten business days before excavation begins — that window is written into Idaho Code section 55-2205, not a utility's preference. Business days, note: a Friday call does not make a Monday dig legal.
Who takes the call — and does it cost anything?
Idaho's one-number service is Digline: dial 811, use digline.com, or call 1-800-342-1585. The locate service costs the property owner nothing; the utilities send locators to mark their own lines because unmarked strikes cost them far more.
What is the white paint about?
The statute directs excavators to pre-mark the path of excavation in white paint (or other clear means) so locators know exactly where to look. White is reserved for proposed digging; the located utilities come back in their own colors — red for electric, yellow for gas, blue for water, and so on.
Does a homeowner digging on their own lot really have to do this?
Yes. The law covers excavation generally, and its one memorable exemption is agricultural tilling shallower than fifteen inches — nothing a fence post, tree planting, driveway, or trench qualifies for. On an Island Park lot, buried power to the well pump and the underground utility service the county requires are exactly what you would hit.
If I hire an excavation contractor, whose job is the 811 call?
The excavator doing the digging is the one obligated to give notice, and professional operators fold the locate into their schedule as a matter of course. When you compare bids, the operator who talks about locate timing unprompted is showing you what the rest of their process looks like.
How does the two-day rule affect a short-season schedule?
It is the cheapest lead time on the whole job, but it is mandatory — so it belongs in the plan, not discovered on dig day. In a compressed Island Park season where machines are booked back to back, a job that waits on a locate ticket can slide a week. Call early inside the ten-day window and the schedule keeps moving.
How long do the locate marks stay good?
Markings are valid for the notified excavation for no longer than four consecutive weeks from the date of notification, and only while site conditions stay unchanged. There is a tighter trigger underneath that one: if excavation has not commenced within three weeks of the original notice, Idaho Code section 55-2205 requires the excavator to reinitiate notice. On a job that slips for weather, a permit, or a machine, the locate is the thing everyone forgets to redo.
Is a shallow dig — a fence post, a few shrubs — actually exempt?
Sometimes, and the condition matters more than the list. Idaho Code section 55-2210 exempts six kinds of work, and the first is an excavation less than fifteen inches in vertical depth outside a recorded underground-facility easement on private property. But every one of the six is prefaced by the same clause: the exemption applies only unless facts exist which would reasonably cause an excavator to believe that an underground facility exists within the depth of the intended excavation. Near a well head, a meter, a pedestal, or a marked easement, that belief is reasonable and the exemption goes away.
What does it actually cost to skip the call?
Idaho Code section 55-2211 escalates rather than fining on day one. A first violation is handled by recommending a training course adopted by the Damage Prevention Board, and a residential homeowner or tenant digging on the lot they live on gets a written warning and educational materials instead. A second violation carries a civil penalty of up to $1,000. Where a further violation happens within eighteen months of an earlier one and facility damage has occurred, the board may impose up to $5,000 for each separate violation. Repairing the line you hit is a separate bill.