Situations where underground utilities are accidentally damaged, blocked, or covered during construction or yard work can be inconvenient, costly, and even dangerous.
To help avoid these situations, the City of Kamloops has developed a new interactive online map to allow residents and contractors to view city-owned underground utility infrastructure at any time.
This user-friendly resource provides views of city-owned water, sanitary, drainage, and irrigation infrastructure. It also aligns well with the B.C. One Call program, which encourages residents and contractors to call before they dig to identify natural gas, hydro, telecommunication, and other utilities. The map allows users to search, measure, and print maps of infrastructure prior to commencing excavation work. It is also optimized to be viewed on handheld devices.
“We wanted to provide a resource to both residents and the landscape/construction industry that clearly shows our underground utilities so people could identify their locations before beginning excavation work and avoid potentially disruptive and dangerous damage to our city’s infrastructure,” said Greg Wightman, utility services manager at the City of Kamloops. “In addition to potential damage if utility lines are hit, our crews have also seen many situations where residents have inadvertently installed structures on top of utilities, which can lead to accessibility problems.”
The City of Kamloops encourages residents to use the map to ensure water shut-off valves and other utility access points are accessible in incidents such as leaks and blockages. The map is also useful for trades and landscape professionals for finding service locations when working in customers’ homes and on their properties.
To find City-owned underground utilities, visit Kamloops.ca/Utilities and click the Utilities Location Map link. Once the map is open, users can type the street address or an intersection in the upper left-hand corner (e.g. Victoria Street West @ 1st Avenue). There is also built-in layer functionality, where each layer represents a different kind of utility, including drainage, sanitary, water, and irrigation infrastructure.
For more information or to locate utility infrastructure near your home, visit Kamloops.ca/Utilities.
