Lots of Line Locates and No Line Hits: Award Recognizes Safe Digging Excellence
SaskEnergy’s Safe Digging Excellence Awards are back to help kick off the unofficial start to the digging season in Saskatchewan.
Three local companies were recognized in April, which is also Dig Safe Month, for consistently going above and beyond to excavate safely.
The three Safe Digging Excellence Award recipients are:
1. Fedorowich Construction Limited of Yorkton
2. F. Peters Excavating of Saskatoon
3. Westcor Contracting of Weyburn
“SaskEnergy is committed to working closely with contractors to support a culture of safe digging in Saskatchewan,” says Kevin Adair, SaskEnergy’s Executive Vice President of Customer Service Operations. “By shining a spotlight on companies who make damage prevention part of their everyday work, the whole industry can learn from their example and strengthen their own practices.”
Each of these companies submitted at least 25 locate requests annually over the past three years and also completed their work with no natural gas line hits.
“We want to make sure we know exactly where the lines are before we start our work. We daylight every line that is in our area of excavation,” says Matt Cameron, President and General Manager of F. Peters Excavating.
Daylighting is the process of removing the dirt to see the line. This can be done by hand digging for a small project or hiring a hydro-vac service for large ones.
“People could be without some pretty important services that they need for extended periods of time if we were to damage it. We want to take the utmost care to make sure that any utilities that we're crossing, we do so safely,” says Ryan Bousfield, Partner with Westcor Contracting.
With more than 418,000 customers served by over 88,000 kilometres of gas lines across the province, maintaining the safety and integrity of our natural gas system is a critical component of SaskEnergy’s focus on safety.
Damaging a gas line can interrupt natural gas service to homes and businesses and put people at risk of injury. That is a risk the leadership of these companies say they aren’t willing to take.
“My advice for other companies is don't take shortcuts. Make sure that all the proper steps are being taken to ensure safe digging practices and procedures at the work site,” says Laurie Fedorowich, Co-owner of Fedorowich Construction Limited.
Each of these companies was recognized at a Dig Safe contractor breakfast in their area. This series of breakfasts was held in communities across the province, hosted by the Saskatchewan Common Ground Alliance (SCGA.)
This the second year for these awards, which were launched by SaskEnergy in 2025.
