37-12-301. Short title; definitions.

(a) This act may be known and shall be cited as the "Wyoming Underground Facilities Notification Act."

(b) As used in this act:

(i) "Business day" means any twenty-four (24) hour period other than Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday;

(ii) "Emergency" means a sudden, unforeseen occurrence, including a loss of communications, which demands immediate action to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public and to prevent loss of life, health, property or essential public services and advance notice to the notification center prior to excavation is impracticable under the circumstances. "Emergency" shall include ruptures and leakage of pipelines, explosions, fires and similar instances where immediate action is necessary to prevent loss of life or significant damage to underground facilities or the environment;

(iii) "Excavation" or "excavates" means any operation in which earth, rock or other materials on or below the ground is moved or otherwise displaced by means of hand or power tools, power equipment or explosives or other means, and includes grading, trenching, digging, ditching, drilling, augering, tunneling, boring, plowing-in, pulling-in, ripping, scraping and cable or pipe installing, except tilling of soil and gardening or agricultural purposes;

(iv) "Excavator" means any person or entity that excavates or conducts excavation activities;

(v) "Impoundment" means a closed basin formed naturally, or artificially built, which is dammed or excavated for the retention of water, slurry or other liquid or semi-liquid material;

(vi) "Notification center" means a center that receives notice from excavators of planned excavation or other requests for location and transmits this notice to participating operators;

(vii) "Operator" means any person, including public utilities, municipal corporations, political subdivisions or other persons having the legal authority to bury, operate, maintain, repair and replace underground facilities;

(viii) "Person" means an individual, partnership, municipality, state, county, political subdivision, utility, joint venture, corporation, limited liability company, statutory trust or other business entity and includes the employer of an individual;

(ix) "Secured facility" means a parcel of land used for commercial or industrial purposes that is surrounded entirely by a fence or other means of preventing access, including a fence with one (1) or more gates that are locked at all times or monitored by a person who can prevent unauthorized access;

(x) "Sump" means a surface pit into which drilling mud flows on reaching the surface of the well after being pumped through the drill pipe and bit, then up through the annular opening between the walls of the hole and the drill pipe, carrying with it cuttings from the well, which settle out of the mud in the sump pits;

(xi) "Underground facility" means any item of personal property buried or placed below ground for use in connection with the storage or conveyance of water, sewage, electronic, telephonic or other form of electronic communications, cable television, electric energy, oil, gas, hazardous liquids or other substances and including but not limited to pipes, sewers, conduits, cables, valves, lines, wires, manholes and attachments;

(xii) "Government entity" means any agency, department, board, commission, authority, institution or instrumentality of the state and any county, municipality or other political subdivision of the state;

(xiii) "Public right-of-way" means any public street, road, highway or sidewalk;

(xiv) "Soft digging" means any excavation using tools or equipment that utilize air or water pressure as the direct means to break up soil or earth for removal by vacuum excavation;

(xv) "This act" means W.S. 37-12-301 through 37-12-307.