By Ian Simpson
Interim vice president, communications and corporate affairs, Ontario One Call
In Ontario, landscaping season ramps up fast. Teams get bigger, schedules fill up and every workday matters. When the pace increases so does the risk, and a single underground utility strike can wipe out weeks of hard work in just a moment.
The cost of hitting a line is almost never just the repair. A strike can halt work, delay projects, hurt client trust, cause insurance headaches and cut into profits during the busiest time of year. With a short season, lost time means lost income.
Every year in Ontario, underground lines are hit thousands of times. Reports show there are over 3,900 damages a year (about 17 each workday). Landscaping and other green-industry jobs account for one-sixth of these cases. These numbers are not just statistics. They mean real projects are stopped, and real businesses are paying for avoidable mistakes (Ontario Regional Common Ground Alliance, 2025).
Recent research from Ontario One Call adds more insight. Most outdoor workers report checking for hazards before digging, yet incidents still occur too often. Nearly half of digging professionals hit underground infrastructure in 2025 and 15 per cent of them had multiple strikes in the same year. When damage happens again and again, it usually means safety steps are not being followed consistently, not just one-off errors (Ontario One Call, 2025).
The good news is that most strikes can be prevented. Submitting a free locate request at OntarioOneCall.ca is still one of the best ways for landscape companies to manage risk. By law, locates are required whenever ground is broken, regardless of the project size or the depth of the dig. Ontario One Call research shows that 28 per cent of professionals and 57 per cent of homeowners did not request locates for their last digging project — even though it is required by Ontario law (Ontario One Call, 2025). Even small jobs carry real risks. When locates are skipped, crews are left guessing and that’s when preventable damage occurs.
Landscapers play a larger role in public safety than most people realize. Every safe dig helps keep homes, businesses, hospitals, traffic and emergency services running smoothly. Avoiding a strike is not just about your job site — it’s about protecting the community and the reputation of your industry.
Now is the time to start building safe habits before the dig season ramps up. Seasonal hiring, equipment prep and scheduling are already underway, and safety training should sit alongside those priorities. Ontario One Call’s education programs, like KnowRisk, give companies practical tools to strengthen crew knowledge, reduce risk and invest in safer operations. Teams that treat locate requests as a standard first step operate more consistently when pressure increases in the spring.
As another busy year approaches, Ontario One Call urges every landscape business owner to make safety part of its competitive edge. Start training early and click before you dig. Request your locates at OntarioOneCall.ca for every job. It’s the law and it gives crews the confidence to dig safely from day one.
References ___________________________________________
Ontario Regional Common Ground Alliance. (2025, March 24) 2024 DIRT report.
https://orcga.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/March-24-2025-Final-2024-DIRT-Report.pdf
Ontario One Call. (2025). Ontario One Call 2025 industry awareness survey.
Learn more about your locate responsibilities with Ontario One Call
landscapeontario.com/episode/2025-05-01-dig-safe-jean-lepine
