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Big one-call fine for a Nebraska firm

A Nebraska company has agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for violating North Dakota’s “call before you dig” law.

The Public Service Commission says T & A Turf and Irrigation was working in the Minot area, putting in an irrigation system at the Minot Country Club. While digging, an electric feeder line owned by Verendrye Electric Cooperative was damaged.

"There was over 500 residential customers that were affected," said PSC Chairman Brian Kalk. "One hundred businesses and one clinic lost power for one hour. So it was a very big outage."

Kalk says the company did not have a valid digging ticket. He says based on that, PSC staff worked with the contractor on a settlement.

"They did it," said Kalk. "And they admitted to it. The severity of the infrastructure that was damaged was such that they looked at the facts of this case, and they said, 'You know what? We did it.' And they took the responsibility."

The PSC voted two to one to accept the settlement. Commissioner Randy Christmann voted no – saying it was too stiff a fine for a first time offender.

"Clearly, a mistake was made," said Christmann. "They're acknowledging that. But to use severity to take this from what otherwise may have been a $1000 fine all the way up to $12,000 is just excessive."

Commissioner Julie Fedorchak says while she thought the fine was high, the extent of the power outage justified it – and the company agreed to pay it. She and Kalk said this will send a warning to contractors to follow the "one-call" law.

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