What exactly is the practice of SUE? Take into consideration that SUE today is an engineering practice. It is no longer paint marks on the ground or vacuum excavation. These technologies are not even mentioned in the ASCE definition. They may be part of SUE, but then again, they may not be.

The practice of SUE doesn't follow any set pattern. Rather, it is tailored to individual projects. It essentially involves systematically identifying the quality of utility information needed to design a project, and acquiring and managing that level of information.

The practice of SUE works best when it is coordinated and provided by an experienced and knowledgeable consulting engineer. Such an engineer would typically coordinate and perform the following tasks:

• Identify utility owners that have facilities on, or may be affected by, the project. Contact these utility owners (...face-to-face meetings are preferable) and provide them with information about the proposed project. Schedule periodic follow-up meetings.
  
  
• When the highway plans are about 30% completed, or possibly even sooner in the planning phase, provide the plans to utility owners along with a request that they review the plans and provide pertinent as-built or other existing utility information. Obtain existing utility information from other sources. Review all information that can be obtained and plot it on a utility composite drawing or equivalent. This is Quality Level D (QL-D) information.
  
  
• Make field observations to identify visible above-ground utility features. Survey and plot resulting information. This is Quality Level C (QL-C) information. It is correlated with the records information (QL-D). When records and features information do not agree, resolve discrepancies.
  
  
• Use appropriate surface geophysical methods (i.e., pipe and cable locators, terrain conductivity methods, resistivity measurements, metal detectors, Ground Penetrating Radar, etc.) to designate existing subsurface utilities or to trace a particular utility system. This provides two-dimensional horizontal information. Place paint marks on the ground. Place identification flags or stakes on the paint marks or coding on the pavement at 50-foot intervals and survey to project control. Depict resulting information via computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) or manual plotting onto the client’s plan sheets, Geographic Information System (GIS) databases, or other appropriate documents. This is Quality Level B (QL-B) information. If requested by the project owner, also perform surveying and depict information about aerial utilities.
  
  
• Resolve differences between QL-B, QL-C, and QL-D information. This may involve additional surface geophysical searches and/or actual exposure of some subsurface utilities. This may require re-depicting utilities that have previously been depicted in order to present the more accurate information.
  
  
• Develop a conflict matrix showing all possible highway/utility conflicts. This involves comparing depicted utility information with proposed plans (highway, bridge, drainage, maintenance of traffic, and other). The resulting matrix contains columns to record the physical location of each conflict, the name of the utility involved, the nature of the conflict, the action needed. Upon analyzing the information recorded on the matrix, it will be obvious that some conflicts can be readily resolved, some conflicts are questionable and additional information is needed, and some conflicts cannot be resolved.
  
  
• Convene and facilitate a meeting with utility companies to discuss potential conflicts and other aspects of the project. Discuss possible strategies to avoid conflicts and identify locations where additional three-dimensional information is needed.

• Expose selected subsurface utilities to obtain three-dimensional information. Use minimally intrusive excavation methods, such as vacuum excavation. Depict resulting information. This is Quality Level A (QL-A) information.

• Resolve differences between QL-A information and the previously obtained QL-B, QL-C, and QL-D information. Depict new and corrected information. Go back to the conflict matrix with the new QL-A information to determine the status of conflicts requiring additional information. Meet with utility companies to discuss these conflicts and possible strategies to avoid utility relocations.

• Deliver depicted information to the project owner. The basic deliverables for utility information are generally a CADD file, a GIS file, or a plan sheet that has utility information in plan view for Quality Levels A, B, C, and D and in profile view for Quality Level A.
  
  
• Work with the project owner’s designers to be sure they understand the information provided and to suggest possible ways to avoid conflicts.
  
  
• Where conflicts cannot be avoided and utilities will have to be relocated:
  - Determine prior rights.
  - Obtain relocation cost estimates and plans from utility companies.
  - Prepare utility relocation agreements.
  - Provide utility relocation design.
  - Acquire necessary right-of-way.
  
  
• Collect and store pipe location and condition information in a database for asset management.
  
  
• Work with utility companies, one-call centers, and contractors during construction as needed.
  
  
• Continue to represent the utility owner in all utility-related activities as the project progresses.
  

In regard to the above tasks, several important things need to be kept in mind:

• These tasks may be provided by the project owner, but are more commonly performed by a consulting engineer working closely with the project owner. They are most effectively utilized when coordinated by a professional utility coordinator employed by the engineer. The utility coordinator is responsible for working with the owner and the affected utilities to determine the need for each task and to ensure that selected tasks are performed properly and expeditiously.
  
  
• These tasks may be used in a different sequence than that prescribed above (i.e., it may sometimes be more practical to perform (a) QL-C tasks before and/or in conjunction with QL-D tasks, and/or (b) QL-B tasks before and/or in conjunction with QL-C or QL-D tasks).
  
  
• Some of these tasks should be used on every project, but it may not be necessary to use all of them (e.i., QL-D and QL-C information may be all the information deemed necessary for a particular project). If not willing to accept a particular risk, project owners may opt to obtain additional information. Determinations may be made every step of the way until acceptable risk levels are achieved.
  
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