Business owner files wait-time complaint against Virginia Natural Gas

HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — “Call before you dig.”

You know the reminder — state law requires that utility lines be professionally marked before breaking ground. But one small business owner said she waited two weeks for a locator to come out — and it’s bankrupting her business.

“I was in an office before [the pandemic] in City Center,” said Erin Snyder Dixon, who owns a landscaping business and builds homesteads for those wanting to live off the land. “We had extra staff. There’s no extra staff now and there’s no extra money.”

Dixon’s job involves digging, but she must call Virginia Natural Gas first to locate gas lines. If they don’t, the penalty is up to $10,000.

“And I spent one day where I was on a time-sensitive project, it had to get done,” Dixon said. “We were waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. They just didn’t show up and I put in a three-hour locate, and they didn’t show up. And I put in another three-hour locate, they didn’t show up.”

Normally, VNG would apologize and set another appointment. But soon, Dixon stopped getting responses altogether. When a locator finally showed up at a project, she asked what was happening.

“He said ordinarily, he had a couple hundred tickets on his docket to clear to go out and mark,” she said. “And that right then, he had 500 tickets that had to be cleared within the week. And that was a Thursday. The locators are working seven days a week. They’re working after dark. It’s crazy. But there aren’t enough of them.”

And it’s costing Dixon big time.

She has to pay employees to be on site in case a locator shows up. With each delay, that’s another $200 gone with no work done. She said she’s spent $4,000 just waiting.

“We have run out of money,” Dixon said. “And now we’re at five, six, three-hour locates and I’ve told them, I just can’t sit out there and wait anymore.”

After hearing from WAVY News 10, Southern Company, the parent locator, reached out to Dixon. She said they had a positive conversation, in which they acknowledged there were issues and were planning to make changes. Dixon — now with no more open tickets for VNG to address — is optimistic they will improve things going forward.