CGA says buried utility damage hit record high in 2025

Common Ground Alliance published its 2025 DIRT summary and a new damage-prevention dashboard, saying buried utility damage reached a record high and rose more than 5 points from 2024. The findings underscore ongoing risks to underground infrastructure even as some excavators in CGA’s prevention program cut their damage rates.

Why it matters: - Buried utility damage continued to rise in 2025, increasing pressure on utilities, excavators and state regulators to improve damage-prevention practices. - CGA said the trend affects underground power, water, fiber, natural gas and other critical lines in the U.S. and Canada. - The data points to a gap between construction activity and damage prevention measures.

What happened: - Common Ground Alliance published a summary of 2025 Damage Information Reporting Tool, or DIRT, data and launched an expanded interactive Damage Prevention Dashboard. - CGA said the 2025 CGA Index reached a record high. - The 2025 DIRT summary analyzed 221,717 unique damage reports. - CGA said the latest data shows damages continue to rise alongside construction activity as measured by GDP. - CGA said it will release a full State of Damage Prevention Report this fall.

The details: - The CGA Index, developed in 2023, is a statistically modeled national measure of year-over-year damage to buried utilities. - The index showed modest improvement from 2022 to 2023, then trended upward in 2024 and 2025. - The 2025 CGA Index score was 102, above the original baseline score and 8 points higher than 2023. - CGA President and CEO Sarah K. Magruder Lyle said the data shows damage prevention policies are not keeping pace with growing damage risk. - Magruder Lyle called for mandatory modern mapping practices, effective laws and investment in technologies to improve accountability. - CGA said excavators in its Damage Prevention Institute reduced their rate of attributable damages per 10,000 work hours by more than 11% from 2023 to 2025. - DPI excavator participants follow CGA Best Practices, submit damage data and other metrics monthly, and take part in peer reviews. - Telecom/cable TV and natural gas facilities accounted for 87% of all facility damage reports in 2025. - Telecom/cable TV represented 51% of those reports, and natural gas represented 36%. - Electric facilities accounted for 8% of facility damage reports, and water/sewer accounted for 5%. - For telecom/CATV, self-inflicted damage was the largest category, with telecom/CATV work responsible for 30% of the damage to those facilities. - Water/sewer work caused 22% of telecom/CATV damage. - For natural gas facilities, water/sewer work caused 27% of damage. - Telecom/CATV work caused 20% of natural gas damage. - Construction and development caused 17% of natural gas damage. - CGA said the top 10 root causes accounted for 86% of all reported damages. - Failure to notify before digging remained the single largest root cause every year. - The new dashboard combines One Call/811 Center information with DIRT data from 2023 to 2025. - The dashboard lets users explore damage trends by region, locate request volume, law information and center requirements by state. - Louis Panzer, executive director of North Carolina 811 and co-chair of CGA’s Data Reporting and Evaluation Committee, said the dashboard is meant to give stakeholders a clearer path to measurable improvement.

Between the lines: - The headline index suggests the industry is still losing ground overall, even as a subset of trained excavators improved their performance. - The concentration of damage in telecom/CATV and natural gas suggests prevention efforts may need to focus on the highest-risk work types first. - The persistent dominance of a familiar root cause suggests behavior and compliance, not just technology, remain a central problem.

What's next: - CGA will publish its full State of Damage Prevention Report this fall. - Stakeholders can access the 2025 summary, slide deck, downloadable charts and graphs, and the new dashboard at the public dashboard and report hub. - CGA said the expanded dashboard is intended to help states and organizations identify actions that can improve damage prevention outcomes.

The bottom line: - CGA’s latest data shows damage to buried infrastructure is still climbing, and the organization is pushing for stronger accountability and better mapping to reverse the trend.