In the Netherlands mechanical digging is only allowed according the law WION. The purpose of this law it to bring back the amount of damage caused by digging that could have been prevented when information about pipes and cables was available in one map together with guiding drawings and letters. The law WION has helped to establish a framework for optimal exchange of information between the ones who dig and the netowners. To enforce the law, steep penalty fees have to be paid when digger failed to request information or netowner failed to provide requested information!
Netowners have tried for a very long time to protect their underground network. The netowners organised themselves and agreed to provide free information to building companies. A central non-profit organisation was born called KLIC. Building companies could provide a dig alert to KLIC, KLIC informed the netowners, the netowners provided the building companies with information directly.
Although a dig alert was not neccesary then, insurance companies demanded
building companies to do so. Less damage meant lower insurance fees, but failing
to do a dig alert means damage was not well insured anymore!
The growing amount of information received by the contractor was often hard
to interprete and the contractor needed more time to merge this information
to one clear picture. Sometimes digging commenced without consulting all
received information first.
When the law WION came into force, things changed a bit. Mechanical digging was absolutely not allowed anymore without doing first a dig alert with Kadaster. Penalty fees are steep (ten thousands of euro's). A dig alert is not free anymore, a dig alert costs 24 euro (july 2010). The kadaster now collects information from all network owners and the result is returned as layers of maps with network information together with guiding letters and drawings. The layers can be combined into one clear picture. This information can be viewed from inside a free viewer provided by Kadaster, but even better from QGIS using the Wion Result Viewer.
Three kinds of requests can be made, each of them serve a special purpose.
The website www.kadaster.nl/klic gives information how to do a Dig Alert request. For companies there is the web service KLIC-online that can be used to do a Dig Alert, registration is necessary. Using KLIC-online you can draw the planned area inside an interactive map, where you want to excavate. Private persons can fill in a form to obtain information.
Within a day you will receive an email with an url where you can download requested information. Be carefull to download this information first without opening it directly. You have only 5 attempts to receive requested information. After downloading the information unpack it and view it using the Wion Result Viewer
For testing purposes, you can also download one of the two free example digging requests from www.klicviewer.nl