[comp.dcom.telecom] Easements and Utility Company Obligations

dgc@math.ucla.edu (David G. Cantor) (10/24/90)

I live on a private road.  My property extends to the middle of the
street.  The main "virtue" of this is that I am responsible for
maintenance of the road.  All of the utilities have easements.  Most
of these easements are in an "easement strip", 10 feet wide, between
my home and the curb.  These include gas, water, telephone, cable TV,
and electricity.  Right now, LA County is installing a new drainage
system and they (their contractor) had all of the utilities identify
where their cables, pipes, etc., were.  It didn't matter.  The
contractor has broken TV cables, telephone cables, water pipes, and
electrical cable (fortunately, not gas).  And everyone blames the
other party.  The contractor claims that the utilities gave him the
wrong locations and the utilities blame the contractor.

None of these utilities ever do an adequate patching job after digging
up the road and the main reason we are going to have to repave is
because of these bad patches.


David G. Cantor
Department of Mathematics
University of California at Los Angeles
Internet:  dgc@math.ucla.edu