Blue Stake / Arizona 811 (utility locating)

Blue Stake is the old name for Arizona 811, the statewide one-call service that marks buried utility lines before excavation begins. The service is free. You file a locate request, called a ticket, and each utility with lines on the site sends a locator to spray-paint or flag where its underground gas, electric, water, sewer, and communication lines run. The name comes from the marking system, and color codes signal what is buried where.

Arizona law makes this mandatory, not optional. Under A.R.S. 40-360.21, anyone who plans to excavate must notify Arizona 811 at least two full working days before digging, and cannot start until the lines are marked. You call 811 or file online, the request goes out to the affected utilities, and they respond within that window. Skipping the call and hitting a gas or power line is dangerous and expensive: the law allows fines up to thousands of dollars per violation, plus the cost of the repair.

For example, before excavating footings or trenching a water service on a new build-on-your-lot home in Apache Junction, the excavator files an Arizona 811 ticket. The gas, electric, and water providers mark their lines across the property, and the crew digs around them by hand near the marks.

A locate is different from an easement. Blue Stake tells you where lines physically sit so you do not hit them; an easement is the legal right that lets a utility have lines on your land in the first place. The two often line up, since marked lines frequently run inside a recorded utility easement. On any custom home site, the 811 request is a required step before the first shovel goes in the ground.