In this Chapter, unless the context indicates otherwise:
(a) Clearance requirements means the minimum safe distance between one underground facility and another unassociated underground facility, as defined by the owners of the respective underground facilities.
(b) Contractor means any person who routinely engages in excavation in the course of its profession.
(c) Excavation means the removal or displacement of earth, rock or other material in or on the ground by means of any tools, equipment or explosives. "Excavation" includes grading, trenching, digging, ditching, drilling, augering, tunneling, scraping, pile driving, cable or pipe plowing and driving, wrecking, razing, rending, moving or removing any structure or mass of material.
(d) Excavator means any person who performs or proposes to perform any excavation.
(e) One-telephone-number utility notification system means a plan established by two (2) or more public service companies, government agencies or other operators of underground facilities by which an excavator notifies the participants by telephone of an intent to excavate.
(f) Person means any individual, firm, joint venture, partnership, corporation, government contractor, or association. "Person" includes any trustee, receiver, assignee or personal representative.
(g) Public service company means:
(1) any company as defined in Section 1-101 of the Public Utility Companies Article of the Maryland Code and any successor provision;
(2) the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission; or
(3) any organization which is a member of the one-telephone-number utility notification system.
(h) Surface replacement work means the routine maintenance or limited replacement of sidewalks, curbs and gutters, and similar structures, including patch-type road paving and street repairs. The excavation required for surface replacement must not exceed in depth the structure which is replaced or repaired.
(i) Underground facility means any item of personal property owned by a public service company, which is buried or placed below ground or submerged for use in connection with the storage or conveyance of water, sewage, electronic, telephone or telegraph communications, electric energy, oil, gas or other substances. “Underground facility” includes pipes, sewers, conduits, cables, valves, lines, wires, manholes, attachments and those portions of poles below ground. (1988 L.M.C., ch. 40, § 1; 2010 L.M.C., ch. 49, § 1.)