Broward County concentrates more than a century of utility installation into a narrow coastal band, and the result is a subsurface environment where record drawings rarely tell the whole story. Municipal water and wastewater systems, FPL distribution and transmission, multiple telecom carriers, gas, drainage, and irrigation frequently share the same right-of-way, and each successive generation of work tended to leave earlier installations in place rather than remove them. Subsurface utility engineering exists to close that gap. Under ASCE 38-02, designating is the geophysical step that establishes where utilities actually are in plan view, and in Broward it is the step that most often changes a design assumption before it becomes a change order.
US Utility Potholing performs subsurface utility engineering throughout Broward County, from Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach south through Fort Lauderdale to Hollywood, and west across Coral Springs, Sunrise, Plantation, Davie, and Pembroke Pines. We are licensed and insured, and we work for civil engineers, general contractors, municipalities, and electric utility crews. Every project runs electromagnetic induction locating and ground penetrating radar together rather than treating GPR as an add-on, because the two methods fail in different places and the overlap is what makes a designating deliverable defensible. Horizontal positions are captured with sub-inch accurate GPS in the field and delivered as a KMZ Google Earth overlay along with CAD and PDF.
Why QL-B Designating Comes First in Broward County
Designating, Quality Level B under ASCE 38-02, is the geophysical interpretation of where subsurface utilities exist horizontally. It is not a records exercise and it is not a line scaled off an as-built. Crews sweep the site with electromagnetic induction equipment, energize accessible conductive facilities where connection points allow, trace them through the work area, and mark the interpreted alignment on the ground. Ground penetrating radar runs alongside the EM sweep on every project to look for what EM cannot see: non-metallic water and sewer services without tracer wire, PVC conduit, abandoned lines, and vaults or structures that do not appear on any drawing.
What designating gives you is horizontal position. It does not give you depth. Any depth figure produced by a locator is an estimate derived from signal geometry, and in Broward the ground penetrating radar picture drifts as the South Florida water table moves, because the depth calculation depends on how fast the signal travels through the soil. We report designating results as horizontal alignments and we state that plainly in the deliverable. If your design needs a verified elevation on a specific utility at a specific station, that comes from a test hole, and we mobilize vacuum excavation to get it. On a Broward site that distinction is not academic, because a shallow and moving water table means the same facility can read differently on two visits weeks apart.
Dense Corridors and Congested Rights-of-Way
Broward's east-west and north-south corridors are where designating earns its cost. The I-95 spine, the I-595 corridor, I-75 and the Sawgrass Expressway on the west side, the Florida Turnpike, and US-1 through the eastern cities all carry bundled utilities in constrained rights-of-way, frequently under pavement that has been cut, patched, and resurfaced many times over. Interchange areas and frontage roads compound the problem, because utilities were relocated to accommodate each successive roadway project and the relocations were not always recorded to a consistent datum.
Downtown Fort Lauderdale and the older sections of Hollywood and Pompano Beach add a second layer: conductive clutter. Rebar, wire mesh, metal drainage structures, rail, and dense duct banks all return signal, and a single-method sweep in that environment produces marks that look confident and are not. Running EM and GPR together lets us reconcile conflicting responses instead of reporting the first one we find, and where the two methods disagree we show where they disagree rather than averaging them into a single line on a plan. Sites close to the ocean and along the Intracoastal add salt-influenced soil conditions that further limit how far radar energy penetrates before the return becomes unreadable, which is another reason we do not lean on radar alone.
From Designating to QL-A Test Holes
Once the horizontal picture is established, the utilities that actually control the design get test holes. We vacuum excavate with a vac truck, or with air and barrel soft dig where access is tight or the surface has to stay intact, expose the facility without damaging coating or conduit, and record top-of-pipe elevation, outside diameter, material, and horizontal position on sub-inch accurate GPS. That is Quality Level A: a measured point, not an interpretation. On a Broward roadway or drainage project the test holes usually go where a proposed storm line crosses an existing pressure main, where a drilled shaft or pile is planned, and wherever the designating marks show two facilities occupying what looks like the same trench.
Designating Across Broward Municipalities
Work in Broward rarely stays inside one jurisdiction. A single corridor project can cross municipal water and wastewater systems in cities that operate their own utilities, county-maintained facilities, FPL distribution and transmission, and multiple telecom carriers, each with its own records and its own idea of where its facilities sit. Designating gives every party a common horizontal picture on one plan, in one coordinate system, which is the practical value of SUE on a multi-owner corridor.
We deliver that picture in formats your team can use immediately: a KMZ overlay for field verification and stakeholder review in Google Earth, CAD for the design file, and PDF for permitting and submittal packages. Deliverables are labelled by ASCE 38-02 quality level so reviewers can see which lines were designated geophysically, which were verified by test hole, and which came from records alone. Projects in Sunrise, Plantation, Davie, Pembroke Pines, and Deerfield Beach get the same workflow as work in the coastal cities. Where a municipality or a utility owner wants the marks left in the field as well as recorded digitally, we paint and flag to the standard color code before demobilizing.
Frequently Asked Questions — SUE in Broward County
Can you give me depths from designating alone in Broward County?
No. Designating establishes horizontal position. Any depth a locator reports is estimated from signal geometry, and ground penetrating radar depth readings drift with the South Florida water table because the calculation depends on soil signal velocity. If your design needs a verified elevation, we vacuum excavate a test hole and measure top of pipe directly. That is Quality Level A under ASCE 38-02, and it is the only depth we will certify.
How much of a Broward corridor should be designated before design?
Designate the full limits of proposed work plus enough beyond the limits to see where facilities enter and leave the site. On congested corridors along I-95, US-1, or I-595, we also recommend designating cross streets and driveway aprons, because that is where services turn and where record drawings are thinnest. Partial coverage tends to produce a plan that looks complete and hides the conflicts that matter most.
Do you locate private utilities that 811 will not mark?
Yes, and on most Broward sites that is the majority of the risk. Sunshine 811 covers member-owned facilities in the public right-of-way. It does not cover privately owned lines past the meter: site lighting, irrigation, fire loops, private electric feeds between buildings, and service laterals on commercial and campus properties. We designate those with electromagnetic induction and ground penetrating radar, then test hole whatever the design has to clear.
Why Work With Us in Broward County
- QL-B designating first: Every Broward scope starts with a geophysical sweep of the full work limits, not a markup of record drawings.
- EM and GPR on every visit: Ground penetrating radar runs alongside electromagnetic induction on all Broward projects, never sold as an add-on.
- Depth only from test holes: We report designating as horizontal position and vacuum excavate when your design needs a measured elevation.
- Congested corridor work: Crews work the I-95, I-595, US-1, and Sawgrass Expressway corridors where utilities sit bundled in constrained rights-of-way.
- Deliverables your team can use: Sub-inch accurate GPS captured in the field, issued as a KMZ Google Earth overlay plus CAD and PDF labelled by quality level.
Related: how SUE works · utility mapping deliverables · QL-A test holes · Broward County coverage