DIRT Data Summary & Trends: CGA Index Reaches Record High in 2025

WASHINGTON — Common Ground Alliance (CGA), the national nonprofit association dedicated to protecting underground utility lines, people who dig near them and their communities, published a summary of 2025 Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) data alongside a newly expanded interactive Damage Prevention Dashboard. CGA’s DIRT database is a comprehensive accounting of damages to buried power, water, fiber, natural gas and other utility lines in the U.S. and Canada. The latest DIRT data reveals that the CGA Index, which measures year-over-year buried utility damage trends, reached a record high in 2025. 

DIRT Data Summary & Trends

CGA has published a summary of key findings from 2025 DIRT data in addition to the new Damage Prevention Dashboard. CGA’s DIRT Summary & Trends analyzes 221,717 unique damage reports from 2025, demonstrating that damages continue to rise alongside construction activity (as measured by GDP). CGA will release a full State of Damage Prevention Report this fall, contextualizing 2025 DIRT data with broader industry and economic trends, and recommendations for the sector.

CGA Index

Developed in 2023, the CGA Index is a statistically modeled national measure of damage to buried utilities year over year. The CGA Index showed modest improvement from 2022 to 2023 before trending upward in 2024 and 2025. The 2025 CGA Index score of 102 exceeds the original baseline score and indicates an eight-point increase in damages since 2023.

“The 2025 DIRT Data Summary & Trends underscores a serious call to action we cannot afford to ignore,” said CGA President and CEO Sarah K. Magruder Lyle. “As damages to buried infrastructure continue to grow alongside construction activity, inadequate damage prevention policies are failing our communities and businesses. To protect public safety and secure the critical utilities on which all Americans rely, the entire industry must commit to tangible, enforceable accountability across all stakeholders. This includes mandating modern mapping practices, implementing effective laws and investing in technologies that will create a more efficient, reliable damage prevention system.”

Reductions Achieved by DPI Excavators

While the DIRT data shows damages rising nationally from 2023-25, excavator participants in CGA’s Damage Prevention Institute (DPI) moved in the opposite direction. DPI excavators reduced their rate of attributable damages per 10,000 work hours by more than 11% over the same time period. DPI excavator participants commit to following CGA’s best practices, submitting damage data and other key metrics on a monthly basis, and participating in peer reviews of their damage prevention programs.

Top Facilities Damaged & Work Performed

Telecom/cable TV (CATV) and natural gas facilities continue to bear the greatest damage burden, together accounting for 87% of all facility damage reports submitted in 2025 – 51% and 36%, respectively, followed by electric (8%) and water/sewer (5%).

Breaking this down further by facility type reveals distinct patterns. For telecom/CATV, damage is most often self-inflicted: Telecom/CATV work itself accounts for 30% of the damage to those facilities, followed by water/sewer work (22%). For natural gas, the top offender is external: Water/sewer work is responsible for 27% of natural gas facility damage, followed by telecom/CATV work (20%) and construction/development (17%).

Persistent Root Causes

CGA’s 2025 DIRT Data Summary & Trends analysis shows that systemic challenges remain highly consistent year over year, with little movement in the top 10 root causes which account for 86% of all reported damages. Failure to notify before digging remains the single largest root cause of damages every year.

The complete 2025 DIRT Data Summary & Trends, including a slide deck, downloadable charts and graphs, and the newly updated Damage Prevention Dashboard are available to at dirt.commongroundalliance.com.