Subsurface utility engineering (SUE) helps project teams avoid major risks — such as delays, safety hazards, unexpected costs and public disruption — by accurately locating underground utilities before construction begins. We caught up with Atlas’ East Region Utility Manager and SUE lead to get insight into why SUE should be seen as an investment and not an added expense to project costs. He highlights a recent project for the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) which showcases the value of 3D SUE technology by mapping extensive underground and overhead utility data into a detailed 3D model. The information provided to GDOT improved design decisions early in the project and minimized potential construction issues.

In the world of infrastructure, transportation and site development, one of the most overlooked risks comes from what lies beneath the surface: underground utilities. Systems like water, gas, electric, telecom and sewer lines create a complicated network that isn’t always accurately documented. When these utilities are struck or incorrectly located, the consequences can be significant — causing delays, safety risks and costly emergency repairs.

This is why subsurface utility engineering (SUE) is so important. SUE combines historical records research, advanced geophysical technologies and precise surveying to detect, identify and map underground utilities long before construction begins. By doing this early, project teams gain clear visibility into potential conflicts and can make better decisions throughout design and construction.

SUE has consistently proven to deliver one of the highest returns on investment in civil and construction projects. It’s a strategic tool that reduces risk, saves time and protects budgets.

Q: What is the cost of not knowing where underground utilities are? Or what happens if underground utilities are inaccurately located or undocumented?

The cost of not knowing the location of underground utilities can be severe, impacting every aspect of a project. When utilities are inaccurately mapped or completely unknown, project teams can face a series of escalating problems that jeopardize both safety and budgets, such as:

• Construction delays – When crews encounter unexpected utilities, work often stops immediately. Redesigns, relocations and change orders must be made on the fly, slowing progress and pushing schedules far beyond what was planned. These interruptions can ripple through the entire project timeline.
• Safety hazards – Striking a utility line isn’t just inconvenient, it can be dangerous. Hitting gas, electric or high-pressure lines puts workers, nearby residents and the public at risk.
• Unexpected costs – Emergency repairs, damage to utility infrastructure, specialized response teams and service restoration all come with significant price tags. These unplanned expenses can quickly overwhelm a project’s contingency budget and lead to substantial overruns.
• Public disruption – Utility strikes often affect far more than the construction site. They can cause service outages, traffic closures and public frustration.

This is why the financial value of SUE is so important to consider. According to a , every $1 invested in SUE delivers an average of $4.62 in measurable cost savings, with total returns commonly cited by FHWA in the $4–$20 range when broader risk‑reduction benefits are considered. Even under conservative estimates, SUE routinely delivers returns exceeding 400%. These numbers are not hypothetical; they’re backed by years of documented research from Departments of Transportation and proven results across the private sector.

Q: If we look beyond just the dollar cost of not using SUE, what other values do you see in terms of risk reduction and reputation?

Beyond the financial savings, SUE provides significant value in both risk reduction and protecting a project’s reputation. By identifying underground utilities early, teams greatly reduce the likelihood of utility strikes, safety incidents and unexpected disruptions. Fewer surprises mean smoother schedules, more predictable outcomes and a safer work environment for crews and the public.

There’s also a strong reputational benefit. Projects that avoid utility issues tend to stay on schedule, maintain public trust and demonstrate strong stewardship of taxpayer and stakeholder resources. When agencies and contractors deliver projects without delays, damage or service interruptions, it reinforces confidence in their processes, professionalism and commitment to safety. Ultimately, SUE helps safeguard not only the budget, but also the credibility of the team delivering the project.

Q: What advice can you offer clients when it comes to knowing when or whether to engage SUE?

The earlier SUE is integrated into a project, the more value it brings throughout the entire lifecycle of design and construction. When SUE is engaged during the concept and preliminary design stages, project teams gain a much clearer understanding of existing underground conditions before making major decisions. This early insight reduces the likelihood of costly redesigns, helps establish realistic budgets and provides designers with accurate information rather than assumptions.

As the project moves into final design, SUE continues to deliver significant benefits. With accurate data on utility locations, engineers can identify potential conflicts in advance and incorporate solutions directly into design plans. This proactive approach prevents issues that would otherwise surface during construction, where changes are not only more disruptive but also substantially more expensive.

SUE’s value doesn’t stop once construction begins. During field activities, SUE professionals verify utility locations to support real-time conflict resolution and guide necessary adjustments. This reduces the chances of unexpected discoveries, keeps crews safe and helps maintain project momentum by avoiding delays caused by unforeseen underground conditions.

In today’s project environment, SUE is not just a “nice to have” — it is an essential investment in responsible, risk-aware project delivery. Teams that integrate SUE into their standard workflow experience fewer surprises, reduced risk and stronger financial outcomes, ultimately protecting both the project budget and schedule.

From my perspective, it all comes down to one simple truth: if we know what’s underground, we can work around it. Planning around utilities will always be far cheaper and far safer than hitting an unmarked line during construction and learning the hard way.  

Q: Is there an example of how Atlas has leveraged its SUE capabilities on a complex infrastructure project?

We recently leveraged Atlas’ 3D SUE capabilities to help GDOT gain valuable insight into a 3.5-mile section of its roadway. The goal was to build a 3D map of all utilities and attach important details so designers could easily see and understand what was underground.

To do this, Atlas’ SUE team collected information using several methods, including:

• Quality Level B — utility designating to identify and mark the location of buried utilities.
• 14 test holes.
• Data collection on overhead utility poles.
• Sanitary sewer inspections.
• Utility impact analysis with clash detection.

In total, our team mapped more than 130,000 feet of underground utilities, 261 poles, 22 manholes and the 14 test holes. Information about depths came from the test holes, utility owner records and electronic measuring tools.

Once we collected all the horizontal and vertical data, we used it to build the 3D utility files. GIS technology helped by attaching useful details to each utility feature — like size, type and ownership. This enabled designers to simply click on a utility to see all its information.

The final deliverables included a 3D SUE database, a 3D report, the utility impact analysis and all the electronic 3D files.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not reflect the views or opinions of the Georgia Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration or any other DOT which may be mentioned herein.

Project earns an ACEC Georgia Engineering Excellence Award.

Babak (Bobby) Shayan, David McKenney, Alexandra Davis, Andrew Pankopp and Andy Casey accept award on behalf project team. 

Spelman College has long been recognized for its academic excellence and leadership in liberal arts and sciences. As the college envisioned its first major new academic building in more than 25 years, campus leaders saw an opportunity to create something extraordinary — a space where the arts and sciences could finally converge and inspire one another.

The result is the 82,500‑square‑foot , a landmark building positioned at one of the campus’s most prominent corners. Designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, the Center includes performance spaces, classrooms, dance studios, a museum, a café and the Arthur M. Blank Innovation Lab — an advanced maker space inviting students from across disciplines to experiment and create.

The project recently earned statewide recognition, receiving an , in the Special Projects category. This award highlights the successful collaboration and technical excellence that brought this transformational building to life.

Engineering a Shared Vision

Atlas is proud to have played a significant role in delivering the site design solutions that made this bold vision possible. Our team provided comprehensive services, including site planning, grading and drainage, stormwater management, utility design, erosion control, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) documentation, permitting and construction support.

Designing within a dense, historic and active campus environment required meticulous planning and coordination. The project site, formerly a faculty parking lot, contained a complex web of existing utilities critical to campus operations. Atlas conducted extensive investigation and subsurface utility exploration to minimize relocations, protect essential systems and see that construction could move forward without disrupting campus life.

This careful groundwork proved invaluable, especially when designing the foundations for the pedestrian bridge that connects the new Center to the campus core. Bridge footings were needed in an area crowded with existing and proposed utilities. Atlas worked closely with the structural engineering team, using designating and targeted test pits to verify the exact location and elevation of utilities.

Sustainable Solutions Below the Surface

While much of the Center’s beauty is visible in its open, sun‑lit architecture and inviting outdoor “porch” spaces, some of its most impactful engineering features lie underground.

Located within — an area historically affected by pollution and flooding — the site required thoughtful water management strategies. Atlas designed a 63,200‑gallon underground cistern, constructed from 84‑inch‑diameter pipe, to capture runoff from both landscaped areas and building rooftops. Pretreatment through vegetated swales and a high‑capacity First Defense system improves water quality, reduces downstream flooding and gives Spelman a sustainable irrigation source that reduces reliance on the city’s potable water supply.

During utility evaluations, Atlas also identified opportunities to enhance segments of the existing sanitary sewer system serving a large portion of campus. The team designed a new watertight sewer main, improving system performance and safeguarding both campus operations and nearby natural environments.

The Center for Innovation and the Arts has already catalyzed new activity and programming on campus, creating a vibrant hub for creativity and discovery. For Atlas, the project represents the impact of thoughtful civil engineering — solutions that operate quietly beneath the surface yet play a pivotal role in a building’s performance, sustainability and long‑term campus value.

“Earning the 2026 ACEC Georgia Merit Award underscores the significance of this achievement. The Center stands as a testament to what can be accomplished when visionary design meets technical precision: a building that not only serves Spelman College today but strengthens its legacy for generations to come,” said Tom Price, Atlas Infrastructure President.

Additional Award-Winning Contributions

Alongside the Merit Award for the Spelman Center for Innovation and the Arts, Atlas was also recognized for its contributions to the Big Creek Water Reclamation Facility Expansion and the Brookhaven City Center, which earned a State Award and an Honor Award, respectively.

As more EV charging stations emerge across the country, some first-time buyers are inadvertently overlooking the importance of verifying what utilities lie below project sites. Enter subsurface utility engineering (SUE) professionals: the unsung heroes of the EV transition.

After accidentally nicking an underground power line, one school district was forced to halt construction on an electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure project.

The school was in the process of connecting an EV charging station to a cluster of ground-mounted solar panels located across campus, an investment that would and accommodate its growing number of EV drivers.

With the start of school just weeks away, Civil Engineer and Geophysicist Iko Syahrial was called to locate and map the underground utilities inside an 80-foot radius (about one tennis court’s length in every direction) for a safer path forward.

“The severed utility line was the only obstruction beneath the designated project area,” Iko said. “We also located multiple abandoned conduits that posed no risk to further construction activities.”

The process involved the use of five, non-destructive geophysical instruments, a standard operating procedure for subsurface utility engineering (SUE) evaluations that renders near-perfect depictions of underground utility networks.

“There’s no silver-bullet solution that can ‘see and detect’ everything,” Iko said. “But through the strategic integration of multiple, specialized tools — each designed to address specific aspects of subsurface analysis — we enhance our ability to unveil a comprehensive and accurate depiction of the hidden complexities below the surface.”

It’s the orchestrated collaboration of technology, Iko said, that brings clarity to the intricate subsurface landscape.

In other words, each instrument covers the other’s blind spot, piecing together an accurate picture and understanding of the subsurface conditions in question. They include:

• Line Tracer:
  • Passive mode identifies natural frequencies emitted by utility lines, such as the 60 Hz signal from electric power lines or radio frequencies from communication lines.
  • Active mode actively induces a signal onto the utility line using a transmitter and receiver, enabling tracing of the line’s path, even if it doesn’t emit a natural frequency (what Iko used to trace the rest of the nicked line).
• Ground-Penetrating Radar: uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. Helpful in locating buried conduits made of both metallic and non-metallic materials such as PVC or HDPE (think water pipes).
• EM-61 (electromagnetic devices): a powerful metal detector that detects the presence of metallic objects by generating an electromagnetic field and sensing the responses caused by metal conductors.
• M-Scope (conductivity meter): senses the conductivity of the materials (including soil). By detecting breaks in the homogeneity of the materials (discontinuity), it can be assumed that there is a possible underground line/object (think backfill).
• Gradiometer: measures variations in the Earth’s magnetic field, which can help identify subsurface anomalies or buried metallic objects.

Multi-method geophysical evaluations open projects to a wealth of insights that help inform safer construction activities.

The proactive involvement of SUE via geophysical methods in EV charging station projects is essential for the safe and efficient expansion of charging infrastructure, particularly for schools and institutions seeking to promote sustainability on their campuses.

By identifying and mapping underground utilities, these professionals mitigate risks, reduce construction costs, and support the growth of electric mobility, ultimately contributing to a more sustainable future.

The process took Iko approx. four hours and cost a fraction of what the school will end up paying in change orders.

“These types of accidents can almost always be avoided,” Iko said. “If you’re thinking about adopting EV charging infrastructure, determine the location of all underground utilities before you dig. It’s a budget-friendly way to save time — and lives.”

The moment a shovel or backhoe bucket is put in the ground, there is a risk of hitting or damaging a utility line.  As a result, locating underground utilities is critical to the design and construction of any roadway, infrastructure or building improvement project. Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) is a risk management process that combines civil engineering, surveying and geophysics. When used in conjunction with Utility Coordination (UC), SUE provides a method of characterizing, identifying and resolving utility conflict related issues.

SUE and UC are critical to minimizing impacts to existing utilities, but they can be even more beneficial and lead to greater cost savings when used during design, as opposed to during construction.  SUE allows designers to make intelligent decisions regarding their design.  Slight adjustments can produce substantial cost savings by reducing utility relocations and project delays.  

In an independent study by Purdue University, a total of 71 randomly selected projects that utilized SUE were studied in detail from Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, and Ohio.  The result — a savings of $4.62 for every $1.00 spent on SUE.

When establishing a SUE scope, only certain quality levels (QL-A, B, C, or D) may be recommended based on the project’s need and purpose.  Our process is to identify the most cost-effective methods so that we can pass on significant cost and time savings to our clients and their customers.  Additionally, when a SUE service provider is identified, a strong, established relationship with transportation and utility owners provides a significant advantage. Knowledge of SUE and UC, understanding of the utility industry, and strong relationships with key stakeholders help to expedite any utility-related project issues encountered.

Atlas, through its acquired company, Long Engineering, has played a critical role in developing Georgia DOT’s SUE program into one of the most advanced in the country today.  Building on that expertise, we are focused on managing the risks associated with all aspects of utility coordination—mapping at appropriate quality levels, conflict analysis, relocation design, coordination, condition assessment, and consistently communicating all utility data to stakeholders.

Our crews routinely locate underground utilities including, but not limited to, water, gas, power, communication, CATV, fiber optics, fuel lines, force mains, and sanitary sewer lines. In addition, we utilize a full array of tools and technology to provide accuracy and quality results including radio detection designating equipment, ground penetrating radar, and vacuum excavation to existing utilities to determine their exact location, size, and elevation.

We have the necessary personnel to coordinate and manage high-volume workloads, while maintaining stringent Quality Control standards and schedules. This begins at the top management level and flows through our entire team. From a managerial perspective, Atlas is well-positioned and has recently completed additional key management hires, all of whom are seasoned industry leaders with proven experience in contract terms, issuing of task orders, and rapidly mobilizing personnel to complete work. Atlas team members Randy Sanborn, PE (VP SUE – Georgia and Florida); Tom Rock (VP of SUE – Carolinas); and Mike Goodman (VP of SUE – Virginia) are three of the Southeast’s most experienced SUE/UC managers, and they have each successfully managed large, statewide SUE contracts. These core individuals provide management redundancy and collaboration to quickly find creative solutions for challenging utility-related issues and have greatly assisted our efforts to serve additional markets such as the Carolinas, Virginia, and Florida.

Atlas was recently awarded a contract to provide statewide SUE services for the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT). Our team will support GDOT on an “On-Call” basis, and this newly awarded contract will remain in effect for three years. Additionally, Atlas currently manages SUE, survey, and UC services on 7 of the 11 GDOT – Major Mobility Investment Program (MMIP) projects. These projects represent the State’s largest, most ambitious transportation initiatives and include enhancements to I-75, I-85, SR 400, I-285, I-85, I-20, and over 100+ bridge locations.

A thorough knowledge of the design-build process as it relates to the SUE scope of service is extremely important for these types of projects. Additional work includes high-profile projects such as the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, several projects at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, award-winning and sustainable projects on college campuses, and projects for well-known utility companies such as Georgia Power and Southern Company Gas to name a few.

About the Author:

Randy Sanborn, PE is registered in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina and was instrumental in helping the Georgia DOT obtain funding for their first ever SUE project, making him the longest tenured utility provider in the State. With over 33 years of experience, Randy is widely recognized as an industry leader in the subsurface utility engineering (SUE) and utility coordination (UC) arena.