Colorado law: call 811 at least 3 business days before you dig.

Denver metro by the numbers: 632,000 tickets, 857 damages

DMDPC · Feb 19, 2026

Our seven counties handle more than half of Colorado's excavation volume at a damage rate better than the state average. Here is the county-by-county detail.

The Colorado 811 2024 damage report breaks results down by county. For the seven counties DMDPC serves, the picture is genuinely encouraging — with a few numbers worth watching.

## The metro total

632,044 locate requests. 857 damages. A rate of 1.36 damages per 1,000 tickets.

That is 53% of Colorado's excavation volume producing 39% of Colorado's damages. Compared against the statewide rate of 1.83, the metro is running roughly 26% better.

## County by county

**Jefferson** — 126,716 tickets, 180 damages, 1.4 per thousand. The highest ticket volume in the metro, and foothills terrain that makes locating genuinely harder.

**Arapahoe** — 114,667 tickets, 184 damages, 1.6 per thousand. The highest damage count in the metro.

**Adams** — 114,061 tickets, 146 damages, 1.3 per thousand.

**Denver** — 112,991 tickets, 140 damages, 1.2 per thousand. The densest utility congestion in the state, and one of its better damage rates — a real credit to the crews working there.

**Douglas** — 78,100 tickets, 111 damages, 1.4 per thousand.

**Boulder** — 72,452 tickets, 91 damages, 1.3 per thousand.

**Broomfield** — 13,057 tickets, 5 damages, 0.4 per thousand. The best rate in the metro by a wide margin.

## The number that should bother us

Alongside each county, the report tracks what share of damages occurred with no 811 notification at all.

Broomfield: 40%. Boulder: 35%. Douglas: 32%. Adams: 27%. Denver: 24%. Arapahoe: 21%. Jefferson: 17%.

Broomfield has the metro's best damage rate and its worst notification rate. With only five damages the percentage is volatile, but the direction is consistent with Boulder and Douglas: the places doing well overall still have a meaningful share of incidents where nobody called.

## For context

El Paso County — outside our territory, served by the El Paso County DPC — recorded 616 damages on 145,904 tickets, a rate of 4.2 per thousand, with 76% occurring without an 811 call.

The gap between 1.36 and 4.2 is not a difference in soil or weather. It is a difference in how consistently people pick up the phone.