Before construction projects start, plans are sent to all utilities of
record, and other  interested parties, and they are required to mark
the locations of their facilities before the contractor starts
digging.  If the contractor then damages a marked facility, he must
repair it at his cost.  But if he damages an unmarked facility, it has
to be repaired at the facility owner's cost.  It's not the
contractor's responsibility.  So we, as taxpayers, are paying because
the  Feds aren't marking their facilities.  And fiber optic lines, the
media of choice for secure data transmission, is very easy to damage
and expensive to splice back together.