Hydro-Excavation SWMS

Suits utility, civil and excavation contractors who use a hydro-excavation truck or trailer unit to pothole and expose underground services. It covers service information, traffic control, truck position and overhead lines, the high-pressure lance and vacuum, pothole edges, tank and pit hazards, spoil disposal and pack-up.

This SWMS ticks two high risk construction work items from s 291 of the WHS Regulation: work on or near energised electrical installations or services (s 291(k)), because potholing exposes buried services and the truck works near overhead lines, and movement of powered mobile plant (s 291(o)). Tick pressurised gas mains or piping (s 291(i)) where gas is or may be among the services, a trench or shaft deeper than 1.5 metres (s 291(g)(i)) if one is dug, and the road item (s 291(n)) when the work is on, in or beside a road in use by traffic. A SWMS is required before high risk construction work starts (s 299).

New to SWMS? Read What Is A Safe Work Method Statement?

What Is Covered In Our Hydro-Excavation SWMS?

After the standard pre-start checks, the job steps run from “Get service information and plan the potholes” to “Backfill, reinstate, shut down and pack up”. The hazards and controls include:

• Striking underground electrical, gas and water services
• High-pressure water jet cuts and injection injuries
• Hose whip and rotating parts on the truck
• Vacuum hose suction and blocked hoses
• Truck or boom contacting overhead power lines
• Traffic striking workers on or beside a road
• Pothole wall collapse and falls into open holes
• Entering the debris tank or pits without a confined space plan
• Overloaded trucks and tipping near power lines
• Contaminated spoil and slurry disposal
• Noise, heated water and hot surfaces

High Risk Construction Work

These high risk construction work items (WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) s 291) are already ticked because they are part of this work. Tick any others that apply to your job:

• Is carried out on or near energised electrical installations or services
• Is carried out in an area at a workplace in which there is any movement of powered mobile plant

Licences, Training and Competency

• General construction induction training card (white card) for construction work
• Hydro-excavation truck operator trained and assessed as competent on the make and model of unit, including the lance, vacuum, boom and tank discharge (no high risk work licence class applies to operating a vacuum excavation truck)
• Road driver licence for the class of truck
• Trained operator for the cable and pipe locator
• Spotter or safety observer briefed on hand signals, the exclusion zone and the power line distances
• Accredited traffic controllers where traffic control is needed on or beside a road
• Competent person, such as an engineer or geotechnical engineer, to advise on support where a trench is 1.5 m or more deep
• Asbestos awareness so workers recognise suspect pipe, stop and report it
• Site induction that covers known services and the emergency plan
• First aider on site, briefed that any jet puncture or cut is a medical emergency

Legislation and Codes of Practice Referenced

• Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld)
• Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld)
• Excavation Work Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Risks of Plant in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Traffic Management for Construction or Maintenance Work Code of Practice 2008
• Confined Spaces Code of Practice 2021
• Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Noise and Preventing Hearing Loss at Work Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Risks of Hazardous Chemicals in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Managing respirable crystalline silica dust exposure in construction and manufacturing of construction elements Code of Practice 2022
• Managing the Work Environment and Facilities Code of Practice 2021
• How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks Code of Practice 2021
• First Aid in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Abrasive Blasting Code of Practice 2021 (water jetting, AS/NZS 4233.1 as the code points readers to)
• Electrical Safety Act 2002 (Qld)
• Electrical Safety Regulation 2026 (Qld): overhead and underground electric lines, exclusion zones in schedule 2
• Electrical Safety Code of Practice 2020 – Working near overhead and underground electric lines
• Transport Operations (Road Use Management – Accreditation and Other Provisions) Regulation 2015 (Qld): traffic controller accreditation
• Heavy Vehicle National Law (Queensland), applied by the Heavy Vehicle National Law Act 2012 (Qld): mass requirements (s 96) and chain of responsibility (s 26C)

What You Get

• An editable Microsoft Word document (14 A4 landscape pages). Type your business, client and job details once and they fill in on every page, with a space for your logo
• 10 job steps for this work, each with its hazards, controls, initial and residual risk scores and the person responsible
• PPE listed for this job: waterproof safety boots; high-visibility long-sleeve shirt and trousers; hard hat when outside the cab on a construction site; face shield over safety glasses when using the lance
• Emergency arrangements for: water-jet puncture or cut, cable or gas service struck and truck or boom in contact with an overhead line
• Plus the parts every Work Safety QLD SWMS shares, from the s 291 checklist to the worker sign-on sheet (see the layout in our free SWMS template)

Adjust it for your site, plant and crew, and talk it through with your workers before work starts. Please make sure you read our Disclaimer before downloading this SWMS.

Checked against the Queensland laws and codes of practice listed above. Last reviewed November 2026.