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Trees and Power Lines

Started by Ron Scott, October 29, 2005, 10:09:35 AM

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Ron Scott

Mason Tree Tussle
     
Trees should not be planted under or within power line rights-of-way, but the utility should probably inform the involved landowner before they cut or spray "their" trees in the ROW.
 
By Dan Ponce
WILX-TV
Fifty trees chopped down. Consumers Energy says it was well within its rights, but a couple from Mason isn't buying it.

"Were devastated, we feel like part of our family had been taken from us," said Nancy Parsons, who returned from work Thursday to find more than 50 trees cut down.

Planted in the early 90s, the trees became a natural wall for their rural house that lies about a half mile from the road. But they ran right under the power lines that go to the house.

John Hall, a spokesman from Consumers Energy, said the company had no choice but to remove the trees because they were threatening power lines.

"14,000 volts is not something to play with at all," Hall said.

The Parsons have filed a formal complaint with Consumers Energy. Consumers said it is working with the couple to finish the clean up process, and provide more information.

~Ron

floyd


Dan_Shade

well, I know topping gets arborists all worked up, but for powerlines, I'm not sure why they just wouldn't top out the trees...

I know that a lot of the time, people will do that sort of stuff for spite when somebody has a nice peice of property, nicely landscaped.

Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

floyd

It powerlines went to house they are probably not too high off the ground. Would bet power company subs out r/w clearing.

Jeff

If its the line going to thier house I think the Utility was completely out of line.  BIG TIME.  The Property owner should have had every opportunity in this case to try to save thier trees before they were simply cuit down. It might not be the cheapest thing, but neither is replacing 50, 15 year old landscape trees.   a diverter pole could have been the answer either to alter the line direction, or possibly to change from above ground to underground. I would have liked to seen the situation because I bet there was a cure available to the property owner.
Just call me the midget doctor.
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floyd

power company has r/w recorded in county court house most places. picture tree hitting powerlines, & this surge going back to grid.

"here" it is about $1k /pole. so moving poles may not have been ibn landowner's budget.

Dan_Shade

if moving a pole was an option, it should have been presented to the home owner.    I've seen where powerline crews have completely butchered trees, cutting "C"s out of them and what not.   I used to work for a guy that forced the tree company to "properly" trim his trees, I can't remember all the details, but he won, I think he threatened a lawsuit. 

Around here landscaping adds thousands of dollars to property values, you can't just go around hacking down trees that add 10-15k to a houses value with at least considering alternatives.

there's always more than one side to a story...  I'd be sure interested to hear all of it here.

Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

Radar67

Quote from: floyd on October 29, 2005, 05:35:27 PM
power company has r/w recorded in county court house most places. picture tree hitting powerlines, & this surge going back to grid.

"here" it is about $1k /pole. so moving poles may not have been ibn landowner's budget.


Floyd,
    Where is here? I think the problem here is the landowners were not given an opportunity to solve the problem. Yes, the power company would have had right of way, but they could have notified the landowner of the problem, giving them time to devise a plan. Who is to say that the landowners didn't have a plan to cut the trees themselves for profit? Around here, you can use the electrical right of way for agricultural purposes, helps save the power company money maintaining the right of way. Bottom line is, it was not good business practice. I have a right of way to my property (1300 feet by 50 feet) full of trees, but because I have right of way, I can not go in and cut the trees. The trees are real property that belong to the landowner. My luck, I would be charged with destruction of private property.  :D

Stew
"A man's time is the most valuable gift he can give another." TOM

If he can cling to his Blackberry, I can cling to my guns... Me

This will kill you, that will kill you, heck...life will kill you, but you got to live it!

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JJackson

I strongly dout that a 14kv line is going to a house, maybe to a transformer next to the house.  On ROW we can remove trees that are a problem for the high voltage lines depending on the terms of the easement.  That being said, the utility that I work for does not go around cutting everybodies trees down.  We take our time to inspect the property, leave a note on the door and try to call the customer at least twice (or leave a message).  Upon contacting the customer we try to educate them on proper pruning and planting of trees near the high voltage lines, note I said try, some dontwant to listen or think that what we are telling them is BS.  Topping is bad, we try to drive this message to our customers, but we will top a tree if its our only solution because we have infromed them of the hazards and problems of topping.  IN  most cases we are back in 5 years and taking out the same tree we wanted to before because its dead or the owner now says the tree is ugly (like we did not tell them that it would happen.  I dont like the fact that the utility company did not take the time to inform or educate the customer.  One intersting thing is that the customers that make it hard for us to cl;ear around the lines are the first to complain when there's an outage.  Power companies are now required to deliver electricity in a more reliablefashion than in the past because of customer demand, so you're going to see a more agressive line clearance progam in some areas.  The right tree in the right place, trees grow, consider the height and spread (width) at maturity before you plant near the lines.  We do our pruning to the highest industry standards.
BSc. FOR, Certified Arborist/Utility Specialist

SwampDonkey

I have 80 year old maples that great grandfather planted along the road, and there was no line on our side of the road. The old cedar power poles were replaced 30 years ago and they moved the line on our side. Too bad, the trees stay.  What was wrong with leaving the line where it was?  ::) My grandmother told the linemen what they could do when they tried cutting her trees. ;) However, if the line was there before the trees were planted then I don't have any sympathy for the land owner. Why didn't they set the tree line over a few feet? ::)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

chet

I'm gonna stay outta this one as I know I will ruffle a whole bunch of feathers.   :-\
I am a true TREE HUGGER, if I didnt I would fall out!  chet the RETIRED arborist

beenthere

Jokes on you Chet. We ain't got feathers   ;D ;D ;D
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Ron Wenrich

I have done a few of those tree inventories for the electric companies.  I was even offered a job in Rochester, NY, but turned it down after seeing what other utility foresters went through.  I was amazed at what they had to go through just to keep the juice flowing.

For the really hot stuff, they weren't allowed to spray poisong under the lines unless the landowner gave their OK.  The nicest lines I've seen have had poison put under their lines for a couple of years, then reverted back to grass.  The worst were those that grew up in blackberrries.

I think the utilities could do a better job of working with landowners as to acceptable species for planting under their lines.  The telephone company doesn't really care, but the electric company does.  I just did a screen planting in back yard and used rhododendron under the utllity lines.  Serves the purpose, but doesn't impede the utility.

I do keep the Chinese elm and the Kentucky coffee tree, just to give them work.   ;D   They were planted before I moved in.

I think the utility might have handled this one badly, or we're just hearing one side of the story.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

mike_van

Here in Ct. the power company I  work for had a trimming program a few years ago they called "blue sky" - catchy name, huh?  Thats what they wanted to see over all the wire.  "blue sky" kind of died at our place. Next door at my mothers, there's a maple, got to be 5' dia, nice one, 100+ footer. This snotty kid from Davey Tree stops one day and tells her - " I have to cut so much out of that tree, I'm just going to take it down"  Yea, right - I don't think there's a dead branch in it, still isn't 'cause it's still there. If the tree is on private property, you can refuse permission, if it's on the state highway r.o.w. or an easement you gave them, your're out of luck. Small town here, everyone knows me, word travels, no one wanted "half trees" or "no trees" in front of their house,  it went back to conventional trimming here.  I did find out that the company tree foreman has a raise & bonus setup based on tree related outages - the more there are, the less he gets - Well, he's gone too - And our 200+ year old maple's still standing.
I was the smartest 16 year old I ever knew.

Furby

Quote from: Dan_Shade on October 29, 2005, 05:54:19 PM
if moving a pole was an option, it should have been presented to the home owner. I've seen where powerline crews have completely butchered trees, cutting "C"s out of them and what not. I used to work for a guy that forced the tree company to "properly" trim his trees, I can't remember all the details, but he won, I think he threatened a lawsuit.

Around here landscaping adds thousands of dollars to property values, you can't just go around hacking down trees that add 10-15k to a houses value with at least considering alternatives.

there's always more than one side to a story... I'd be sure interested to hear all of it here.




My Maple. :'( :'(

Kevin

I wouldn't be happy about that.
We had to pay five grand a tree for several large pines that were cut down to the ground by a hack contractor.

Furby

I knew it was getting trimmed, wasn't anything I could do about it and the branch tips were all brown from brushing the wires anyways.
What really ticked me off was the low quality work. They left branches hung up and smashed the bark off the trunk in a couple spots.
They even had the nerve to cut down a real small Mulberry that had not been marked. I'm thinking they dropped some branches on it and cut it to cover up the mistake.

Consumers Energy has been sued many times for stuff like this from what I can recall. All for the same type of stuff, poor pruning practices, removing trees they shouldn't and so on. Even if the contractors do it, Consumers Energy is responsible for not weeding out the contractors. They started a program a few years ago to deal with all the problems they were having, guess the program isn't working if the contractors are still screwing up. ::)

bottlefed89

Around here (WELL ATLEAST IN THE CITY) the power companies will do absolutely nothing to clear a  customers service drop to their house.  They will come out and drop the line if you get a tree service to do work, but they don't keep the drops clean.

floyd

Radar67, sorry for delayed response.  "Here" is Oregon.

TexasTimbers

Perhaps not, but I think there's more to the story as well.
I count myself lucky here. I have a great relationship with the County Co-op. They contract the trimming out. Their general policy is to only trim the trees for existing power lines and they only remove trees for new installation.
The way they trim the trees makes them look rediculous, but I guess it's better than whackin 'em all down.
In my case, when I bought my property it had power poles running nearly down the middle to supply the people who live 1/2 mile behind me off the road.
This meant I couldn't build anything on my property in a 20 swath (10ft on either side of the poles), and it just so happened that the perfect place for my shop was within this swath. So I had Danny (FCEC Seperintendent)  come out and give it a look-see. Well Fannin County hasn't yet been gobbled up by Big D and is still a good'ol boy community, and I am one of the good 'ol boys.
So Danny, my good 'ol boy super and good buddy says it'll cost about $800 to move the poles and run them down my property line (10 ft from the fence). No problem. Heckuva deal. But he'll call me back with an exact figure.
Well once he got it back from whatever dept that figures it up it actually cost $3800! Woulda been alot more with TXU 'cause remeber the rural co-ops are all non-profit. Still cheap when you figure all the hassle it was going to be for me not to be able to build on such a large tract of my own property.
I chose to run my power to the shop underground  from one of the newly installed poles along the fenceline, just so I could avoid this exact headache.
The area around my shop is going to get 50+ trees planted in January underneath where the powerline would've ran had I not run it underground.
That's an option for these people, although it isn't cheap if their PC doesn't supply the wire, which in my case they did. All I had to do was provide the ditch and the conduit.
I think it's too obvious that the PC should make their subs aware you don't go around cutting trees down that have obvious benefit to a homeowner no matter how legally "right" they may be. It's not much different than emminent domain in a way, but that's a different cat to skin.
The oil is all in Texas, but the dipsticks are in D.C.

SPIKER

Just so happens that this week, Wensday to be exact I had the ohio edison company out to look at what they felt had to be cut fomr the right of way, I have 138 KV lines (really big ones which will cook anything with int 7' of the line to ground) they wanted to take a lot of my pines, I said NO, that it is a maintained tree farm, they said OH ok, but we agreed to about 1/2 dozen or so trees, several I stated for them to cut, some they wanted.   if you remember 2 years back (maybe 3 now) in the summer the whole midwest power outage, it was started here in ohio because of trees under lines...   that shut power down for days to weeks in some cases.   anyhow line voltages play a LARGE part of how close you can get to the line before turning into a french fry.   while homes have 120/240 volts, the road out front may be a multiple of that usually 1140 volts, to 34K but the transition lines satart out at 68K and go up in voltage higher volts farther the vegitation must be away.

now anyhow there is still a area that is useable under the rightaway.   on mine it is max of 10' high. nothing higher including vehical trafic under it is permitted, this means no big ag tractors either... something most people are not aware of.   

anyhow some of the trees they are taking is more than I wanted others I said to take them now as they are nusance trees anyways.   

they are cutting them exactly how I wanted and not using spray except on the maple stumps, which I said no to brodcast spraying...   i have lots of berries (black berries ;) ) and elderberries planted under the lines as well as white & blue spruce...   I maintain the right of way a lot anyhow so they also agreed with what I wanted...   it is give & take.


the power compainies got a lot more powr in caring for the righ aways AFTER the big outage of 03....   so just because you say I want this tree left alone does not mean it will happen.

mark M
I'm looking for help all the shrinks have given up on me :o

ely

speaking of: last weekend i took out the power lines that were feeding a few houses. i had a big pine that was killed by beetles and one next to it that was still green. the green one was felled perfect with rope attached to pickup. the dead one was less than perfect. it went the wrong way because i mistook how much i had cut on that side of my hinge. anyway no one got hurt  so just remember no matter how much you think you know, lets be careful out there.

Kevin

Hey Ely, what did that little error in judgment cost ya?  :D

tnlogger

Ely now that reminds my of a story  ;D
About 6 yrs. ago my daughter bought some land that had a lot of big popple on it. She wanted to cut some of the lager trees to help pay for the land and asked dad to cut it .
by chance there was a 50,000 volt TVA main line on the edge of her property line.  ???
Wall now my son paul was falling and I was draging out the deck. As I was unhooking Paul and my soninlaw came running up the hill babbling about a tree that went back on them and was caught on the lines. Wal now as ya know them big line are about 50or60 ft in the air. Plus your talking big big bucks to fix um. Wal now I called the local elc. company and told them we hit a line and knocked it down. They said ok we'll send someone out.
Now at this time I had not looked at the line yet  ::) as I walked down the hill thinking how muck this would cost me while I looked for a switch to beat the fire out of my son for being careless.
Yup it was a TVA line and yup flat on the ground but for some unknown reason it was not broken . :-\
Wal about this time the repair crew showed up and sure nuf nope we wont touch it. Call the TVA. :-\
Wal know I asked um why the line wasn't sparking and burning and the old boy said oh this is a dead run that they dont use any more and if some one asked we was never here .
Wal now when my son heard that and being the way he is  :D he done snuck down there and took his saw and toped that there tree BONG,BOOM, Bang That there power line poped rights back in place.
Yes a very stupid move but some one was watching over him and he wasn't hurt.
Lesson learned and to this day he will check the path before he falls a tree  :D
gene

Ironwood

We have Aspalupgh (SIC) contracting the trees here and fortunately I am around the property everyday. They come thru every three years to HACK them up. Six years ago they said "yeah, there is a locust down there can we drop it? " I said sure I'll drag it out in a few years for posts. Well, son's-a-b@#$%. They cut one of my nice cherrys and I let it lay there an rot for several years before I even looked as it is in a thicket. Needless to say they get leeway from me anymore, like they cant tell locust from cherry. @#$%^&. I watch them a hawk and tell them to go pound sand most of he time. !@#$% I am still ticked.


              Reid
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love to do, there is only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.- Wayne Dyer

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