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Snow highlights tree-pruning
Utilities have rights, responsibilities when doing work near power lines
BY GREG EDWARDS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Snow highlights tree-pruning
New winter storm on radar
Ouch . . . Oh . . . Ugh!
A utility worker jabbed a spike into Dave Smith's big pin-oak tree, and then another, and another . . . and another.
Smith was fighting-mad. An employee of Penn Line Service Inc., a Dominion Virginia Power contractor, had come into his western Henrico County yard to prune the tree and damaged it for the second time in two years.
"They [Penn Line] are aware of my displeasure," Smith said with some understatement after last week's incident.
Monday's snow and sleet storm underscored the need for tree-pruning along power-line rights of way. The State Corporation Commission requires Virginia utilities to prune trees in accordance with the American National Standard for Tree Care. The SCC also asks utilities to consider property owners' wishes, tree health, electric-system reliability and other concerns.
Asked about Smith's situation, Anne Oliver, a forestry manager for Dominion, said that recently a Penn Line trainee had been using tree-climbing spikes while pruning trees in Richmond's West End. The worker, she said, had begun his training in rural eastern Henrico County and did not know that spikes should not be used in residential neighborhoods. (Penn Line had no immediate comment.)
The national tree-care standards, Oliver said, allow tree workers to use climbing spikes in town when they are cutting down a tree or making an aerial rescue, and in rural areas where trees are not considered yard trees.
Oliver said that as soon as Dominion found out about the trainee's spike use, the utility contacted Penn Line to make sure the contractor advised its crews not to use spikes on yard trees. Complaints from homeowners about spiked trees are infrequent, she said.
However, Joel Koci, an arborist who has done work for Smith, said he has had other clients in the Richmond area whose trees have been spiked by utility pruning crews. "It's not an isolated incident," he said.
Using spikes to prune trees is unnecessary when work- ers can use ropes and ladders, Koci said. Spiking breaks bark and can open trees to infection and rot.
Pruning trees is one of the most important things a utility can do to ensure the reliability of an electric or telecommunications system during a storm. Dominion generally has trees along its lines pruned once every three years.
Dominion increased its tree-pruning budget after the Super Bowl Sunday ice storm in 2000 knocked out power to 285,000 central Virginia customers. The company's pruning practices came under scrutiny again when falling trees and limbs caused by Hurricane Isabel knocked out power to 1.8 million customers in 2003.
During Monday's snow and sleet storm, roughly 68,000 customers in the Richmond area lost power, many of them because tree limbs fell across power lines.
Contact staff writer Greg Edwards at gedwards@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6390.
Utilities have rights, responsibilities when doing work near power lines
BY GREG EDWARDS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Snow highlights tree-pruning
New winter storm on radar
Ouch . . . Oh . . . Ugh!
A utility worker jabbed a spike into Dave Smith's big pin-oak tree, and then another, and another . . . and another.
Smith was fighting-mad. An employee of Penn Line Service Inc., a Dominion Virginia Power contractor, had come into his western Henrico County yard to prune the tree and damaged it for the second time in two years.
"They [Penn Line] are aware of my displeasure," Smith said with some understatement after last week's incident.
Monday's snow and sleet storm underscored the need for tree-pruning along power-line rights of way. The State Corporation Commission requires Virginia utilities to prune trees in accordance with the American National Standard for Tree Care. The SCC also asks utilities to consider property owners' wishes, tree health, electric-system reliability and other concerns.
Asked about Smith's situation, Anne Oliver, a forestry manager for Dominion, said that recently a Penn Line trainee had been using tree-climbing spikes while pruning trees in Richmond's West End. The worker, she said, had begun his training in rural eastern Henrico County and did not know that spikes should not be used in residential neighborhoods. (Penn Line had no immediate comment.)
The national tree-care standards, Oliver said, allow tree workers to use climbing spikes in town when they are cutting down a tree or making an aerial rescue, and in rural areas where trees are not considered yard trees.
Oliver said that as soon as Dominion found out about the trainee's spike use, the utility contacted Penn Line to make sure the contractor advised its crews not to use spikes on yard trees. Complaints from homeowners about spiked trees are infrequent, she said.
However, Joel Koci, an arborist who has done work for Smith, said he has had other clients in the Richmond area whose trees have been spiked by utility pruning crews. "It's not an isolated incident," he said.
Using spikes to prune trees is unnecessary when work- ers can use ropes and ladders, Koci said. Spiking breaks bark and can open trees to infection and rot.
Pruning trees is one of the most important things a utility can do to ensure the reliability of an electric or telecommunications system during a storm. Dominion generally has trees along its lines pruned once every three years.
Dominion increased its tree-pruning budget after the Super Bowl Sunday ice storm in 2000 knocked out power to 285,000 central Virginia customers. The company's pruning practices came under scrutiny again when falling trees and limbs caused by Hurricane Isabel knocked out power to 1.8 million customers in 2003.
During Monday's snow and sleet storm, roughly 68,000 customers in the Richmond area lost power, many of them because tree limbs fell across power lines.
Contact staff writer Greg Edwards at gedwards@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6390.
