Making them safe can compromise tree beauty

National Grid steps up program after storm

Tim Forsberg
Posted 9/24/15

For the last 15 years Warwick has achieved the Tree City status from the Arbor Day Foundation, meeting standards of sound urban forestry management by maintaining a tree board or department, having …

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Making them safe can compromise tree beauty

National Grid steps up program after storm

Posted

For the last 15 years Warwick has achieved the Tree City status from the Arbor Day Foundation, meeting standards of sound urban forestry management by maintaining a tree board or department, having a community tree ordinance, spending at least $2 per capita on urban forestry and celebrating Arbor Day.

 But when storms like last month’s macroburst hit, those same trees are often a liability rather than an asset when it comes to maintaining the city’s power grid.

Like many residents, Scott Handren, who lives on the corner of Lakewood and Young Orchard Avenues, suffered some tree damage from the storm when limbs of two trees fell in his side yard and large sized branches were left hanging.

“We had planned at some point to have a tree service come out, we’re still working with the insurance company for other damages that we had,” said Handren. “But we had no intentions of taking these trees down. One of the reasons we bought the house in 2011 was because of the yard with trees.”

While he isn’t sure of the exact distance of the trees from the street, he estimates there is at least a four or five foot clearance between the two.

“We lost some branches and had trees trimmed in our yard after Irene, but with those two we didn’t have anything done to them because they were in good shape,” said Handren. 

After leaving work September 1, Handren returned to find the trees stripped bare and left standing totally limbless, looking like a pole about 30 feet high.

“I came home about six o’clock, and found both of the trees in that stripped shape. I had no idea; I just wasn’t sure what happened, said Handren. “I checked the mailbox, I checked both doors to see if maybe there was any type of note, as well as messages on my phone, and I had nothing. I just didn’t know where to take it from there.”

Handren contacted the police. An officer came to the residence and informed him that National Grid was working taking down limbs over wires. The officer recommended contacting the City and National Grid.

“My wife was pretty upset. I could see maybe just cutting the sides where the power lines are, but I still really hadn’t gotten an explanation as to why,” said Handren.

The following morning, a tree company was again on scene and told Handren they were contracted for the work by National Grid, and it was determined that the trees were dangerous to the wires and needed to come down. By the end of the day, the trees were gone. 

“It completely changed the makeup and feel of our yard,” said Handren.

When approached, National Grid provided insights into their tree pruning and removal programs in an effort to inform the community of the intricacies of providing electricity after a severe outage.

“The week right after the storm, we had about 125 tree crews throughout the state, restoring power everywhere from Warwick to Cranston and beyond,” said Chris Rooney, Lead Forestry Supervisor with National Grid. “When the storm was over, we knew from surveys we had dangerous trees out there, we had limbs that were broken all over the place. What we did was we actually hired surveyor arborists to drive around in pickup trucks and write up hazardous conditions.”

These surveyors drove through each circuit, there are about 25 different circuits in the city of Warwick, identifying the tree issues: what kind of tree it was, what the physical problem was whether it be overhanging or if the tree was too heavily damaged that it must be removed.

“They then determine who owns the tree, because every tree has an owner. We have a tree removal authorization form, so if we find a tree that we know of being on private property, we contact the homeowner because we don’t want complaints,” said Rooney. “We’re trying to be proactive, we’re trying to do the right thing, because if we mess up and take down the wrong tree, our phone starts ringing. So we do our due diligence so we’re not the bad guys, we want to come in and keep your power on.”

Upon following up with the tree owner, the tree removal authorization form is signed by the resident who retains a carbon copy.

“Where the line is blurred is where it’s a city tree or it’s a private tree and how bad the hazard condition is,” added Rooney, referring to the issue with Handren’s trees. ‘If the crew is out there, an we deem that we have to hurry up and take it down or it’s going to clobber the wires, especially with the urgency we had as we don’t want to knock people’s power out again, so sometimes we had to make a decision.” [The trees were in the right of way for the road and on city property according to National Grid in a follow-up call.]

With additional crews brought in, National Grid’s emphasis was to try to get the work done as soon as possible because hurricane season is here and winter is coming.

“I didn’t want this stuff hanging around to create more outages later, so it’s balancing out the speed, the follow through, and the execution,” added Rooney.

Immediately following the storm, National Grid was bombarded with tree calls and had to prioritize the work. Compared to Hurricanes Sandy, Irene, and blizzards that have hit the area, this storm’s damage hit one of the state’s most populated areas.

As far as the right of way along roads and trees within those spaces, which are owned by the city, each street has different variances. 

“Every road is absolutely different, and then you sprinkle in state roads like Main Avenue and West Shore Road, we have to balance what the state and city does. We also have to worry about right of ways that are completely on private properties,” said Rooney.

National Grid operates on a four-year pruning cycle, where every circuit throughout the state is addressed during that time. They prune trees from the substation to the very last house on the road, and look for and record hazardous trees that could come down. The trimming radius around lines, depending on wire type, can range from 2 to 10 feet away. They complete about 1,400 miles worth of trimming each year.

“We only prune around our wires, secondary communication wires are not the responsibility of National Grid,” said Rooney. “We don’t trim [for] their wires, and they don’t trim their wires. They do some, but they’re more reactive if something breaks their wire and they have to restore service. Our conductors can actually kill somebody. Everyone is depending on power, and while Internet and phone are vital, they’re not as vital as power.”

About 325 line crews from 7 states and Quebec were in Rhode Island after the last storm. With the additional 125 contracted tree crews, the overall cost of the storm for National Grid has yet to be determined.

“National Grid does not want to be in the tree business, but we have to be in the tree business. It’s either the number one or number two cause of outages every year,” said Rooney. “We work really hard to make sure people know what we’re trying to do, especially with the routine trimming program we leave door hangers and we try to inform because it’s much easier to be proactive than reactive.”

Complaints about tree removals should be directed to National Grid, who continuously monitors the performance of their contractors.

“If we have a bad egg out there we want to find them and fix the issue and we don’t want our customers out there feeling like they don’t know what the answers are, I want to settle it,” said Rooney. “We did meet with the customer that was unhappy, and as far as we know when we ended the discussion we did the other tree work so it’s down to the stump.”

Both Rooney and National Grid’s media relations representative David Graves said collaboration with the city after the storm was superb, from the city letting them use compost station behind Mickey Stevens, to the police details provided tree crews and maintaining open lines of communications. 

To register a concern, or if a contractor has damaged property, contact National Grid’s customer service line at 1-800-322-3223.

 

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