East Dallas Times

Staff Report

Trees dislike electrical power lines. Oncor Electric Delivery Co. dislikes trees messing with its power lines. Neighborhood residents dislike Oncor crews arbitrarily cutting branches — the “V” cut — that pose threats to power lines but they also dislike remaining without electrical power for hours or days after a storm snaps off branches that bring down power lines.

So, Oncor introduced a kind of détente — a pilot program introduced in Lakewood in which arborists representing the power company contact residents whose trees have been identified as likely risks to power lines, set up a sit-down chat about said trees, and offer the residents the option of having Oncor trim the offenders, with the resident’s input, or engaging a line-clearance qualified tree company to perform the pruning at the resident’s expense.

Either way, Oncor crews will trim the trees to seven feet back from the power lines.

From the Oncor news release: “For the alternate tree maintenance agreement, customers will sign a contract agreeing to hire a line-clearance qualified tree company to prune their trees to a distance that best meets their needs. Oncor would prune the first seven feet away from the lines — maintaining the minimum required by the state and giving the customer time to shop for a line-clearance qualified tree company — allowing customers to decide how much more to prune. With the contract, the customer agrees to keep the lines outside of the seven-foot zone.”

A third option also exists under terms of the pilot program. Residents could pay for Oncor to bury the lines that cross their property, again at the resident’s expense.

Catherine Cuellar, a spokeswoman with Oncor, said the line-burying option could take place on a house-by-house basis, negating the need to gain a consensus among neighbors along a given block.

It could take awhile for the Oncor arborists to set up meetings with everyone in Lakewood with trees deemed a threat to power lines, but Cuellar said the company will evaluate the pilot program during the fall.