State's new tree-cutting rules for utilities involve approvals, notice
May 20, 2011
One day in November 2009, Amy Kupferberg looked just beyond her Hartsdale backyard and saw hundreds of cut trees lying, she said, "like bodies on a killing field."
She would later count the tree stumps -- 450 in all -- that served as a buffer between her home and a nearby highway.
But her loss was just a fraction of the community's loss, she said, as a vegetation management plan was put into effect by Consolidated Edison along a swath that stretched from Yonkers to Yorktown Heights.
"Tens of thousands of trees were taken down," Kupferberg said.
The situation led Kupferberg, who now lives in Warwick, Orange County, to become active in an effort to change how utility companies approach tree trimming.
So she was pleased to be in Albany on Thursday to listen as the state Public Service Commission approved new rules regarding tree cutting and vegetation removal.
The rules address when and how utility companies tell homeowners about removal done along high-voltage transmission line rights of way. They do not apply to streetside power lines.
Several of the rules, which also require work plans that need approval by the PSC, specifically apply to Con Edison and its subsidiary, Orange and Rockland Utilities Inc.
The companies were harshly criticized for removing trees and brush throughout Westchester and Rockland counties, with homeowners and others questioning the companies' strategy of wide-swath cutting instead of just trimming vegetation in utility rights of way.
Allan Drury, a Con Edison spokesman, said the company already had begun providing more information to the public and elected officials regarding vegetation management.
"We'll continue to work with the PSC, the public and elected officials to see where communication can be improved," Drury said.
He also said the company remained committed to its vegetation management efforts.
"We've maintained -- and still maintain -- that vegetation management is very important for providing reliable electric service," Drury said. "No one likes to lose a tree, but it's even worse to lose electric service."
The PSC had adopted stricter tree maintenance rules after the Northeast blackout of 2003.
Since then, an increasing number of people have complained that the tree cutting goes too far, that its impact is not considered in advance and that no replanting occurs.
The new rules require the utilities to detail when and where vegetation will be allowed to remain and to incorporate a management approach that recognizes that the removal of desirable species "is neither required nor preferred."
Mark Gilliland said the approach was a good one, but that the new rules still left much open to the interpretation of the utility company.
Gilliland, chairman of the nonprofit Lorax Working Group, which has worked to change how utilities manage vegetation, said he would prefer to see the public comment on the companies' vegetation management plans before the PSC approved any such plans.
"I don't think it went far enough in terms of public oversight," Gilliland said.
Kupferberg said she was satisfied with the PSC's new rules and appreciated the agency's efforts in addressing the issues.
"It was a long, hard fight to get this much," Kupferberg said. "We got more than Con Ed and O&R wanted to give us. I think the PSC realized the companies could not go unwatched. Their interpretation of the vegetation management plan was totally overkill."
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