www.arborage.com Arbor Age / May 2014 15
trees look bad. In the vast majority of cases, the real reason the
tree looks "butchered" is because it doesn't belong there.
It is my belief that the "tree butcher" label should be
handed over to the likely well-intended person who improp-
erly selected and planted the tree in the fi rst place — not to
the folks who are ultimately charged by law with maintain-
ing the required space between the vegetation and electric
facilities. When factoring in the availability of planting choices
and the implications of tree and power line confl icts (fi res,
outages, electrocutions, and billions of ratepayer maintenance
dollars spent each year on mitigating these threats), there are
absolutely no valid reasons for planting a large tree underneath
power lines.
So, next time you run into a customer who claims the
utility has butchered their tree, consider going through the
following checklist with them:
1. What was there fi rst, the tree or the wires? If the answer
is the wires, you might explain to them that the wrong tree
was planted in the wrong location.
2. Was the work done in accordance with ANSI A300 stan-
dards? If so, and the tree looks bad, you might explain the
aesthetic issues are really a result of a bad planting choice.
3. How often has the tree been pruned by the utility in
the past? If the answer is more than once every 5-7 years, you
might explain that the tree should be removed and replaced
with a more suitable tree or shrub for that location.
I think you will fi nd out, as I have, that in the vast majority
of cases, the utility company performed the tree work consistent
with industry best practices. They were stuck managing some-
one else's poor planting choice.
The frequent aesthetic allegation of "butchered" trees
should not be levied haphazardly against the utilities, but
rather imposed on the people who caused the problem in the
fi rst place.
Stephen R. Cieslewicz is president and chief consultant of CN
Utility Consulting Inc. With more than 30 years of industry experi-
ence, Cieslewicz is a recognized expert in utility vegetation man-
agement (UVM). In working with utilities, regulators and service
providers around the world, Cieslewicz has been directly involved
in the bulk of tree and power line issues of note. He was a principal
UVM investigator for the Joint U.S./Canada Power Systems Out-
age Task Force, a principal author of all UVM related reports follow-
ing the August 14, 2003 blackout, and is a member of the North
American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) FAC-003 draft-
ing committees. Cieslewicz has testifi ed as an expert at many signifi -
cant legal, regulatory and legislative hearings and is a past president
of the Utility Arborist Association (UAA).
