County Committee Rejects Pepco's Request for Tree-Trimming Legislation

A Montgomery County Council committee flatly rejected a request Monday by Pepco to draft legislation that would allow the utility to do extensive tree cutting or removal in rural areas near power lines to increase service reliability.

In a hearing of the council’s Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee, council members, Pepco representatives and residents discussed the utility’s recent tree-trimming activities throughout the county.

"On sunny days, Pepco has the biggest problem,” Councilman Roger Berliner said. "Trees are not the issue."

Berliner said . He argued instead that the utility must invest in infrastructure and employ best practices on tree trimming — something he asserted it did not do for years.

Many residents have complained that Pepco’s main sub-contractor, Asplundh, is far too aggressive in how it trims trees or removes trees that it deems to be a threat, in decay or diseased.

Brett Linkletter, an arborist and manager of forestry for the Montgomery County Department of Transportation, explained during the hearing that Pepco maintains a 10-foot clearance around power lines in the right-of-way.

But in rural areas, if a tree is considered a threat, he said Pepco usually recommends removal, regardless of where it stands.

About 98 percent of the time, the DOT agrees with Pepco’s recommendation. But Linkletter said that he often doesn’t like the way it’s done, such as when the entire center of the tree is removed — something that happens when there’s an obligation to keep the tree.

Pepco spokesman Charles Washington insisted that the utility is making progress on its plans to increase reliability in the area, stating that Pepco has trimmed more than 1,900 miles of treeline. He stressed that the company must strike a balance between the need to trim and being sensitive to “our neighbors concerns about trimming.”

“If property owners tell us no, we really have no recourse,” Washington said.

Caroline Taylor of the Montgomery Countryside Alliance explained that she said no to Pepco’s request for tree trimming on her Hughes Road property because similar trees already cut or removed by Pepco were on the opposite side of the road from power lines or were cut by more than 25 percent. Maryland does not allow tree cutting of more than 25 percent.

Taylor said a lot of people come to Montgomery County’s Upper Ag Reserve to see the ancient tree canopies.

“What’s happening to them is a disaster,” she said.

Berliner all but dismissed Washington’s assertion that there have been more than 600 cases of residents informing Pepco either that they can’t do their work, they must delay it or modify it.

“Don’t suggest for one moment that our citizens are standing in the way of your effort to increase reliability,” he said.

Berliner reminded the Pepco officials seated before him that their utility has the lowest ranking in the country, a ranking he said is measured on sunny, or “non-event” days. Recently, .

“And now you say we need you to do this for us?” Berliner asked Pepco officials.

Other council members chimed in.

“We don’t see this horrific cutting in other places,” said Councilman Marc Elrich.

“The easiest thing to do is to cut radically rather than carefully.”