Lexington is celebrating Tree Week. Why is KU planning to clear-cut hundreds of trees?
Here in the land where Things Make No Sense, we are celebrating Lexington Tree Week(Oct. 9-16) with free sapling giveaways and forest bathing excursions while our utility company gets busy chopping our tree canopy down.
On Wednesday morning, Phillips Tree Experts, a contractor for Kentucky Utilities, whisked out 15 trees on one property off Montavesta Road. Although the arborvitae were nowhere near the big transmission line overhead, they were 10 feet high and sat within a 50-foot bubble around the line. So according to KU rules, they had to go. Every single one.
And much worse is coming. Nearly every single tree on the Lansdowne Drive median is scheduled for one massive clear-cut because that high-voltage transmission line runs directly over top of the drive. In the other direction, homeowners who back up to Lansdowne Merrick Park will lose a huge swathe of old and new trees. As the same transmission line travels across the Lakeshore neighborhood, homeowners are furious and sad and trying to figure out what to do next.
“I’m frustrated and devastated by what has happened and what is getting ready to happen,” said Diane Atchison, a board member of the Lansdowne Neighborhood Association. “I don’t know that we can stop it.”
It’s not clear they can stop it, or even improve it slightly. KU officials said they started “the cycle-based vegetation management program as a part of its Transmission System Improvement Plan in 2019” — it’s “industry best practice for maintaining transmission infrastructure and is part of our proactive method for keeping trees a safe distance from transmission lines and structures,” said spokesman Daniel Lowry.
People started complaining after they saw the clear-cutting on Southpoint Drive last year. Now Mayor Linda Gorton is scheduled to meet with KU-LG&E President John R. Crockett III on Monday; company officials are supposed to appear before council on Oct. 19; neighborhood groups are having hasty get-togethers with their council members to see what can be stopped. Right now, Districts 3 and 5 are getting the most work; District 5 Council member Liz Sheehan said that while “we need to protect our community from power outages, it should not come at the cost of our tree canopy and environment. I share the concerns of residents and will keep working to find a solution that minimizes tree clearing.”
Fewer power outages
Legally, KU owns easements under distribution and transmission lines, which unfortunately, many homeowners don’t figure out until well after they’ve bought a house and planted more trees.
And let’s face it, we all want our electricity more than ever, what with working at home, and our phones and devices and games. And leftover PTSD from the 2003 ice storm when some lost power for a week or more. Power companies have faced lawsuits and very hefty federal fines for long power outages. KU says it’s had 40 percent fewer outages since 2011, thanks to new practices.
But what doesn’t make sense is why KU is taking such a scorched-earth approach when compromises could be found, like trimming trees instead of removing them. Lowry said too many trees have grown too close to the wires, so that trimming is not an option, and they must be proactive to get rid of smaller trees.
But Peter Barber, an arborist who is working as a contractor for KU in Lansdowne, believes that because so many power companies are now part of big conglomerates, they’re taking a page from companies out west that have been blamed for devastating forest fires when they didn’t control flammable material around power lines. Not, as he put it, “in our wet Eastern forest here,” in Lexington, where forest fires are much less likely. KU is now owned by PPL Corporation, which started life as Pennsylvania Power and Light.
“You’ve got an accountant out there who thinks they’ll save some money by not pruning trees anymore,” Barber said. “It’s a mess. I spend my days apologizing to people.”
David and Donna O’Bryan would like to hear anything from KU. Their house on Old Crow Court backs up to Lansdowne Merrick Park, where they’ve planted big and small trees. Yes, they understand a large and old water maple near the line might have to go. What they don’t understand is why their beautiful sweet bay magnolia, which is maybe 10 feet now and might get to 12 but not higher, has to be taken out.
“This is going to devastate our yard,” David O’Bryan said. “And they’ve never talked to us. It’s ridiculous.”
Further toward Richmond Road, the transmission line travels near the old reservoir. Off Lakeshore Drive, Norborne Road slopes down to the lake, and every time it rains, the little valley where the backyards of Norborne and Manor meet turns into a river. Nonetheless, said homeowner Katherine Graham, KU is supposed to come any time to cut down all the ash and maple trees in the backyard. She and her husband even put in several small arborvitae against the fence to slow down the water. They are about three feet tall and they’re scheduled to be taken out as well.
“This whole reservoir area has major water issues,” Graham said. “People have planted trees to suck up the extra water, and we’re concerned about what will happen once they’re gone.”
Which brings up another question in the Make No Sense department. Lexington is under a $590 million consent decree with the EPA because its stormwater and sewer systems had gotten so bad they needed to be replaced. As the city rebuilds sewers, one of the best things that residents can do to slow stormwater is, you guessed it, plant more trees.
Diane Layson has lived in the Lake’s Edge neighborhood for more than 30 years. In 2007, KU took out a lot of trees to put in the bigger metal poles to support the transmission line. Burying the lines was too expensive. They gave the neighborhood $30,000 to plant replacement trees with the only rule being that they not grow higher than 30 feet. The transmission line is about 60-65 feet above the neighborhood. So now KU is about to clear-cut $30,000 worth of trees they paid for, which is an interesting strategy for a for-profit company.
“It’s a really unbelievable, devastating situation,” Layson said. “We have been very good stewards of our neighborhood, we’ve done so much to make our neighborhood as park-like and beautiful as we can, and they literally just want to mow everything down.”
Layson’s group is meeting with KU on Thursday, and if nothing is resolved, she said, they’ve got a lawyer in the wings.
Lawsuits seem extreme, but that may be what it takes. Everyone understands the need for electricity, everyone understands that some trees need to be cut down because they might interfere with said electricity. But there is absolutely no reason to use such a blanket approach on our many and varied types of trees. Numerous homeowners have offered to pay for pruning themselves, instead of losing the entire tree. Barbara Whitlock, who lives on Manor Road, adores an old and spreading elm tree that hardly comes near the lines. She offered to get it trimmed. The answer was no.
“This tree is a treasure,” she said. “It’s just ridiculous, there’s no earthly reason why I can’t trim this tree back.”
As in most things, compromise is the answer. Homeowners are willing to do it. “Our energies go to serve you,” KU says right there on its website. Well, serve us by compromising on the fate of our oxygen-producing, carbon-eating, water-absorbing, flood-preventing trees. It’s the least a good corporate citizen can do.
This story was originally published October 13, 2021 at 10:21 AM with the headline "Lexington is celebrating Tree Week. Why is KU planning to clear-cut hundreds of trees?."
