Despite pleas from Lexington leaders, KU won’t stop cutting down trees under lines
A long-simmering battle between Kentucky Utilities and Lexington city officials over the clear-cutting of trees under transmission lines appears to be at a stalemate.
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton had asked the utility company to consider pausing the practice temporarily until the city could get more questions answered. The gutting of the city’s tree canopy has rankled city officials, neighborhoods and tree enthusiasts for the past year.
During a Tuesday Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council work session, KU officials said they did not feel that a temporary moratorium was necessary. They are considering some minor changes to their policy, including allowing some trees slightly taller than 15 feet to remain if they were under new power lines.
Kentucky Utilities implemented a new policy in 2014 that called for the removal of trees taller than 15 feet under the utility’s larger transmission lines. That policy was largely implemented in more rural areas until 2019 when the practice spread to more urban areas, KU officials told the Lexington council in October.
At the Oct. 19 meeting, Gorton and the council asked KU to:
- Consider compromising on clear-cutting trees.
- Have a more robust re-vegetation plan on private and public property.
- Provide better notification to neighborhoods.
- Study Kentucky geological maps to do a sinkhole analysis.
- Allow LFUCG input on the stormwater study in the Lakeside area to determine the impact of tree removal on stormwater runoff.
- Pause while considering all requests that have been made
There was little recourse if the company didn’t respond favorably. The city has very little legal authority over KU and what the utility does in the right-of-way underneath transmission lines. The Public Service Commission and the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office also have no say over KU’s tree-trimming policies.
In one Lakeside area, more than 200 trees are scheduled to be axed by utility workers. The area’s stormwater runoff issues could get worse if those trees are taken out, residents of Lakeside have repeatedly said.
Kyle Burns, KU director of transmission engineering and construction, said an environmental study, which will have input from city officials, is set to begin shortly after Thanksgiving. It will take several weeks to complete. No work will be done in the Lakeside and other areas until that study is completed.
Meanwhile, KU has upped its outreach to affected neighborhoods and is now notifying affected property owners eight weeks prior to when the trees will be cut, Burns said. It is also looking at using social media to make residents aware of the clear-cutting.
Furthermore, KU is working with the Lansdowne Neighborhood Association on a plan to immediately replant trees on the Lansdowne Road median after cutting begins there on Nov. 29, he said. The company will also go back and replant trees on the Southpoint Drive median, where utility crews cut trees last fall.
Why not trim trees instead of cutting them down?
During Tuesday’s meeting, Gorton and Lexington council members urged KU to reconsider its tree-cutting policy and return to its previous practices that included trimming of trees rather than clear-cutting.
Councilman David Kloiber said the Public Service Commission, which oversees public utilities, has not ordered the clear-cutting of trees as a safety measure. KU made that decision because axing trees is more cost-effective than trimming.
“KU has certain interests that are not aligned with the interests of the public,” Kloiber said. “It’s not going to make the most economic sense if this gets embroiled in a lot of lawsuits and a lot more community dissatisfaction.”
Kloiber asked if any tree in Fayette County has knocked out power on a transmission line.
Burns said the representatives did not have that number for Fayette County but the clear-cutting of trees has resulted in a 40 percent decrease in outages in the system. Maintaining the power grid is the utility’s top concern, Burns said. Cost savings is not the only factor in KU’s decisions.
Gorton asked if money saved from axing trees rather than cyclical trimming would be passed to ratepayers in a rate decrease.
David Freibert, vice president of external affairs for KU, said there are multiple factors that go into rate increases or decreases.
Councilman Preston Worley said KU has stepped up and tried to make some accommodations after hearing widespread complaints from Lexington residents. But the community is not asking for tweaks. KU needs to change its policy, he said.
“This is unquestionably a flawed plan,” Worley said. “The only way this community is going to be happy is to have a plan for this community.”
KU officials have said that the utility cannot have one vegetation management plan for one area of its transmission line and another policy for other areas. That would be too difficult to implement.
Diane Atchison, of the Lansdowne Neighborhood Association, said 137 trees on the Lansdowne Road median will be clear-cut by the end of the month. Those trees were originally planted with KU’s approval. Atchison has called the Public Service Commission, the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office and other state and local agencies to try to figure out how to stop the clear-cutting.
Atchison told the council there has been little transparency in how KU is cutting trees and the justification.
“Have there been outages in Fayette County due to trees?” Atchison said. “We have never seen justifications for these heights and distances. What are the national standards?”
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 5:43 PM.
