Lines Clearance 'arborist'

[omertalogic]

First post guys, whoop whoop.

I have been non aggressively climbing rec without spikes for about a year and have been working at a transmission tree company since march. I was recently transferred to a climbing crew (finally) and have to say it's a lot of fun romping around in rough terrain where skidders can't get into. I have been there two weeks and used spikes for the first time for white pines on my first day with the boys.

Although i greatly enjoy the work, i'm a little sad sometimes about exclusively doing removals to keep these lines safe. Do any of you guys work for as utility arborists? Do you ever feel regret about removing perfectly healthy, hundred year old trees?

 

[mu2bdriver]

Welcome. Where in CT do you work?


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[omertalogic]

I'm currently working on lines in canton and south Windsor. Occasionally I get shipped out to mass

 

[unclemoustache]

I'm just a remodeling contractor who does a bit of tree work (and climbing) on the side, but I think most everyone here hates to remove healthy beautiful trees. One guy even turned down a VERY highly paying job to remove a monster tree. He could have made a bundle on it, but the principle of the thing was too much for him. I've taken down a couple that I wish the owner would have kept, but there were always good reasons to remove them, so it wasn't so bad. Besides, I'm in an area where all kinds of trees abound, so it's not like I'm removing rare trees, but merely thinning the herd, so to speak.

 

[scheffa]

I do line clearance here in Aus, we rarely remove trees, mainly just prune to get our required clearance from the conductors which is 3m here for the most part.
They have bought in some new guidelines that we will be cutting to next year which will see thousands of trees removed. They are changing our clearances depending on the length of span and material the conductor is made from.
In some cases this will mean opening up clearances from the current 3m up to 39m on some of our longer spans

 

[omertalogic]

Yea, our company's forester has tasked us with enlarging our right of ways from 15 to 45-60 feet, ground to sky. It's a pretty ferocious job considering our 4 man crew is the only one working on it; we are going to be stuck on this line at least until the end of year. Good job security to be sure. Basically working into straight forest.

I guess I tell myself that we are culling hazard trees mostly. I'd like to get out of this trade where we almost exclusively do removals, but for the time being that's all I do.

 

[hseII]

Yea, our company's forester has tasked us with enlarging our right of ways from 15 to 45-60 feet, ground to sky. It's a pretty ferocious job considering our 4 man crew is the only one working on it; we are going to be stuck on this line at least until the end of year. Good job security to be sure. Basically working into straight forest.

I guess I tell myself that we are culling hazard trees mostly. I'd like to get out of this trade where we almost exclusively do removals, but for the time being that's all I do.

The take this time to hone your skills.

 

[omertalogic]

absolutely! ^^

 

[beastmaster]

I started work several weeks ago removing dead hazard trees that could threaten power lines if they should fail. We work with a bio. guy and lots of times an anthropologist to insure we don't harm any protected species or inportent sites within the forest. If a 200ft pondorosa is 190 ft. From the wires and its dead or dieing, out it goes.
Of course this is for Edison and its their utilities lines. We don't do live trees. In fact they use live trees for powerpoles up there. I see transformers attached to trees all the time.
I am an expert at pruning trees, and have worked hard to preserve trees, but i love doing removals. I like the challenge of doing a big difficult even dangerous removals. Its all prospective.

 

[JRoland]

We all feel bad cutting down healthy, happy trees ( at least I do).
I agree, take this time to practice your skills.
Also, working for a utility co, you'll be doing plenty of trimming later on if it's anything like it is on the west coast...

 

[Olesenofalaska]

I am a line clearance arborist in boreal forest country in interior alaska where the tree life cycles are very short, roots shallow and temperatures are low. This results in lots of failures on a large electrical grid with low number of personnel. I have worked there 12 years and go through the system on a cycle so I am 3-4 years into my second time around this system and it definitely feels like the more trees we cut the better. Our biggest constraint is narrow right of ways and landowners filling the row with stuff. It would be great to thin out the tall growing/structurally unsound Balsam Poplar and Quaking Aspen to promote the longer lived species like White Spruce and Paper Birch but we have had pretty nasty reactions from homeowners that don't want trees cut. Anytime a landowner comes out and says do whatever you need to do, we go the extra mile and explain what we want to do and why to set them up with a healthier forest that will need less maintenance over the long term. We are working in distribution circuits 90% of the time and the transmission lines mostly get mowed with Kershaw Klearway 500's with Seppi heads. I get to do private work on the side which lets me do pruning and climbing more which is a nice balance.

 

[jefflovstrom]

I started work several weeks ago removing dead hazard trees that could threaten power lines if they should fail. We work with a bio. guy and lots of times an anthropologist to insure we don't harm any protected species or inportent sites within the forest. If a 200ft pondorosa is 190 ft. From the wires and its dead or dieing, out it goes.
Of course this is for Edison and its their utilities lines. We don't do live trees. In fact they use live trees for powerpoles up there. I see transformers attached to trees all the time.
I am an expert at pruning trees, and have worked hard to preserve trees, but i love doing removals. I like the challenge of doing a big difficult even dangerous removals. Its all prospective.

Yup, I am very familiar with that. I was on the Cal-Edison Bark Beetle Removal program in 2003.
We rented a house in Lake Arrowhead for 6 month's.
Several company's were sent off the job due to mistakes.
I remember working a Lot next to another company working a Lot near us.
I remember hearing someone yell something from over there and then I saw the ripple effect of the power lines slightly wiggle,
that crew was sent packing that day, it was nothing serious, but they did barely hit the power lines.
90% of the time it was crane work, the other 10% was tricky, there are streams and area's that we could not put a foot print,, we did some really cool speed lines then, one special one was 600 feet, it was over a creek that we were not allowed to access. I bought a whole reel just for that one tree.
Good times, I see why you are happy there,
I got some cool pic's I will scan and see if I can post,, like the transformer on the tree, yup, I have a pic of that,,
Take care Wade!
Jeff

 

[Dalmatian90]

Yea, our company's forester has tasked us with enlarging our right of ways from 15 to 45-60 feet, ground to sky.

My corner of Connecticut, back in 2009:

If a firewooder trying to get just one more tree in for the day can have the wind take his tree into the lines, a storm like the '38 Hurricane would leave our transmission line infrastructure in complete tatters. Beyond unacceptable to me...that was just CL&P plain and simply being cheap bastards for years. It's bad enough dealing with the distribution side having poor maintenance that crumbles at modest tree falls.

Can't Light & Power (now know as Everscrewed) then whined that they often don't have enough right-of-way to perform the necessary tree trimming, which I thought was odd given the size till I realized most of their ROWs they placed the powerlines along one side instead of down the middle so they could later run a second line without more real estate needs. Still not an excuse, they have eminent domain powers to acquire the necessary ROW.

 

[BC WetCoast]

Is your power company not a member or NERC (North American Electrical Reliability Corp)? I did some consulting work for one of the provincial hydro authoritys and they were paranoid about outages on their transmission lines. I understand the NERC agreement allows one (1) transmission line outage and then the utility is fined $1,000,000/day for outages after that.