PECO is about to begin routine maintenance of trees and vegetation in sections of Cedar Park and Spruce Hill, according to the University City District’s newsletter. The work is scheduled to start in about 1-2 weeks.
This work is performed once every five years to keep tree growth away from high voltage wires. Trees and other vegetation cause about one third of all electric outages and preventative pruning is necessary to insure uninterrupted electric service. For more information, click here.
June 9th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
What a tragedy, seriously. The crew that came down our street MASSACRED the trees. It is of course important to keep dangerous branches away from the wires, but PECO has chosen the absolutely least tree-friendly way to do so. The trees in the neighborhood are now Y shaped and deformed. Ugh. Is there some other way?
June 9th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Yes, but it will cost more: http://www.citypaper.net/news/2012-05-31-peco-pruning-tree-management.html
Do you want to pay for that?
June 9th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
I didn’t see anything in that article about higher costs for paying attention to aesthetic improvements. I think it’s entirely possible that the trees could be done more carefully and more thoughtfully for the same cost. In fact, if *fewer*, more selective branches were chosen, it could cost less and be done more quickly. And, even better, if trees were allowed to grow straight up, past the wires, with strong leader-trucks, they would be less susceptible to winds, breakage, etc. There are several examples of very old, very healthy trees on our block that demonstrate this. The wire pass right through the main trunks, some small branches have been cleared, and there are never any problems with these.
June 10th, 2012 at 7:33 am
I grew up in Minneapolis, and they have trees and power lines there, peacefully existing together. The trees are not mangled or y-shaped, but the branches are cut to not touch the lines. There is no need to do to the trees what they do here. One more thing to do better, Philly!
June 10th, 2012 at 10:54 am
Sigh.
“In the meantime, there is a simple alternative to arboreal mutilation: Shorten the five-year pruning cycle. As it is, Maslin says, “They make larger cuts and cut many more branches than they would if they cut more frequently. If they could come back every few years, they wouldn’t need to do as much damage.”
Of course, that would cost more — which makes it an unlikely fix. “Their approach to tree-pruning is just different,” Maslin says. ” It’s not that they’re bad people. Their bottom line is different.””
June 10th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
another issue is spread of disease. the 4200 block of osage ave is facing the loss of most of their 100 year old trees because the city sub contractor didn’t take precautions when pruning trees and spread “canker stain” disease
(Ceratocystis fimbriata). there’s no treatment for this, apparently and it would have been easily prevented by cleaning their chain saw blades between trees.