Dive Summary:
- Trees are on the losing side of utilities’ battles to prevent a repeat of 2003’s blackout when a high-voltage line sagging into a tree sparked the cascading blackout that hot summer day of August 14.
- Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. reports that tree-lovers are vigorously fighting utilities, threatening tree trimmers, brandishing guns and even firing shots at utility workers.
- The utility has spent $320 million to clear 13,000 miles of transmission line corridors.
- While utilities try to balance environmental concerns with "vegetation management," the tree cutting is working in terms of outage prevention. Since 2008, there hasn’t been a single case of customers losing power due to trees, except in the case of a storm, reports the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
From the article:
"Trees are a very emotional issue," Durbin said in an email.