CO N N E CT I O N S
BY PHIL CASKEY, PRESIDENT & CEO
HEALTHY TREES, HEALTHY COMMUNITY Nineteenth-century essayist Alexander Smith is famous for writing, “A man doesn’t plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.” Just as a man does not plant trees for himself, we do not cut trees down for ourselves, either. Instead, my team works hard to maintain the trees that we do have, nearly 40,000 of them within our rights-of-way, to be exact. Our vegetation management program carefully maintains about 1,240 miles of above-ground power lines. David Tidd, our system arborist, is our man with the mission. His Bachelor of Science degree in forestry, along with certifications by the International Society of Arboriculture as a certified arborist and a utility specialist, can assure you that he is always thinking about the members of Consolidated Cooperative and the environment.
Our routine Our vegetation maintenance program runs on a fouryear cycle. Annually, we aim to clear approximately 310 miles of power lines. We also target off-right-of-way danger trees for removal, which are determined by the likelihood that they’ll fall into a power line or pole.
program: Our number of outage minutes per year, per meter, related to controllable vegetation outages have steadily declined since 2015. The length of time in 2015 was almost 12 minutes, and in 2020, that time was down to a little over three minutes. We reached our goal of a four-year cycle, and our outage numbers have reduced immensely. At Consolidated Cooperative, we continue working hard to bring you safe and reliable utility services with minimal interruptions.
Right tree, right place. How do you know? To learn more about trees and how they benefit our homes and our environment, see page 22. A free resource, i-Tree MyTree, can help you learn more about the trees already in your yard or the right tree for your area. I encourage you to look at this guide and then consider planting a tree in your own yard — not for yourself, but for future generations — and, as always, far away from overhead power lines.
Consolidated also practices integrated vegetation management (IVM), which combines vegetation pruning and removal, mowing where appropriate, and spraying low volumes of herbicides that control only vegetation that could interfere with our rights-of-way. We adhere to all standard practices and pruning guidelines that are accepted and endorsed by the International Society of Arboriculture. They promote directional pruning methods, which minimize pruning stress and focus on tree health while keeping necessary clearance from power lines. That means we no longer prune them in ways that are aesthetically pleasing but in ways that are effective at keeping them out of the way and promoting better growth in the trees — a benefit for everyone!
The results Thanks to IVM, we’re able to keep low-growing vegetation in our service territory, which is important as a habitat for pollinators. Our members also benefit from our well-managed vegetation maintenance
JULY 2021 • OHIO COOPERATIVE LIVING 19
