Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Oldsmar oaks may get ax

Progress Energy says they pose a threat to power lines. A city official says not so fast.

By TERRI BRYCE REEVES, Times Correspondent
Published February 9, 2008

Progress Energy officials say these trees near Dunbar Avenue could catch fire or topple onto high-voltage power lines.
	[Photo by Terri Bryce Reeves]

OLDSMAR - About three dozen oak trees growing under power lines on Dunbar Avenue wait on death row.

Progress Energy officials say the trees could catch fire or topple onto the high-voltage lines and cause a communitywide power outage.

So they must go, the utility says.

That won't do, says Vice Mayor Suzanne Vale.

"It's not acceptable to the people of Oldsmar that these trees come out," she said this week. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."

She urged power company officials to find a way to preserve the trees, some estimated to be 30 to 35 feet tall.

The issue first arose during Tuesday night's City Council meeting.

At the meeting, Progress Energy officials gave a presentation about their plans to replace 9 miles of existing high-power transmission structures and lines. Most of the structures - lattice towers or H-shaped poles - will be replaced with a single concrete pole.

The project begins at the former Higgins power plant, connects to the Oldsmar substation on Tampa Road and ends at the Curlew substation on Wynford Drive in Palm Harbor. Work begins this month and should be completed in January 2009.

At the City Council meeting, Vale told the Progress Energy representatives she had received calls from people concerned about the fate of the trees.

She didn't want a repeat of the 2003 and 2006 incidents in which Bay Arbor homeowners came home from work and found that power company contractors had flattened trees and bushes under power lines in an area that served as a wildlife corridor.

"I'm asking you to please make sure that your company does not go in there and clear-cut in any area of Oldsmar whatsoever," Vale said at the council meeting.

The trees in question border the property where the corporate headquarters for Dan's Fan City were built in the mid 1980s. Then the city told the company it needed to plant trees to get its certificate of occupancy, said Ed Veclotch, chief financial officer for the fan company.

He said Dan's hired private tree trimmers to top the trees until about five years ago, when Progress Energy people told him that private companies were not allowed to cut near the high-voltage transmission lines for safety reasons.

"Supposedly, it's against the law," Veclotch said.

Since then, some of the trees have grown close to the power lines, which tend to sag during hot weather.

"We'd like the trees," Veclotch said. "We'd like to see them spared by Progress Energy, but I also like my lights to come on."

On Thursday, Vale, city staffers and Progress Energy officials took a field trip to see the oaks in question.

Oldsmar senior engineering technician Tim Jacobson urged the power company to trim the top branches of the oaks.

"We've been topping trees for years," he said.

But Progress Energy spokeswoman Melissa Seixas said the practice isn't healthy for trees.

"It's healthier than chopping them down," Vale said.

Vale thought the smaller juvenile oak trees could be transplanted and is pushing the power company to move them to city parks.

Progress Energy officials said they didn't think the trees would survive.

City staffers said they would.

Seixas and Progress Energy forester John Whitney suggested that the power company remove the trees and install drought-tolerant native species such as hollies or crape myrtles that would never grow tall enough to pose a threat to the power lines. They agreed to submit a proposal to the city in a week or so.

That would be a permanent solution to the problem, as opposed to periodic trimming, they said.

Progress Energy wants to be a good neighbor and work with the city, but the company has the right and the responsibility to take out the trees to make sure it can deliver electricity reliably, Seixas said,

"These transmission lines aren't like the ones you have on a street in a neighborhood," she said. "When they come down, you're not going to be able to provide power to anybody."

Terri Bryce Reeves can be reached at treeves@tampabay.rr.com.

[Last modified February 8, 2008, 21:06:59]