SEQUIM — Lori Crow is splinter-spitting mad that Clallam County Public Utility District’s tree-cutting service cut down about 50 alder trees on her Texas Valley Road property.
“I moved up here for the peace and quiet and the trees,” Crow said, looking over the swath that Asplundh Tree Expert Co. cut Tuesday and Wednesday under a power line that runs parallel to a roughly 200-foot stretch of her driveway on the 100-acre Fox Creek Farm off Lost Mountain Road where she boards horses.
“They made a mistake, and now I am going to have to live with it,” she said angrily.
“I would have not given them permission in a million years.”
In PUD right of way
The trees, which were in a PUD right of way in the area south of U.S. Highway 101 between Carlsborg and Sequim, were cut in a routine operation, said Mike Howe, executive communications director for the PUD.
“The trees are alder trees. They are some of the fastest-growing trees in the area and were over the top of the line,” Howe said.
“The tree company did what they were supposed to do, and that was to clear the limbs and the potential hazards to the lines.”
Crow and her husband, Bill, a longtime Microsoft employee, have owned the property for about 10 years.
She said she was shocked to learn the trees were felled without her knowledge.
The trees were growing under a power line that runs along the PUD easement.
The alders cut down ranged from about 2 inches in diameter to a foot.
Gary Johnston, Asplundh Tree Expert Co. regional manager in Kenmore who supervises Olympic Peninsula operations, said the company had no comment.
Howe said limbs and trees are typically cut when “they are a potential danger to the lines.”
“It’s a safety and reliability issue,” he said.
“We have told her if she wants to file a claim, she’s perfectly welcome to file a claim.”
When a claim is filed, the company reviews it and decides if there is anything it can do or whether it was operating within the right of way.
Asked if other such complaints have been filed with the PUD, Howe said, “We get more complaints when a power goes out because trees have fallen into the lines.
“The average rate of power outages has decreased because of our vegetation management program.”
Crow said that while she was in Oregon on Monday and Tuesday looking at horses, she received an email from her horse barn manager informing her that the tree company had said they would be “limbing” trees under the power line.
Crow, who has seen the tree company limbing trees at least twice on the right of way, said at the time she thought nothing of it because the trees were always left standing in the past.
Upon returning home Wednesday, Crow said an Asplundh crew representative showed her what the company had done.
“He brought me here, and I was speechless,” she said standing next to several stumps with felled trees.
She said she told a PUD representative that she felt her property had been ruined.
No privacy left
“I can see and hear my neighbors,” she said. “I bought this place for the trees.”
She said the only way she would be satisfied now is if PUD buried the power line, replanted the trees and never returned to cut trees again.
“I’m just sick,” she said.
Crow called the Sheriff’s Office, only to find it was a civil matter because the tree-cutting took place in the PUD’s legal right of way under a power line.
Now she said she fears the remaining trees lining her driveway will be exposed to high winds that will knock them down across the dirt road to her home.
Even if it was legal, the retired public relations professional from the San Francisco Bay Area said, “it’s an abuse of power.”
“What’s the public good?” she said. “There is no public service to that.
“I was told it will prevent you from losing power, but that’s a crock of BS.”
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
