{"id":214913,"date":"2026-01-03T14:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T14:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/214913\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T14:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T14:01:09","slug":"utility-residents-disagree-on-need-to-cut-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/214913\/","title":{"rendered":"Utility, residents disagree on need to cut trees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rachel Bahr said\u202fthere are\u202flots of reasons to love her trees while gesturing to a small fruit tree with a hammock.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fruiting pear tree, and so there’s a ton of wildlife in there,\u201d Bahr said. \u201cThere’s deer, which, I know a lot of people don’t love the deer, but I don’t mind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She and her\u202f4-year-old\u202fson enjoy\u202fsitting in the shade, lying in the\u202fhammock\u202fand\u202flistening to birdsong. But this year everything changed.\u202f<\/p>\n

\u201cI came home in June and there were blue ribbons on all of my trees that said \u2018remove,\u2019\u201d Bahr said. \u201cThey’ve put ribbons on trees before when they’ve done trimming, but none of them have ever said remove.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contractors working for Duke Energy have been to her neighborhood a\u202flot in\u202fthe past few months,\u202ftrimming and removing\u202ftrees\u202fto protect power lines.\u202fThey\u2019re\u202falso going door to door telling homeowners\u202fwhen work will be done in their yard.\u202f<\/p>\n

\u201cOur crews and contractor crews have been out doing some vegetation work that is critical to ensuring that your electric service remains reliable and safe,\u201d said Tina Noel, a spokesperson for Duke.<\/p>\n

Noel said\u202fthis trimming is\u202fpart of Duke\u2019s\u202flong-term\u202fvegetation\u202fwork.\u202fThis particular\u202fproject has been\u202fgoing since October, along\u202fa transmission line from Lawrence County into Bloomington proper<\/a>.\u202f<\/p>\n

The company\u202fsays that work is necessary to protect the grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand how important trees are to our Indiana communities, and we try to balance those concerns with the need for reliable and safe electric service,\u201d Noel said. \u201cHowever, trees and vegetation are the leading cause of outages across our Indiana system.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for homeowners along the\u202froute,\u202flosing trees can\u202fmake them feel powerless.\u202fBahr said she\u202fcan\u2019t\u202fsee why Duke would remove her\u202fsaplings and fruit\u202ftrees, or why\u202fthey\u202fcouldn\u2019t\u202fbe trimmed instead.\u202f<\/p>\n

\u201cI just planted this tree in the spring, and that was marked for removal,\u201d Bahr said, gesturing to a sapling. \u201cSo was this bush, which is nowhere near power lines and not a threat ever, I mean, even at its full size,\u202fit’s\u202fnot going to knock down anything.\u201d\u202f<\/p>\n

Duke\u202fcan\u202fwork\u202fon private property because of utility easements\u2014agreements between\u202futilities\u202fand homeowners\u202fthat give the company significant leeway\u202fin exchange for service.\u202f<\/p>\n

Real estate attorney and broker Dave Harstad said that tradeoff is necessary for a stable grid connection, but homeowners may have some recourse if they think an electric company is cutting beyond the easement.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst thing an owner can do is, when they buy a home, look at their title work,\u201d Harstad said. \u201cUsually there is either a recorded electric line easement or a plat easement that allows utilities to be located on the property.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maps of utility easements can also be purchased from the county recorder\u2019s office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still,\u202futility companies have the right to cut down nearly any tree, any vegetation within their defined easement area.\u202f\u202f<\/p>\n

Depending on the power line, Harstad said, utilities\u202fmay be more lenient.<\/p>\n

They\u202fcould\u202fallow\u202ftrees\u202fgrow\u202fnear a smaller distribution line, the kind you see hanging from a wooden pole.\u202fThe easement for\u202fthose\u202fis about fifty feet.\u202f<\/p>\n

\u201cThen there\u2019s transmission lines, which are on big towers. The utilities do not mess around with those,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"transmission<\/p>\n

Devan Ridgway<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

WFIU\/WTIU News<\/p>\n

This transmission line in Bloomington has a 100 ft. easement, meaning Duke can trim vegetation for 50 feet on either side.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re\u202fhigher voltage, longer and supply power to a lot\u202fmore\u202fcustomers.\u202fEasements are one hundred feet, enough to cover\u202falmost Bahr\u2019s\u202fentire backyard.\u202f<\/p>\n

But the decision on what to prune and what to remove usually comes down to contractors in the field.\u202f<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn’t speak to each location along that route, but it’ll just depend on what the overhang of the tree is, how close they are to a line,\u201d Noel said. \u201cIt’ll just depend on the scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harstad said homeowners can sometimes have powerlines installed underground to avoid falling trees,\u202fbut that can cost tens of thousands of dollars.\u202f<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s dangerous to have those lines on the road, or on your lawn, and so it really is a necessary evil to trim trees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But\u202fthat\u2019s\u202fsmall\u202fcomfort for Bahr.\u202f<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m a newly single mom in a home, and it feels daunting to have that on my plate anyway,\u201d she said. \u201cThen just to have a large company come in and say that there’s a portion of my property that they can essentially do anything they want with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Customers with questions about\u202fvegetation work can call Duke\u2019s hotline at 1-800-723-9684.\u202f<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rachel Bahr said\u202fthere are\u202flots of reasons to love her trees while gesturing to a small fruit tree with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-214913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}