Spring rain often sparks vegetation growth, which is at its peak this time of year. When this happens, trees, limbs and shrubbery may grow into power lines, creating hazards and increasing the chance of outages.

Our Right of Way Maintenance program allows a clearance of 15 feet on either side of overhead power lines. Maintaining a clear area helps us keep an open maintenance corridor to conduct visual line inspections and get to the lines quickly for repair.

Cliff Mize, Jackson EMC Right-of-Way foreman, is our certified arborist on staff. Mize explains the preferred right-of-way tree trimming method. “We use the directional tree trimming method to maintain clearances between trees and power lines. Directional tree trimming is a pruning technique that trains the tree to grow away from the power line by removing the branches that may come in contact with the wire,” says Mize. “The International Society of Arboriculture, American National Standards Institute and the National Arbor Day Foundation recommend the directional method.”

Pruning doesn’t affect the health of trees; however, there are times when some trees require significant trimming to maintain a safe distance from power lines. In those cases, removing the tree may be a better option than leaving it susceptible to disease and death.

We’ll leave a door hanger notifying you if trees need to be removed out of power lines.

From Our Arborist

Here’s a list of tree and shrub recommendations to plant under or near power lines.