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DTE responds to tree trimming criticism
Ever wonder why the trees in your neighborhood are trimmed so strangely? It's likely because DTE needs to clear out potential obstructions that could lead to power loss during severe weather.
(FOX 2) - Perhaps you have noticed the strange trim jobs done to the canopies of your neighborhood.
The residents of Ann Arbor, a city that is not shy about its love of its urban forests, certainly noticed the odd shapes that some of their trees had taken on. And in a recent news story, they dubbed the chop job a "massacre."
DTE is likely the party that is responsible for those strange V-shapes that many trees based in Southeast Michigan now have.
Dig deeper:
‘Ann Arbor Would Like to Report a ‘Massacre’ of Its Trees’ was a headline in a recent Wall Street Journal article that cited the disenchantment of some residents in the city.
But tree trimming is nothing new to DTE, which has spent the past several years and $1 billion cutting back the foliage that can lead to power outages.
According to Brian Calka, who heads the utility's electric operations, the effort had brought some of the best reliability on the grid that homeowners have had in years.
"Look — I'm a native Michigander and I truly understand and we understand here at DTE the passion around trees on people's property," he told FOX 2.
He said more than half of all power outages that affect their customers are due to tree branches falling on electrical lines.
"Our job here is to really balance removing the trees, trimming them back, but also trying to work with customers to make sure we're doing things that aren't going to upset them," he said.
DTE's Tree Trim Academy offers training for hundreds of jobs paying more than $60K
The six-week training program helps to get people ready to meet the growing need for line-clearance tree trimming jobs and that training is demanding - using physicality and helping enrollees conquer any fear of heights.
DTE's Tree Trimming
Calka said the utility maps out its tree trimming plans ahead of time.
Once the scope of the work is identified, DTE will work with homeowners about the plan if it includes removing trees. If that is the case, the utility needs written permission.
But because some customers want to keep their trees, DTE will instead have contractors trim the branches back instead.
"Because what we want to do is we want to clear back the limbs away from the power lines, such that within five years, we come back and trim it again, and it should be good reliability for that portion of the circuit," said Calka. "So that's where you see sometimes these - what I call a little bit abnormal shapes of trees post-trimming."
The Source: The Wall Street Journal and an interview with DTE was cited for the story.