Tree Trimming

Trees and reli­able elec­tric ser­vice are both impor­tant to our com­mu­ni­ty. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the two aren’t always com­pat­i­ble, and Klick­i­tat PUD must trim trees for safe­ty pur­pos­es, as required by law, and to avoid ser­vice inter­rup­tions.

Trees end up caus­ing a major­i­ty of the pow­er out­ages and inter­rup­tions that affect KPUD cus­tomers. Tree limbs can fall into pow­er lines and cause dam­age to wires, short cir­cuits and oth­er prob­lems. This cre­ates poten­tial dan­ger for you and your prop­er­ty. This dan­ger can be avoid­ed by not plant­i­ng tall-grow­ing trees under or near elec­tric wires.

Accord­ing to the Revised Code of Wash­ing­ton, (RCW), any time a poten­tial threat exists that could cause dam­age to elec­tric facil­i­ties from trees and veg­e­ta­tion, an elec­tric util­i­ty is required to remove the haz­ard. Klick­i­tat PUD’s pol­i­cy fur­ther clar­i­fies that, any limb with­in ten feet of dis­tri­b­u­tion elec­tri­cal lines and twen­ty-three feet of trans­mis­sion lines will be cut back.

To assure that prop­er tree trim­ming and removal is per­formed, Klick­i­tat PUD employs a pro­fes­sion­al tree-trim­ming crew that also includes a cer­ti­fied arborist. He also helps deter­mine if the trees are dis­eased, dead or dying and, depend­ing on the prox­im­i­ty of tree to elec­tric facil­i­ties, if com­plete removal is required.

It is essen­tial that tree trim­ming be done prop­er­ly to ensure safe and depend­able elec­tric ser­vice. Pro­vi­sion of right-of-way ease­ments grants Klick­i­tat PUD the author­i­ty to trim trees to pro­vide for a safe and reli­able elec­tric sys­tem.

Call Klick­i­tat PUD at 509–773-5891 or 1–800-548‑8357 if you have trees that are get­ting dan­ger­ous­ly close to pow­er lines. Cut­ting branch­es near an over­head line is NOT for do-it-your­selfers. Klick­i­tat PUD crews are trained to work safe­ly around live pow­er lines.

Check out the Klick­i­tat PUD Tree Trim­ming Pro­ce­dure [PDF].