Clark Public Utilities line crews and servicemen are gearing up for a busy and unpredictable season that won’t let up until the early spring.
Storms in the Pacific Northwest are at their worst from early fall to late winter. Although, as the Labor Day windstorm proved, the weather can take a turn for the worse any time of year. The powerful storms that roll across our region put even the most robust utility networks to the test and often force crews into the field at all hours to make repairs and restore service to awaiting customers.
The weather itself rarely causes outages. More often than not, the fault lies with damaged and downed trees.
“Trees are responsible for over half of all power outages our customers experience,” said Clark Public Utilities Forestry Maintenance Manager Paul Wienecke. “We’ve built our communities into a heavily forested environment that occasionally endures significant storms. When those happen, power outages are inevitable — no matter how hard we work to prevent them.”
Winter storms deliver high winds and heavy rains that shake and break off limbs and sometimes send trees crashing into nearby power lines. When that happens, thousands of customers can lose electrical service at a time. The situation gets even more severe when snow or ice storms move through the area.
The vegetation management program Wienecke oversees monitors and trims vegetation along 1,500 miles of power lines throughout its service area.
The arborists selected to work with the utility are trained to approach each cut with precision and caution. Every year they must undergo more than 40 hours of training on safety and proper pruning methods. Those techniques put the public’s and the trees’ safety at the core. Each cut will help ensure the tree continues to grow strong and sturdy, while removing limbs that threaten public safety.
This high standard has earned Clark Public Utilities the honor of being a Tree Line USA utility by the Arbor Day Foundation 21 years in a row.
“We spend more than $3 million per year to trim everything within our right of way over a three-year cycle,” Wienecke said. “That regimen has served us well over the years, but we’re currently conducting a pilot program to discover the most cost-effective method to be more precise in our vegetation management program.”
The program has been very successful over the years. Although outages are a fact of life here, Clark Public Utilities customers endure fewer and significantly shorter ones than many other people in the country. In fact, the average outage in Clark County is just 35 minutes long, compared to the national average of 329 minutes, according to the American Public Power Association.
Of all the tools the utility uses to find and address problematic trees, customer reports of potentially hazardous vegetation may be the most valuable. After all, they are the ones who are on the ground living among the trees every day.
Customers who are concerned that a tree could affect power lines should call the utility’s customer service line at 360-992-3000. The representative will ask a series of questions and triage the request. Customers can also report the tree at ClarkPublicUtilities.com.
“We have a policy to respond to those requests within seven business days,” Wienecke said. “We might not be out there trimming within a week, but we’ll at least conduct a site visit to assess what is going on.”
Energy Adviser is written by Clark Public Utilities. Send questions to ecod@clarkpud.com or to Energy Adviser, c/o Clark Public Utilities, P.O. Box 8900, Vancouver, WA 98668.
