Five Trees Spared in Barnaby Woods
District Officials Scale Back Trimming Plans by Pepco

By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 20, 2005; Page DZ03

The District has delivered a verdict on the fate of 13 trees in Barnaby Woods.

The D.C. Department of Transportation has decided that five of the trees should be removed, in addition to three that have already been cut down by Pepco, according to Michelle Pourciau, a DDOT deputy director.

Of the five trees that have been spared, two will be monitored over the next year.

“It’s a joint decision between us and the community,” Pourciau said.

Residents of the Northwest neighborhood complained at the end of September after discovering that Pepco was poised to remove 13 trees that it had marked as potentially harmful to electrical power lines, Pourciau said.

The complaints prompted the transportation agency to issue a 90-day stop-work order while two arborists—one employed by the District, the other hired by the residents—inspected the trees.

John Mueller, a neighborhood resident, said that he recognizes the need to remove some of the trees, but that he is pleased that five will be spared.

“It makes the whole ordeal worth it,” he said. “We’re appreciative that DDOT was willing to sift the facts.”

Pepco expanded its tree cutting policy after Hurricane Isabel in 2003 caused hundreds of trees to topple on power lines. Thousands of residents across the District and Maryland were without electricity.

Pepco is monitoring 50 power lines in the region, including the one in Barnaby Woods, to ensure that they won’t be disrupted by fallen trees.

To inspect the density of the trees in Barnaby Woods, D.C. officials purchased a $23,000 device known as the Tree Radar Unit, which is about half the width of a shoe box and weighs about three pounds.

Pourciau said the agency plans to use the device in the future “when there’s a question about our usual analyses.”

One problem with using the device is that nearby power lines must be shut down while it is in operation. Otherwise, it cannot register a reading.

“It’s not good to use it regularly,” she said.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

One Response to “District Officials Scale Back Trimming Plans by Pepco - Washington Post, Thursday Jan 20th”

1. Michael Katzmann, on January 20th, 2005 at 11:21 am, said:
   

   I’m sure the statement regarding the tree radar is wrong.

   One problem with using the device is that nearby power lines must be shut down while it is in operation. Otherwise, it cannot register a reading.

   It’s purely a safety issue. DDOT doesn’t want to operate a cherry picker around 13KV lines. (Who can blame them!) I can’t see why the instrument wouldn’t work even in a moderate 60Hz EM field. The tree radar works (from my understanding) at high UHF frequencies.

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