|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
After a hiatus of more than 10 years, the war on trees has resumed in Reno. Asplundh “vegetation management” crews started cutting tree limbs from along 104 miles of Oncor utility feeder lines on June 10. And at least two Reno residents are very unhappy with the results.
On Thursday, Tonya Oleksyn watched as crews took a V-shaped chunk out of the top of the old oak tree that was on her stepfather’s Reno property long before he purchased it in 1954.
Tonya’s 77-year-old mother Mary stayed inside as Asplundh crews did their work. She didn’t want to see what was happening to the tree her husband Leonard had fought so hard to save in the 90’s when their front yard got “swept up by the widening of Jacksboro Highway.” “Our front yard used to reach all the way to the median,” Mele said. When the highway was expanded she and Leonard were given two choices. They could accept payment and sell most of their front lawn, or the state would take the land through eminent domain.
When the highway came through, Leonard started waging a battle on two fronts. “He was fighting to save that tree at the same time he had cancer,” Tonya said. In 1993 he succumbed to the cancer at the age of 79. And last week, in his absence, Tonya and her husband Robert, took up his fight to save the old oak tree that meant so much to him in 1954 that according to Robert, “He actually hired an arborist to come out and fix the rot that started when a second trunk split off.” “The tree completely healed over and now the scar makes a perfect seat for people to sit on,” Robert added. The Oleksyn’s placed phone calls to Oncor and TXU but last week when the “vegetation crew” showed up anyway, all they could do was watch as the branches and limbs fell. “That tree is at least 100 years old,” Tonya said, watching the cut limbs pile up on the curb. “I feel they’re destroying history and something could have been done, some way.” Suzan Green, Oncor area manager for Parker County said in Oleksyn’s case, “they did work to preserve the tree.” “In many cases we’re cutting down trees growing under the powerlines,” Green said. “That tree may be 100 years old but the power lines are in our easement granted by the city.” Tonya argues that, “They put those power lines over the tree,” which was there long before it was ever Oncor’s “easement.” Green diputes that, noting that “Trees are never in the path of the lines when they are installed.” But Tonya has a photograph of her stepfather’s property before the highway was widened – with the oak tree growing in the front yard and no utility lines in sight. Meanwhile across the road On the other side of Jacksboro Highway, at 180 Beck Lane, Vera and Clifton Beck were also waging battle to keep Oncor “vegetation crews” from cutting their trees – some of which had reached a height of 40 to 50 feet. On Monday morning, the crews arrived. At the end of the day around 30 workers had cut away at the trees on the Becks’ two-acre property and hauled off two shredder loads of wood, along with a third truckload of limbs and trunks that were too big to shred. Two of the 40-foot post oaks had been left with nothing more than a single lateral limb. Three others had been cut down to the trunk. Vera said that in all, the crews “ruined nine of our trees.” The 40-foot oak that grew about four feet from their front porch, shading the lawn since the house was built in 1970 was left nothing more than a truck, 55 inches around and five feet high. Pointing to others near her house, Vera said, “They took half of that one, all of that one over there and the tops off of some that were 30 to 40 feet tall.” When crews first set foot on her property, Vera said she asked them to show her a right-of-way. “They gave us paperwork saying we could be arrested for harassment and they had a prescriptive easement,” she said. “I don’t know what that is and neither does anyone else.” Green could not be reached for a comment on that issue, but Fort Worth’s regional manager Steve Taylor said he wasn’t familiar with a “prescriptive easement.” He said it sounded to him like Beck’s trees must have been right in the middle of the easement.” “When we moved here in 1968 and built the house in 1970 there was one single utility line on that pole over there,” Vera said, pointing to a pole about 100 yards from her front door. “They put these poles up later. We’ve been trying to get them moved since.” Taylor said the poles could never have been erected without approval from a “governing body such as Planning and Zoning.” In the meantime, Oncor has recorded 3,409-minutes of disrupted service since January of 2007 along the two main lines bringing electricity to Springtown and Reno. Any vegetation growing into those lines is being cut back at least 10 feet. According to Green, anyone with tree issues has two options. They can pay to have the lines put underground, “at three times the cost of putting them above ground,” or pay to raise the lines higher than the standard 35 to 40 feet required by the Public Utility Commission. And please remember: the guys cutting the trees are just doing their jobs. |
