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Employees for an Xcel Energy contractor blanketed East Dry Creek Road between South Quebec and South Holly streets Tuesday in a tree-clearing operation that eliminated some backyard trees and raised hackles among homeowners.
“They have just flat-out taken them down,” said Steve Wennerstrom, secretary of Mill Creek Homes Association. “I can see them in backyards below my house still working.”
Xcel spokesman Mark Stutz said the power company planned to cut down between 50 and 75 trees in the course of the day.
Crews from Wright Tree Service were removing every tree situated below a power line, even if 12 feet separated the vegetation from the line, Wennerstrom said.
Power lines running through the neighborhood carry 230,000 volts when fully loaded, Stutz said. At full power, they sag, and “if they come in close contact with a tree, arcing conditions can cause fire and extended outages.”
The company told residents that crews would be coming to take the trees down, Wennerstrom said.
Residents and homeowners associations asked the company for permission to cut the trees themselves, but to no avail, Wennerstrom said. The trees are located on easements belonging to Xcel.
“I have lived here since 1991, and in all those years, every five years, they would come through and trim, they would top the evergreens in your yard,” Wennerstrom said.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission stiffened standards for managing transmission systems in the early 2000s, Stutz said.
“They do leave it up to the utilities to determine what type of action to take. Pruning is not the answer because you are delaying the problem,” Stutz said.
In 2012, the company warned residents that the trees would have to come down, and then gave them three years to do so, Stutz said.
“We thought that would be acceptable and give homeowners time to look for some other options,” he said.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dpmcghee