‘Shock and Awe’: Willits Area Residents Grapple With PG&E’s Tree Falling Operations
![Healthy trees cut on Ridgewood. [Photo by Sarah Reith]](https://kymkemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Healthy-trees-cut-on-Ridgewood-crop.jpg)
Healthy trees cut on Ridgewood. [Photo by Cynthia Raiser-Jeavons]
Neighbors on Hilltop Drive in Willits speak of little else when they meet each other on the road. But very few neighborhoods have mounted an organized response to the utility’s enhanced vegetation management program. “PG&E has been masterful at dealing with all of us individually,” noted Lauren Robertson of Pine Mountain, another Willits neighborhood where residents are bewildered over the extent of the tree removal taking place.
“This has been like shock and awe,” added her neighbor, Susan Monteleone. “Nobody knows what the heck is going on, who to call.”
![Madrone down on Ridgewood. [Photo by Sarah Reith]](https://kymkemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Trees-along-Ridgewood-.jpg)
A number of trees sprawl along Ridgewood after PG&E crews worked the area. [Photo by Cynthia Raiser-Jeavons]
Vegetation management is not subject to the scientific studies that inform environmental review and seek to impose some discipline on results. And PG&E’s approach has been scattershot, with outcomes as varied as the individual personalities of each landowner.
“Some people gave permission…some did not,” Robertson recalled, sitting on a friend’s porch with neighbors and a reporter. She said a grove of bay laurel trees had been removed from her property, due to confusion over who owned the land where they stood. “We’ve been told lots of different things. We were told they’re not topping trees, and we’re looking at topped trees right now.” Robertson called a community meeting last week, where three PG&E representatives fielded questions about the vegetation management program. But Pine Mountain resident Randy MacDonald said the proposal to remove trees from his property lacked the basic principles of clarity he requires for a project that would have a significant impact on his property value. “I want all the information in writing,” he said. “I deal with contracts all the time. Any job I do has to have a contract. And I have to have a signature. Or I don’t touch it. How could they get away with that?”
Republican Senator Brian Dahle is the author of SB 396, which would amend the Public Resource Code to strike a requirement that a certified arborist identify “hazardous, dead, rotten, diseased, leaning or structurally defective live trees that are to be felled, cut, or trimmed.” The Sierra Club Utility Wildfire Prevention Task Force warns that if the bill passes, it would allow “PG&E to chop down any Strike Tree along its 25,000 miles of power lines in High Threat Fire Districts, any distance outside its Right of Way or legal easement, without review by a qualified expert, without rational possibility for a property owner to appeal, and without any possibility of compensation for damages.”
Walter Smith, who raises goats on Hilltop Drive in Willits, first encountered tree-cutting crews on his property about a month ago. He’s been spending three or four hours a day researching the law, writing emails to an ever-expanding list of supporters in Mendocino and Humboldt counties, and rushing outside to a grove of old-growth trees he has no intention of sacrificing.
Smith is a former logger who quit the industry in the 1990’s, when “Louisiana Pacific was making a mess of our forests. So I quit my work and then started working on sustainable forestry issues, and helped co-found the Institute for Sustainable Forestry in Humboldt County.” He’s also worked on sustainable forestry worldwide with the Rainforest Alliance. With his experience in falling trees, he is flummoxed by why some of his beloved trees have been selected. Indicating a towering fir with two stems rising from a single trunk, he said, “There’s no way that that tree, even with hundred mile-an-hour winds, would ever fall on the lines…if it meets certain criteria, it gets marked to cut. The physics of it, whether it would ever hit the line, has nothing to do with the criteria for marking it.”
![Madrone down on Ridgewood. [Photo by Sarah Reith]](https://kymkemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Madrone-down-on-Ridgewood.jpg)
Madrone taken down on Ridgewood. [Photo by Cynthia Raiser-Jeavons]
Nevertheless, there is a significant amount of slash on the ground, because crews felled the neighbor’s fir trees into his grove, tearing branches from a madrone that Smith guesses is the oldest thing on that patch of land. “This tree, in terms of this neighborhood, is a heritage tree,” he insisted. Neighborhood children used to play on a rope swing tied to one of its thick yellow limbs, or climb into its heights and feel like they were “at the top of the world…it’s not just an old madrone tree in the middle of the forest,” he concluded.
Smith was instrumental in the formation of the Mendocino County Climate Change Advisory Committee in 2019. The committee has now drafted a letter to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, urging it to ask Governor Gavin Newsom and the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety to temporarily halt PG&E’s cutting in Mendocino County, on the grounds that the criteria for tree removal, the regulatory process, and the science behind it, are all unclear. Committee Chair Marie Jones said part of the impetus for the letter came from the sight of a clear-cut swath of trees around lines alongside Highway 20, between Willits and Fort Bragg.
The committee is asking for an organized approach, including a town hall and a published, written explanation detailing landowner rights about the trees selected for removal. “I don’t want to give legal advice, because I’m not a lawyer,” Jones cautioned. “I just think it’s important that people know they do have some rights around this issue.”
Lawyers came to mind for Pine Mountain resident Bobbi Mallace, when she was asked about organized opposition to the tree removal that deprived her home of shade and privacy just a few days ago. “The only legal response that I could think of is the class action suit,” she said. “Which, well, you’ve got to have a class. That would involve probably getting in touch with individuals in all these counties, or maybe even just Mendocino. I don’t know if that would be enough people. Because fighting PG&E, you’ve got to be a pretty big class.”
Earlier:
- ‘The Slaughter Has Begun’: In an Attempt to Mitigate the Threat of Wildfire, PG&E Cuts a Wide Swath Through a Southern Humboldt Community
- Without Consent: Landowners Battle PG&E’s ‘Moonscaping’
- Tree Holding Bald Eagle’s Nest in Potter Valley Gets Stay of Execution After Bird of Prey Comes Home
- PG&E Agrees to Hold Off Cutting Tree Hosting Eagles’ Nest in Mendocino County
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In my town they cut down every tree they can and leave them strewn in people’s yards indefinitely (2 + years now). I refuse to allow them on the property to “observe” more trees until they cleanup the colossal mess they left the first two times they were “doing good.” PGE – A cut down, left-to-rot tree in my yard is more of a fire hazard you utter idiots, then leaving it grow. Oh, and next time you are “doing good” get our permission to cut our trees before we sue you for destroying our property. You have no right ! And remember colossal company, you have been sued into bankruptcy already, so I wouldn’t piss off the last few stockholders you have too much.
You complain when they start fires and you complain when they make it safer by clearing trees. You complain about your bill, but you love when the lights come on and the heat clicks on.
I’ve got no problem holding them to a high standard but I don’t think clearing trees out of the way is an issue when we are facing the worst fire season in my lifetime possibly.
willow creeker your comment is SPOT ON! But it seems that the majority of people just want to bitch and scream about anything that PG&E is doing. PG&E has even offered to come and haul all the cut trees and other wood away if you ask.
It’s the new “woke’ crowd always complaining! Gonna be a serious drought this year! It’s for the good of the community
I’m “woke”. I’ve been “woke” since I got my draft lottery number in ’71. I don’t complain. I identify a problem and I work to fix it.
That’s what being “woke” is about.
You should try it sometime instead of emulating the behaviors you’re complaining about.
Thank you for your service. That’s not the WOKE I’m talking about.
It’s the media creating the WOKE movement
The joke about woke is that the very people that complain about it are right wing “woke” themselves and they attack the Capitol because they are so “woke” by Trump’s lies and other far right whacked out conspiracy theorists.
“woke” works both ways, far right woke is more destructive to American democracy.
Maybe that’s not you, maybe you’re not “woke” by Trump’s lies.
Agreed!
I’ve been asking for them to take away not only branches, but full tree trunks, laying on the ground for many months. They tell me they will call me back…they don’t, or they say they’re going to do it in a couple of weeks…they don’t. I’m open to suggestions…got any?
If they don’t kill the stumps of the tan oaks ,madrone and bay..well In my experience the brush sprouts up from the stumps and in a few years you have a very dense brushy fuel load . (Leaving all stumps to sprout a thick understory of brush on the ground is foolish management and no good. In actual timber forest management the hardwoods are killed by poisoning ,so they do not regrow as brush.
They cut 6 trunks of pepperwoods down. I thought I was agreeing to 2 trunks. They waited until after Oct. 15, so the trucks couldn’t get in and I couldn’t get the logs out. Never again. They need to cut before October 1. The first time they cut a pepperwood, they did apply something so it wouldn’t sprout. But it did. Just took longer.
Let’s not forget the drought we are and have been facing. You really think drying out the crust of earth is gonna help with water retention.
They have every right because their lines run through your property. They have a right of way which means they can manage that right of way to protect their lines. Good luck with a lawsuit, you will lose. In fact, if you stop them from cutting a tree on your property and it blows over into the line causing a huge wildland fire, guess who is paying for all the damage, YOU. And I would sue your ass off if your fallen tree burned my house down because you wanted no danger trees cut or brush clearing along the lines. If it comes to it, they will bring the sheriff with them to haul your ass off your property while they cut the trees. Ultimately, Move if you don’t like it or get with the times, your yard and property value are definitely not more important than protecting an entire neighborhood or city.
I wish they would clear the brush – the reality is just the contrary, actually. I run a forestry crew that clears trees and brush for ecosystem health enhancement and wildfire hazard reduction. Over the years, we’ve spent much of our clients’ $ cleaning up brush left behind by PG&E’s contractors, most recently Family Tree from Laytonville. In my neighborhood, an outfit named A & E from Red Bluff has been doing the work for PG&E this year. They have disposed of their brush promptly, and been very polite and cooperative to work with. I understand that others have had different experiences, but that’s been mine.
I wish they would be required to manage the understory brush to mitigate the fire hazard below the lines, and to do so without herbicides.
Dave, many of the deeds of easement contain language that require PGE to “burn or remove” slash. Any landowner who does not have a copy of the deed of easement can call the PGE 800 number and tell them they need a copy of the deed of easement. We insist that they chip and haul and they do so. We do not allow them to lop and scatter because they actually just chop and drop in dense piles. But the most important thing a landowner can do is insist that they not increase our fire danger. And landowners have the right to prohibit herbicide spraying. We’ve successfully prohibited that for almost 50 years here,, even though we have to have the conversation over & over. And PGE is liable for costs when they remove vegetation from beyond their right of way. The commercial value of the trees as well as any cost they incur in cleaning up after PGE crews. I hope you’re telling your clients that your bills for post-PGE fuels reduction should be included as evidence in claims against the utility. If you’re the Dave K doing fuels reduction from the Mattole, tell Lori I said to give you my number! Kate
People understand the issue but are extremely upset about PG&E’s heavy handed, reckless and irresponsible behavior…
they also have the right to cleanup after themselves and finish what they started when they have their rights onMY PROPERTY
These trees stood way before pge power lines and they invaded our land. You really think an air tunnel to fuel the back flash is really a solution. Let’s try spending that money we all pay to maintain the lines that have been so neglected deliberately so let’s jack the rates, take their trees, plan outages, then bury the lines anyways. Think about it. The shit show of it is they are allowed to charge us for tree crew costs. Irony at the fullest.
Simply stated, for every tree removed, the immediate area’s temperature rises and the humidity drops… We also lose the benefit of the hundreds of species that make their home there. Standing back, looking at the whole, studying how fire will enter and travel through the area, then cutting and using beneficial burning to mitigate, is a far better approach that will ensure long-term habitability.
They chip and spread everything under 10″…… unless you advis otherwise or won’t allow access with a chipper. So either you’re lazy, or as you already stated not allowing access so get your head out from your hiney and pretend to be an adult!
Do you prefer fire or a few trees that will, no doubt, catch fire in the coming couple years?
I have been hearing that wholesale clearing lik PG&E is doing is not even good fire management policy. Trees cleared make way for brush and understory vegetation that is more flammable and grows faster, creating a ongoing maintenance situation and a MORE flammable area if not maintained. Tree thinning is a more balanced approach. What’s more, triple insulating the power lines is far more cost effective and works better in many cases.
PG&E has been completely caught with their pants down by the effects of Global Warming and is now playing catch-up but they seem to be almost clueless about conditions in the field. They are throwing out-of-state contractors at jobs where the actual management is done remotely, just an incredible disconnect and clusterf*ck.
I have lived off-grid for 30 years and paid my dues running a light or two for much of that time. I have a modern system now that runs EVERYTHING without a generator most of the time, reliable as hell.
It looks like PG&E will be passing on the heavy costs they are incurring and mismanagement will be a contributor to those costs. The grid will only become LESS reliable in the next few years, with more extreme weather and fire danger and energy demands.
If you can, go solar, baby! Modern batteries and components have revolutionized solar energy in the last few years even as the grid has degraded. When my neighbor was complaining bitterly last summer, “The power’s been out for DAYS!”, I responded “Really?”. I truly didn’t know.
And PG&E? They need to be totally revamped, de-privatized and imprisoned;) just kidding on the last one. They’re caught between a rock and a hard place right now, people screaming at them from every which way, when they shut the grid down, when they DON’t shut the grid down… and then there’s their ham-handed attempts to catch up! Poor PG&E! What a mess they got themselves into!
Don’t worry about the endless brush and fast growing new understory of bushes they are implementing regularly scheduled applications of HERBICIDES to fix that. No mind that we draw our water from those hills……
Remove the trees the water will not stay in the land and they’re drying out everyone wells. It’s absolutely disgusting the amount of trees cut down you cannot believe. I was talking about this two summers ago. I drive through a barren canyon that was once a fern filled valley. Started talking with a bunch of these contractors when I saw them any chance I got. The orange vests with all their trucks. Most of them are not even from California. Many of them are from Texas that I’ve talked to
They’re just coming to follow the work and they just do whatever they want. So far out, they don’t even know where they’re going as far as the maps of the roads they’ve never seen hills like this before. They have no ties locally and or care for anything other than $. Half of them don’t even speak English who gives them their instruction?. With so many crews it would be extremely hard to manage them all there’s literally hundreds of them wandering around the hills every day. I thought they were not supposed to be doing anything with the trees during nesting season.
Well… At least now we know why PG&E hasn’t kept the vegetation cleared from their power lines.
What was it that Abe Lincoln said about people and happiness?
Exactly
PG&E abatement projects can certainly be heavy-handed, and possibly not the best answer. However, there’s a big-picture/little-picture dichotomy involved. Speaking from personal experience, it’s hard to let go of the woodland dream life, especially after a long and laborious investment. But the reality of a drought-prone local climate, declining forest health, huge uptick in annual fire activity, and an auto-centric lifestyle deep in the woods, becomes more tenuous with each passing year. Things change, and sometimes (now more often) in ways we don’t like. Real estate prices in Brooktrails, for instance, seem to reflect a growing awareness of that.
Hey… cleared land = pot gardens !
And pot gardens=hundreds of dollars !
It wasn’t pg&e cutting along the road that dried up the 10 month flowing seasonal creek at my place. It was two acre exemption clearing by all the smaller properties along the road that did. And most of them now grow pot.
They’re cutting massive big trees that are mostly not gonna burn if the brush is cleared and the ladder fuels are removed underneath and around them instead.
It’s just easier for the untrained crews to clear-cut.
And the fact remains that ELECTRICITY itself is the elephant in the room that is the technology that has accelerated and perpetuated the destruction of the Earth’s habitable living environments for the past 120 years.
There is no clean or sustainable electricity.
We all live simply and share or we all die hungry and thirsty in fires and wars while the insane billionaires die in spaceships trying to live on Mars!
Think about World Peace.
It won’t hurt you.
Reading all you people saying cut them down before they burn.. go back to your crystal ball and get ur shit right.
Quick Burn them before they can cut them down!
“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”. Lesions from Vietnam
Holy moly.
Actually what I’m saying is that most of the forest will burn in the coming years regardless, so be very prepared if you live in a vulnerable area. Have your go bags ready, have escape routes, have warnings turned on and be in contact with your neighbors. It can creep up in the night and surround you before anyone is the wiser. I was lucky to have a few hours to pack when I happened to wake up at 430am to pee and the flames were so bright it looked like dawn
Never have known a tree to cause a fire. Human error. Lightning strikes.. not a single one of these fires ever started from a tree spontaneously combusting . Most of them came from some person having an accident with a power tool or other device . PG&E lines breaking and falling into the forest. To blame the forest when the forests were here long before humans came is grasping at straws.
Guns don’t kill people- people getting in the way of bullets do…
Uhhh… Different context/subject way off base. The “so you mean…” is a huge problem. No mention of guns or bullets, but one can certainly find that in another story!
Touché
They don’t fall on power lines either.
“The CPUC does not consistently audit all areas in the utilities’ service territories, it did not audit several areas that include high fire-threat areas, and it does not use its authority to penalize utilities when its audits uncover violations.”
And that friends the crux of the problem. There is little point in having a regulatory agency that either can’t or more likely won’t do its’ job. As soon as PG&E executives are treated like PG&E customers this idiocy will stop.
Exactly, the problem with pge seems to be that it behaves as a for profit corporation concerned about its bottom line rather than a public utility concerned about producing the safest and most efficient power grid for the use of the public.
This whole sale privatization of the essential common infrastructure of society is a problem that extends into all corners of our life
Hey buddy PGE is a private for profit monopoly corporation!!!
It is chartered by the state to provide a public service but it is not and has never been a public non profit service provider like your local water service provider.
It has a few legal restraints in how much profit it can legally generate but PGE dodges a lot of them by not completing line maintenance thereby increasing profit!! And when faulty equipment starts a mega fire and they get sued and Lose all of the ratepayers pay the settlement Not PGE shareholders!
America fuck yeah
Green diamond is probably laughing their asses off.. they couldn’t even cut this much on TPZ land!
WAKE UP PEOPLE, NO WHAT YOU ARE BUYING!!! I have a utility easement threw my property. I purchased my property knowing that I have a utility easement and a road easement. A utility and road easement belongs to the people with the need to run utility service threw my property and they have the right to maintain their easement in a reasonable manner. I have no control over what is done on my utility easement on my property. So if you do not want people be taking care of their easement then you should not buy land with an easement threw your property.
People plant trees under power lines and then whine when the utility cuts them down. Any tree that can strike a line should be removed. I am sick and tired of power outages and fires.
Take a drive along any road in Mendocino and you will see a potential fire. Suck it up and thank g-d PGE is removing a hazard