Enviro Activist Jones Takes On Austin Energy 'Tree Butchers'

Tim Jones arrived home last week to learn that a tree-cutting company hired by Austin Energy would be clearing limbs and branches under the power lines that run across the leafy yard of his South Austin home. "What, are they crazy?" Jones wondered as he calculated the number of months that had passed since the tree cutters last visited the property. Nine months, he figured, recalling that experience. "I was out there for two days babysitting our trees."

So Jones did what a lot of homeowners do in this situation: He raised a big stink. That evening, he fired off an angry e-mail to city officials and the news media; the subject line read "Tree Terrorism by Ray Henning and AE." (Henning is Austin Energy's utility/forestry superintendent.) Then he went to bed and tossed and turned while visions of grossly disfigured trees danced in his head. "It just makes you sick," he said the following afternoon. "When people come to trim your trees, it's gut-wrenching. They trim for the power lines. They don't trim for aesthetics and balance. They don't think about all the wildlife they're displacing."

"They" in this case are two companies, Davey Tree Surgery and Asplundh Tree Expert, longtime Austin Energy contractors charged with policing the vegetation growing under more than 5,000 miles of power lines in a 421-square-mile area. The local utility spends between $6 million and $8 million a year on this type of maintenance -- a "necessary evil," Henning calls it. And of that amount, the utility spends about $1 million on one-on-one consultations with residents who object to losing chunks of their trees.

Jones spent last Thursday in such a meeting with Austin Energy representatives. The end result is that contractors will show up at his home today (Thursday) for some delicate pruning under the watchful eye of Jones and his two constant companions -- his camera, which he uses to document environmental misdeeds, and his girlfriend, Jenny Clark, who owns the property and another nearby home slated for a visit from the contractor.

In any event, Jones got more than a two-hour consultation -- his actions also led to the formation of a joint subcommittee of members of the city's Environmental Board and Urban Forestry Board. Jones, whose activism roots run as deep as some of Austin's heartiest oaks, serves on the Environmental Board and thus landed himself a spot on the new subcommittee, which will study the city's tree-trimming policies and make recommendations to the City Council.

But those recommendations may not hold water when Austin Energy invokes national electrical safety mandates and Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements. Until recently, utility officials say, residents could simply object to tree trimming and that would be that. Now, the objection automatically leads to a consultation. The utility tightened its policy after a deep freeze in December 2000 left 90,000 homes and businesses without power for two days. Austin Energy blamed most of the outages on pesky tree limbs interfering with power lines. If the two sides don't come to an agreement at the consultation, Austin Energy proceeds over the homeowners' objections. "We occasionally have to utilize the Austin Police Dept.," says utility spokesman Ed Clark. "But not very often." He said power outages have decreased by 60% since the utility stepped up its tree-trimming enforcement.

In the end, Henning says the new subcommittee could even work to Austin Energy's advantage. "It could provide an educational process for all of us," he said. "We want people to know we're not here to rape and pillage the trees of Austin."

Jones doesn't think Austin Energy is bent on destroying trees either, but he doesn't want to leave anything to chance when the tree-trimming folks show up on his property today. "I just hope they don't butcher the trees," he said.