Vegetation Management

Keeping Power On:
Vegetation Management, Tree Maintenance
& Right of Way

At Claverack Rural Electric Cooperative, our top priority is delivering safe, reliable, and uninterrupted electricity to your home and business. While complete outage prevention is impossible, we diligently work to minimize disruptions caused by various factors, including power supply issues, animal contact, vehicle accidents, and severe weather.

However, trees are the leading cause of power outages on our system. This is often due to dead, dying, or overgrown trees that are located outside our maintained rights of way, but can still fall onto power lines.

Our Commitment to Reliability & Your Safety

We are deeply committed to enhancing our system's reliability and ensuring your safety. Over the past few years, Claverack has made significant progress in our proactive efforts to mitigate the impact of problematic trees near our power lines. Our comprehensive tree maintenance and right-of-way program is crucial to:

Reduce Outages: By proactively managing vegetation, we significantly decrease the frequency and duration of power interruptions.
Improve Safety: Keeping trees clear of power lines protects our members, the public, and our dedicated linemen from hazardous situations.
Ensure Efficient Service: Clear rights of way allow our crews to quickly and safely access lines for maintenance and repairs, especially during emergencies.

Learn More About Our Program

We invite you to continue reading the information below, which details our ongoing progress, future plans, and how our tree maintenance program benefits you, our valued members.

Result of Our Accelerated Ash Program in 2023-2024

Before

After

YOUR SAFETY IS PARAMOUNT: IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT DOWNED LINES & TREES

If you encounter a downed power line or a tree that is in direct contact with one of our power lines, it is extremely dangerous. Please follow these critical safety guidelines immediately:

Stay Far Away: Always assume the line is energized. Stay at least 50 feet away from the downed line or tree.
Secure the Area: If possible and safe to do so, warn others to keep clear.
Contact Us IMMEDIATELY: Call Claverack at 1-800-326-9799 right away.

Under no circumstances should anyone — except a trained Claverack REC lineman — ever attempt to remove a tree from a power line, even if you suspect the line may not be energized. It is impossible to tell if a line is live just by looking at it.

The Cooperative maintains two programs for right-of-way and tree issues. Our routine maintenance group works on approximately 536 miles of line a year. During this process, we prune branches, remove hazardous trees, and clear floor vegetation for easier access by our line workers. Our Hot-Spot Program responds to concerns reported by line workers and members regarding conditions that occur outside of the routine maintenance schedule.

To assist with our continuing efforts, we are implementing the use of a satellite-based vegetation management system. Through a Pennsylvania GRG grant, this system will provide us with data for the entire system for the next five years to identify areas that need tree-related work. We plan to use this data to drive a more targeted approach to our maintenance efforts, helping to make our programs more efficient.

Please note: it is the member's responsibility to trim trees located near the service line - the wires from the transformer pole that feed power to your building or pole. (See the graphic below.) If a tree located in this area is of concern to you, please contact a certified/licensed tree removal contractor. If the contractor feels that the tree has the potential of falling on the line during the removal process, please contact our office to schedule a time for our linemen to disconnect the wire so that removal efforts can be as safe as possible.

Some signs of our presence will be left behind after the maintenance work.

The equipment we use often leaves marks on the ground and the vegetation. We make every effort to tread lightly and avoid leaving ruts, but sometimes a site that seems accessible will turn out to be soft. If there are excessive disturbances like deep ruts that cause drainage issues or other material that disrupts the normal use of your property, we will work with you to resolve those issues.

With routine right-of-way pruning and trimming, small branches may be chipped, but anything that is too large to be run through a chipper will be left on-site.

Due to the timeframe of our accelerated vegetation management efforts and the location of the work, crews will make every effort to keep the area neat and clean, but they are tasked with strictly the removal aspect. Any ash tree (or tree deemed dangerous) will be left where it was dropped, and no material will be hauled away from these areas.

When planting trees, please look up. Power lines and vegetation do not mix. So if your tree has the potential to contact the lines, it will need to be trimmed or removed at some point. Our crews need to have clear access to the lines and poles at all times. Trees under and in power lines can make their work difficult and dangerous and cause further delays during outage situations. If trees are marked for removal or trimming, it is because they present a liability to us to provide safe and reliable energy.

IMPORTANT: If you come upon a downed line or a tree that is directly in contact with one of our power lines, stay as far away as possible (Claverack recommends at least 50 feet) and secure the area. It is important that you contact us immediately by calling 1-800-326-9799. NO ONE — except Claverack REC linemen — should ever attempt to remove a tree from a line, even if you suspect the line may not be energized.

If you see a tree that has the potential of coming in contact with or falling onto an electric line, please call our office. Our Right of Way Program Manager will note the location. A strategic approach will be used to determine when a crew will be sent to that area to remove the tree. Due to the sheer volume of danger trees located across our service area, we may not be able to respond quickly, so we ask for members' patience and understanding.

When tree crews arrive in your area to perform either routine or danger tree removal efforts, please allow crews to access the areas of your property.