Judge rules that Alabama Power can trim, not cut trees

Wednesay, March 19, 2008
KATHERINE BOUMA
News Staff Writer

Three Jacksonville residents, including a retired schoolteacher who chained herself to her pecan tree last year, have won a lawsuit to keep Alabama Power Co. from cutting down their trees.

Calhoun County Circuit Judge John Thomason ruled Tuesday that the utility has the right to trim the trees to keep them from interfering with power lines. But the company does not have the right to begin cutting down and removing the trees, Thomason ruled.

The power company has become more proactive in removing trees under power lines in recent years, said spokeswoman Gina Warren.

There is just a very distinct relationship between trees and power lines," Warren said. "If that power line can't fall to the ground and be de-energized, it causes an extreme safety hazard."

She said the utility's power lines are designed so that the energy stops flowing when the lines hit the ground, but not when they touch trees or tree limbs.

Mark Martin, the lawyer representing Jacksonville homeowners Jimmy and Barbara Wilson and Rufus Kinney, said Alabama Power's practice in the past has been to trim tree limbs away from power lines, not to remove the trees.

The Wilsons were fighting to save three pecan trees that are at least 75 years old, while Kinney was fighting for a cherry tree more than 30 years old.

Barbara Wilson, a retired teacher, and Kinney, a professor at Jacksonville State University, chained themselves to their trees last summer after they unsuccessfully petitioned two government bodies to save the shade trees.

The easement the utility got from the city of Jacksonville in 1915 allowed the trees to be trimmed but not removed, their lawyer argued in the case filed last September. The judge agreed.

"While the franchise grants the right and duty to maintain the power wires, it does not mention the right to cut trees," Thomason wrote.

Martin said the utility has been inconsistent in its new policy. It has not cut down trees under power lines in Mountain Brook, he said, where an ordinance protects the trees.

Alabama Power will study the ruling to decide what action to take next, Warren said.

"We are disappointed in the ruling, obviously, because we have been concerned with the safety of our employees and customers," Warren said.

E-mail: kbouma@bhamnews.com