PSE to some residents: It's partly your fault

Property owners east of Woodinville — the hardest-hit area of last week's windstorm — are partly to blame for their power outage because they did not allow Puget Sound Energy (PSE) to remove hazardous trees, an official for the utility said Wednesday.

Scores of tall trees knocked out PSE power lines that serve 5,000 customers around the Cottagebrook substation, south of Cottage Lake near the intersection of Avondale and Woodinville-Duvall roads.

Many are without power six days after the storm, and parts of Woodinville-Duvall Road still are closed. By Wednesday, trees had been cut and pushed to the side, but downed lines still snaked along the road.

More than 100,000 customers still lack power in the Puget Sound area, mostly PSE customers on the Eastside.

Several years ago, PSE identified 1,709 diseased or dying trees on private property in the Cottage Lake area, but property owners didn't give the utility permission to cut down 616 of them.

"People treasure their trees," said Beth Rogers, PSE manager of contractor management. "We were refused — people have the right to refuse them, but there are consequences to that."

The falling trees wiped out the substation, its four feeder lines and numerous smaller lateral lines that meander throughout the neighborhoods between Woodinville and Duvall.

Roger Thompson, a spokesman for the private utility, said some property owners in the Cottagebrook substation area won't have power restored until Christmas. "It's the hardest-hit area for the storm," he said.

One way the utility tries to avoid storm damage to power lines is through its Tree Watch, part of PSE's $10 million annual vegetation-management program.

It targets diseased and dying trees that could damage power lines, then seeks permission from landowners to remove them. PSE uses a private contractor to remove the trees, and offers coupons to property owners to replace the trees with ones that can grow no taller than 30 feet.

While customer and community acceptance of Tree Watch has been successful overall, there have been pockets throughout King County — such as the Cottagebrook area — that have been reluctant to cooperate, Rogers said.

Several years ago, when PSE attempted to have dangerous trees in the Cottagebrook area cut down, 36 percent of the property owners with targeted trees turned down the utility's requests. That number is much higher than the 10 to 15 percent refusal rate PSE normally deals with, according to a 2004 PSE report to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.

Some of the trees that owners refused to have removed later fell during the January 2004 ice storm, the report said.

"We are still totally at the beck and call of the owner of the property," Rogers said. "Some argue, saying the tree is not a danger."

But Roger Arnold, who has lived near the Cottagebrook substation since 1959, said he didn't object to PSE crews cutting trees on his lot. This year, PSE cut down five to 10 of his trees. "I didn't mind," he said. "They were dangerous trees."

None of his other trees hit power lines during this storm, Arnold said.

PSE also has met some resistance from city officials and landowners in its attempts to trim and cut trees down in Bellevue, Woodinville and on Mercer Island, Rogers said.

Almost all of the PSE power lines run through private property or public land where jurisdictions such as cities and counties have rights of way along roads and streets.

PSE must get approval, including permits, from cities or counties to remove or trim trees located on their rights of way.

PSE must follow each city's specific regulations for removing and trimming trees, and the rules vary, Rogers said.

In some cases, Rogers said, the three cities have denied PSE permits to cut down potentially dangerous trees in the rights of way after the public pressured city officials to keep the trees.

"They just make it hard for us to take down the trees along the rights of way," Rogers said. "It's political."

City officials from Mercer Island, Bellevue and Woodinville — areas hit particularly hard by this storm — disagree.

"City staff has never gotten in the way of PSE removing trees if a tree is a hazard to the power lines," Mercer Island spokeswoman Joy Bueling said.

However, some residents complained a few years ago that PSE was improperly trimming trees, she said.

Unlike in other cities, Rogers said, Mercer Island limits PSE to trimming a 4-foot clearance around power lines.

Other cities, like Bellevue, allow PSE to trim about 10 feet around lines.

Barbara Ramey, spokeswoman for Bellevue's Transportation Department, said residents have not complained about tree removals by PSE, but they have occasionally complained about tree trimming.

In Seattle, the city-owned utility has the right to trim any branches that grow in its right of way — within 10 feet of a power line. If the tree is on private property and poses a potential hazard, Seattle City Light has to get permission from the property owner to remove it.

Brent Schmidt, an arboriculturist for Seattle City Light, said many of the trees that fell during the storm looked healthy and he doubts many residents would have removed them beforehand.

City Light officials said more frequent trimming of branches would not have prevented most of the power outages because they were caused by entire trees falling into the power lines.

Even so, City Light has been pruning less frequently because of budget cuts. In the late 1990s, the utility had up to 16 crews that pruned trees. Last year, the city had only eight crews. Two crews were restored in the 2007-08 budget the City Council just approved.

Staff reporter Sonia Krishnan contributed to this report. Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com