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Electric Company Says Trees May Be A Safety Hazard

Posted: 3:32 PM May 4, 2012
Reporter: Casey Wheeless

Electric Company Says Trees May Be A Safety Hazard

A Bowling Green woman is concerned about saving her trees after she says the electric company butchered her neighbors.

The electric company says they admit their trimming job isn't pretty but they have certain regulations they must follow.

But, the two parties seem to have made a compromise.

"I've lived here for 10 years, I want to enjoy my back yard."

Vickie Frank came home from work early to find a tree company working vigorously in her neighbor's back yard.

"I heard this wild commotion going on and i came outside and they were cutting trees like mad. I went down and asked the man if they could trim them to be aesthetically pretty," says Frank.

But Danny Heltsley, the Right-Of-Way Foreman at BGMU say these trees can poise a serious safety hazard for the area around them and can cause major outages.

"Your tree doesn't just effect, you it effects your neighbor, or you know it could effect 5 people, or 50 people or 500 people down the line," says Heltsley.

And while BGMU admits their trimming jobs aren't always pretty, they have a bigger picture in mind.

They say they follow the Arbor Day Foundation regulations and since the start of the program in 2004 outages have been down 75 percent.

"If you think about the storm that came in at 5 am in the other day we had no outages," says Heltsley.

So both Frank and BGMU have decided to compromise.

"A man from BGMU came out here and he was real nice and he's going to let me trim my own trees," says Frank.

Frank says she will meet the electric companies requirements but still make her back yard visually pleasing for her.