A tree-loving FBvian who had five live oaks “butchered” here by Oncor last spring–and later moved to the Northeast–has a few observations about the company:
1.) Oncor would not have notified us in advance if I had not been home when they knocked on my door. I told them that my husband needed to be home to supervise the work and they left. They sent another crew several weeks later and had their “arborists” on site. The trees they “pruned” looked horrible and they damaged $2000 worth of other landscaping which they did reimburse us for.
2.) The crew that did the work was from IOWA!!! Do they know the growth patterns etc. of TEXAS live oaks????
3.) Since the last time we were butchered a few years ago the rules had changed from trimming to a 5 yr growth to a 10 year growth. When asked if that meant they would not be back for 10 years, I could not get an answer. Is trimming for 10 yrs of growth healthy to the tree or even safe in the case of lopsided trees???
4.) One of the first things that I noticed after our move was the beautiful trees alongside the roads–apparently coexisting with the power lines. While some are trimmed a short distance away from the power lines, I have yet to see one tree cut in the severe V pattern or the half-tree pattern that is common in Oncor’s wake. This is an area that gets actual snow and ice.
5.) I do not understand Oncor’s motives since by their own statistics most power outages are not caused by unruly limbs. My favorite was a couple of years ago when virtually all of N. Dallas was blacked out due to a squirrel. I never saw Oncor trying to rid my property of squirrels (I would have paid them extra for that).
There really has to some way to stop Oncor from ruining the trees of Dallas.
