THE
HUNTERDON COUNTY NEWS |
TITLE: JCP&L MAY BE CHANGING ITS CLEAR CUTTING WAYS
DESCRIPTION:
Time: 11:29:04
From a reader
At today's BPU meeting the board approved a proposal by the
staff to change the Vegetation management rules and go thru the re-adoption
process. The whole process will take 10 months, starting with a 2-week review
period for stakeholder comments, a 2-week period for the BPU to reply followed
by a stakeholder meeting for informal public comments. Dates were not announced
at the meeting.
They said they would hold the present rules in abeyance until that process is
completed.
Commissioners Fiordaliso and Butler tried to get the BPU staff to be more
specific as to what "hold the rules in abeyance" meant, but trying to get the
BPU staff to be specific is like pushing jello up a hill. They asked if that
meant the utilities would not be clear-cutting and the response was something
like:
"The utilities will be told to use integrated vegetation management (IVM)
practices, which requires restraint by cutting only where the safety of the
system and people working in the area is affected".
A letter will be sent to the utilities and a notice to that effect will be
published in the N.J. Register.
I asked Mr. Wyatt, A PSE&G representative at the meeting, whether they would be
changing their practices for cutting in Long Valley which is scheduled to start
in the next day or so and he said they won't change anything until they see
something in writing.
Commission president Fox was more conciliatory to the utilities. She said it
was appropriate for New Jersey to have higher standards than other states
because of our population density and the expectation of high reliability for
electrical service.
She said the commission also had an obligation to ratepayers to hold rates down,
and cutting trees was more cost effective than trimming. (This is the first
time I've heard any one state the "real motive".)
She suggested they could institute a plan for transmission lines similar to that
for distribution lines (lower voltage lines on residential streets), which would
allow municipalities to take responsibility for trimming and shoulder the cost.
Don McBride, Executive committee - Raritan Valley Group of the Sierra Club
PS:
David Barnes has written an excellent white paper on the issue to BPU president
Fox. He reviewed over 25 sources on the issue none of which supported the
drastic measures in the NJ Rules. It is posted, with permission, on our web
site.
http://newjersey.sierraclub.org/RaritanValley/bpu_veg_mgmt.asp