MASON CITY – The Alliant Energy Tree Trimming Team is constantly working to keep trees away from power lines, and soon, the team is coming to Worth County. During storms or high winds, trees often come in contact with power lines and can cause an outage. Crews are specially trained to work near power lines and encourage growth positive tree growth, away from power lines.
Trimming work will take place in parts of Worth County beginning this week. Crews focus on specific trees that are interfering with power lines, or will soon grow into power lines without proper maintenance. However, Alliant Energy does not remove or perform heavy trimming on trees for the service wire, which runs from the pole to homes. Alliant Energy will disconnect service free of charge to allow for safe pruning with a 72-hour notice.
“The work we do to trim trees helps maintain our safe and reliable electric service,” said Dan Green, manager of line clearance for Alliant Energy.
Tree trimming crews will be in Manly, Plymouth, Hanlontown, Rock Falls, Joice, Clear Lake, and parts of Mason City to trim limbs too close to power lines. Affected customers will be individually notified. Alliant Energy crews use current practices endorsed by the American National Standards Institute and the International Society of Arboriculture to protect power lines and preserve the health of trees.
– Crews consider how much the tree will grow before the next trim cycle.
– Tree trimmers plan for weather conditions and consider how winds could cause the tree to make contact with the wires.
Crews also consider if movement in the wires, such as sagging due to high temperatures or the weight of ice, could cause the wires to contact a tree.
– Crews consider the impact trimming will have on the overall health and stability of the tree.
Alliant Energy expects to trim trees every 3 to 4 years, and property owners can expect:
– Crews to chip and haul away brush and small branches
– Removal of dead trees, dying trees, trees with badly split trunk or limb, trees that lean dangerously close to wires, trees that are fast-growing, trees that are weak-wooded
– To be contacted in person from Alliant Energy if a tree must be removed
Tree trimming is unlikely to cause interruptions in electric service. Customers with questions or concerns can contact Alliant Energy at 1-800-ALLIANT, visit alliantenergy.com/treetrimming, or e-mail questions to customercare@alliantenergy.com.
Alliant Energy crews will remove debris caused by routine trimming. Alliant Energy crews do not remove debris caused by storm restoration work.
I think they contract out this work which is typical of ALliant Energy. They like to hire incompetent people and then contract out the work that should be done by the people they hire. The ALliant employees primarily just “manage” and “oversee” contractors doing the work they should be doing themselves.
My buddy works for a local company that does a ton of work for alliant. He told me the guy that works at alliant that should be doing this work doesnt know how. Thats what he told me. HE doesnt care because he makes a lot of money off of the employees lack of skill.
Alliant just pushed the gas increase on us.
http://www.northiowatoday.com/?p=34126
Doesn’t Alliant get double digit rate increases every year? I know I don’t. Must be nice to be able to waste money, and make the customer pay for it.
I can save all of this, bury the utility lines as they do in other successful cities and towns. Problem solved.
Yeah, it wouldn’t cost Alliant anything, cause they would just push the cost on the customer.
The guy from Cutting Edge documented that Alliant didn’t even follow their own tree trimming policy last year.
Trim is an understatement. What they do is wholesale butcher of trees. If they went much further, total removal would be in order.
Alliant has an SOP when it comes to trimming trees, and thats what they follow. They don’t care what the trees look like after they trim. After all, they do belong to the city, that should sum it up.
They need to hire people that at least know how to trim a tree, last year they just butchered them!
They should try to hire skilled employees….I’m not just talking about the tree trimmers either.
Our neighborhood’s trees were savaged last year by whoever the trimmers were. Looks like Alliant just gives the contract to the lowest bidder without regard to skill. Believe it was an out of town firm…
Will they be hacking the trees up like last time? I believe after the last round the owner of Cutting Edge in Mason City made a point with the city council that there needed to be oversight so they don’t harm the trees….will this be occurring?