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Trees and Power Lines
How We Mitigate the Spread of Oak Wilt
Tree Trimming and You
What to Do if a Power Line is Down
If a tree branch or entire tree falls on an electric line:
- Call 9-1-1 first
- Then immediately call us at 800-477-5050
- DO NOT TOUCH THE BRANCH, TREE OR LINE
Safety Facts about Trees and Power Lines:
- Always assume a power line is energized and dangerous.
- Power lines are not insulated; if you touch one you will be severely injured or even killed.
- Don’t cut down trees or branches near power lines. Leave that to our crews.
- Don’t allow children to climb in trees near power lines.
- When removing objects from a tree, stay clear of power lines.
- Never let your ladder touch a power line.
Tree Health and Planting Tips
Tree Diseases and Smart Planting
Managing Trees for Safe and Reliable Energy
When trimming trees and managing vegetation, we follow clearance standards that vary based on the voltage of nearby electric lines. Many factors influence the decision to trim or cut trees, such as species, location, and health of the tree. Sometimes trees within the utility right-of-way easement, or growing close to it, will need to be removed to ensure safe and reliable service.
What Will We Repair? What is the Homeowners Responsibility?
What to Expect When We Trim Trees
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A Forestry Planner marks trees or brush that need maintenance.
• Trees to be trimmed are marked with a blue dot.
• Trees to be cut down are marked with a blue X. If outside the easement they will be marked with a blue A.
• Brush to be cleared may be marked with a blue slash ( / ).
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We assign qualified tree-trimming contractors.
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Here’s how we handle clean-up.
• On lawns brush is usually chipped. Larger wood is cut into pieces and left onsite.
• In unmaintained areas brush is either piled in windrows (creating habitat for wildlife and suppressing future tree growth) or mulched and scattered within the easement area.
• If trees are cut down, stumps are cut as close to the ground as possible and treated with a herbicide to prevent regrowth.
• Following storms, trees and limbs may be cleared so crews can make repairs to electric service. In this case wood, limbs and debris are all left on-site.
Other Ways We Manage Vegetation
Manual Cutting: A tree crew using a bucket truck and chainsaws.
Mechanical Cutting: Larger mower with mulching heads or off-road vehicles with saws mounted on aerial booms.
Herbicide Applications: Used to prevent stumps from sprouting new growth, or to control brush growth in the right-of-way. When using herbicide, we use selective methods that target trees and brush.
Cultural Controls: We sometimes lease property we own to farmers for agricultural production. When a farmer grows a crop on our land it is a win-win - they produce a crop and keep trees and brush from growing at the same time.
Frequently Asked Questions
- When the area is safe, it is the property owner’s responsibility for debris clean-up after emergency service restoration, tree failure, or customer-generated calls for electric line workers.
- When routine maintenance tree work is scheduled for your property:
In lawn areas: The wood will be left for your use. We cut the wood into lengths for ease of handling. Brush and anything smaller than 4” in diameter will be chipped and removed from landscaped areas.
In unmaintained areas: Brush is either piled in windrows (which creates good habitat for wildlife and suppresses future tree growth) or is mulched and scattered within the easement right-of-way. Any wood will be left for your use.
- For a clear illustration of what we will repair, click here.
- In the illustration, Area 1 is the wire from the transformer to your home or building. Consumers Energy will trim branches that are broken and laying on the wire or, during scheduled maintenance work, branches that are placing excessive pressure on the wire. Any other work will be the customer’s responsibility; in this case, please arrange for a private tree company to perform your desired tree work. Then, contact Consumers Energy at 800-477-5050, 5 days in advance to schedule a temporary service disconnect (free of charge, Monday-Friday) so your private tree work may be completed.
- Consumers Energy clears trees and brush around our electric wires; we do not clear trees for communication wires attached to our poles such as telephone, cable TV, or fiber optic lines which are owned and maintained by other companies. Note: Sometimes in trimming for our clearances we must also clear around communication wires in order to obtain our minimum clearance requirements.
- Consumers Energy does not trim trees for streetlight illumination or for streetlight sensors. This work is generally the responsibility of the municipality.
The marks mean one of our Forestry personnel has identified tree and brush work that need to be performed.
- Trees to be trimmed will be marked with a blue dot (.).
- Trees to be cut down will be marked with a blue X (or blue A if outside the easement right-of-way).
- Smaller brush may also be cleared and intermittently marked with a blue slash (/).
- Approximately two weeks before tree crews begin work on a scheduled maintenance project, a letter will be mailed to you. It takes anywhere from one to three months to complete the project, so it could be anywhere from 1-12 weeks before the tree crews arrive to do work on your property.
- When tree crews perform work on residential property, wood is cut into lengths for ease of handling and left on site for your use. Please note that wood is not cut into “firewood” lengths. You must have permission from a property owner before removing this wood from their premises.
- If tree work is planned in your area, you may request to have wood chips dumped at your property. Please contact the forester listed on the circuit letter or door hanger to request wood chips.
- Consumers Energy uses herbicides to prevent stumps from hardwood trees that are cut down from sprouting new stems.
- We also use herbicides to control woody brush, including several invasive species, along easement rights-of-way using selective application methods. If a selective application is being planned for your property, the contract application company will attempt to notify you in person or by mail prior to the treatment. These treatments decrease the amount of manual work required for our tree crews in the future, promote compatible species including pollinator species, and provide accessible easement rights-of-way for our line crews to maintain or repairs our lines.
- You do not have to be home when our crews perform work. If you have a concern about the crews accessing the work area through fences or gates or the placement of septic tanks so crews do not inadvertently drive over the tank, please contact the number on our letter or door hanger. This connects you directly with our forester who planned the work and can ensure that the crews take extra precautions on your property.
- Consumers Energy cuts down dead trees along our primary voltage distribution lines that are accessible to aerial lift trucks and within distances specified in our easements or per our specifications filed with the MPSC. We do not cut down dead trees along service lines to homes or dead trees that do not threaten the primary voltage lines. If you have a dead tree on your property near your service line, you can schedule a temporary service disconnect by calling 800-477-5050 so a tree removal company that you hire can remove the tree; we will reconnect the service line when the tree work is complete.
- If a tree branch (or an entire tree) has fallen on an electric line, call us immediately at 800-477-5050. Do not touch the branch or the electric line.
- If it is not an emergency, you can self-report through this website using the form on this page.
Contact Our Tree Management Team