Trees and Power Lines
Trimming and removing select trees from areas surrounding power lines helps us provide safe, reliable electric service to communities throughout Michigan.
Tree Trimming and You
What to Do if a Power Line is Down
FIRST: Call 9-1-1
THEN: Immediately call us at 800-477-5050
NEVER: Touch the branch, tree or line
Safety Facts about Trees and Power Lines
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Always assume a power line is energized and dangerous.
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Power lines are not insulated; if you touch one you will be severely injured or even killed.
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Don’t cut down trees or branches near power lines. Leave that to our crews.
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Don’t allow children to climb in trees near power lines.
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When removing objects from a tree, stay clear of power lines.
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Never let your ladder touch a power line.
How We Manage Trees for Safety and Reliability
Careful Trimming Guidelines for Fewer Outages
Our expert Tree Management Team follows established forestry guidelines to ensure trees don’t interrupt your service. We use qualified line-clearance contractors to safely clear trees and vegetation that could interfere with our power lines.
Tree Clearance Standards for Increased Safety
Clearance standards vary based on the voltage of nearby electric lines. The decision to trim or cut trees depends on tree species, location, and health. Some trees in or close to the utility right-of-way easement will need to be cut to ensure safe and reliable service.
What to Expect with Planned Tree Maintenance
A Forestry Planner marks trees or brush that need maintenance.
- Trees may be marked well in advance of planned tree 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 ( / ).
- Secondary voltage conductors and services are cleared of any tree limbs displacing or rubbing on these conductors and will be marked.
You may get two to three notifications before tree maintenance is done in your area.
- You will receive a postcard when our Forestry team member will be inspecting lines for tree work on our maintenance program to inform you, they will be marking trees and brush.
- You may receive communication on tree work planned on your property with our Forestry Team member’s contact information to discuss the work.
- You will receive a letter no more than 90 days before our tree crews start work with the contractor’s name performing the work and contact information for our Forestry Team for communicating any concerns.
Who is Responsible for Clean Up?
Here is what we will clean up after planned maintenance tree work:
In lawn areas
The wood will be left for your use. We cut the wood into lengths for ease of handling. Brush will be chipped and removed from landscaped areas.
In wooded areas
Brush is either piled (which creates good habitat for wildlife and suppresses future tree growth) or is mulched and scattered within the easement right-of-way (a portion of your land that may be considered public). Any wood will be left for your use.
If trees are cut down
Stumps are cut as close to the ground as possible and treated with a herbicide to prevent regrowth.
When you, as the property owner, are responsible for clean up:
After Emergency Service Restoration
After Weather Related Restoration
After Tree Maintenance You Asked For
Other Ways We Manage Vegetation
Manual Cutting
A tree crew using a bucket truck and chainsaws.
Mechancial Cutting
A large 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 are able to target trees and brush using special methods.
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.
Tree Diseases and Smart Planting
Frequently Asked Questions
Trees and branches that are on or near wires on pole to building connections (service drops) are the responsibility of the property owner. We recommend hiring a qualified tree company to address your concern. If there is a need for the power line to be temporarily removed from your home, please call us at 800-477-5050. The phone agent will work with you to create Temporary Disconnect and Reconnect orders to ensure that your tree contractor can safely to resolve your issue.
- We clear 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.
- We do 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 (.).
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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 one to twelve 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.
- We use herbicides on cut down hardwood tree stumps to prevent them from sprouting new stems.
- We also use herbicides to control woody brush, including several invasive species. This is usually done along easement rights-of-way using selective application methods. If a selective application is being planned for your property, the contract application company will try 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 repair our lines.
You do not have to be home when our crews perform work. If you have a concern about the crews getting to the work area through fences or gates, or the placement of septic tanks so crews do not accidently 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.
We cut 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 that a tree removal company 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 through our Report a Tree Hazard form.
PLEASE NOTE: The information on this page refers only to trees and vegetation around low voltage distribution wires, ranging from 240V to 14.4kV. None of this information refers to high voltage lines.