When you spend 5 days in a cold dark house and worry every minute that your children are too cold, or you may fall asleep and that kerosene heater you have on may cause a fire or too much carbon monoxide, a few trees don't mean so much.

Bill, I think you're making the very point Paul Wirth was trying to make while still trying to respect the feelings of the folks who want to keep their trees. Thanks for sharing your opinion.

Amen Bill!! I agree the same ones that want there trees saved are probably the biggest complainers when their electric is out of how slow PPL gets the power restored. The more trees in the area the more outages and the longer the outage is. All I know is growing up in kunkletown and walnutport we never experienced outages like we have recently.

And to the resident on wayside like you said Bill it could be hello frozen kids or dog, or hello burned down home with candles, lamps with lamp oil or kerosene heaters running. As for trees stopping her kids from a roadway I won't even comment my opnion on that one because I have nothing nice to say about that, however teaching your kids to stay away from the road works better than a tree.

Tamarya and Bill. While I totally agree with your comments, I think we should look at why these trees were allowed in the first place. Was it PPL's incompentence or resident ignorance? How did the developers get away with planting incompatible vegetation? All land development plans are reviewed by Penndot and local utilities when affected. They could have been corrected at that point saving residents the heartache of losing something they are very acustom to (whether right or wrong). I think developers (if possible) should be required to replant compatible vegetation where applicable. Probably wishful thinking.

None of the vegetation in the line of transmission wires was responsible for recent power outages. PPL has options in this matter. They can work with property owners and make it our responsibility to maintain our trees to their standards ( WE pay for the tree trimming, or opt to have PPL remove our trees instead). This would be a money saving option. It entail more effort on PPL's side, but wouldn't it be worth it to spare healthy foliage that provides privacy, shade and an aesthetically pleasing landscape in our community?

I suspect that most LMT residents would rather endure a few days without power (people used to live without electricity, you know) than lose their trees for a lifetime. I can completely understand, as I feel the same way about our trees. Unfortunately, one tree can cause many homes to lose power--even an entire street or small town. I'm not sure it's fair to ask everyone to make sacrifices when just some people want to keep their trees. I wish something else could be done; turning LMT into a war zone hardly seems like a sustainable solution.

They spent the past ten years destroying two of my trees with their "trimmings", now I hope they remove the eyesore...I can only wish

Here are my two general concerns after last night that are township related:

First, I absolutely acknowledge the public concern of taking care of these rights of ways and PPL's right to enforce them. I completely understand that. Moving past that fundamental issue, here are two concerns from the township end of things.

1. The primary concern I raised last night was property owned by the township therefore the responsibility of the township. These include places where street-trees have been planted as recently as 3 years ago. Since the township made the mistake of planting these in the right of way, they need to explore other options to PPL's policy of cut and grind. If trees cannot be removed they should be replaced. For example, those located adjacent to the Willow Lane retention pond. These trees may be young enough to save and relocate out of the right of way. It's on the landowner (in this case the township) to address alternatives to "cut and grind" which is the default PPL policy.

2. When some subdivisions were installed the township required certain plantings in certain rights of ways. We need to immediately address the regulations that allowed this if still flawed. The fact that street trees have been planted in the right of way recently show our SALDO may still allow this. This needs to be addressed ASAP as there are potential development projects in the pipeline right now along transmission lines.

More on my platform: www.ronbeitler.com

If there are any big walnuts or ashes, give me a call if you want them cut for lumber.

This is what should be done in this instance.

1. The township should immediately take the tree and vegetation guidelines as explained in the PPL 69 kilovolt brochure (https://www.pplelectric.com/about-us/ppl-and-the-environment/vegetation-management/tree-trimming.aspx) and adopt them as a zoning ordinance change to the subdivision and land development ordinance (SALDO) for all new land developments

2. The Township should work together with PPL to establish a tree replacement fund to replace those properties whose trees must be removed.

3. The township should enforce their own zoning ordinance Section 1705 which prohibits trees in any easement. If they change the language, then a permit to plant in the easement should be secured by the homeowner. The problem is the twsp never enforced the ordinance unless they received a written complaint. The twsp may want to revisit this policy because now they are dragged into rectifying this problem

4. The twsp should place an article in their next newsletter about this situation. many residents are ignorant of this serious problem

I say the township lets PPL do to the trees what they want, of course the residents will argue but then thats because they ae not the ones cutting them out of powerlines in a storm, they are not the fire dept. responding to a house fire that started because of a heater, fireplace, candle, etc., they are not the emt's responding to a call because someone with medical problems becomes ill because of the cold if they have no type of heat source, and last they are not the coroner responding to pull a body out of a house because someone died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Meanwhile emergency response teams cannot get to homes because their trees are all over the roadways causing road closures. The next step is if people do not want the trees removed hold them accountable for any damage caused by them, including power outages, damaged property and so on, bet they would change their minds about them coming down then.

The suggestion that homeowners assume and agree to trim their trees as a workable compromise is, at best, naive on many levels. From a cost perspective, the expense to properly and regularly trim trees is significant. Over a relatively short period of time it is much more than the cost for some fencing and planting screens compatible with the easement restrictions. Second, how does one enforce such an obligation over thousands of miles of right of way? Do you just hope and assume everyone is conscientous or capable of fullfilling their duty? Third and perhaps most importantly no homeowner in their right mind would want to assume the exposure and liability in failing to properly trim their tree. Are you going to reimburse PPL to repair a downed line, or compensate the neighbor who suffers a loss of property or injury due to the loss of power caused by your improper maintenance? You are not protected from such exposure and there is a good argument that you would not have coverage under your homeowner's for a contractual liability. As for the complaints about the Board from the candidate, let's be real, these trees and the encroachments occured years ago, under different circumstances and personnel. Further, many of the developers responsible for the planting are long gone. My developement, Winding Brook, is a perfect example of that. Trying to criticize the current folks is misleading and intellectually dishonest.

Simple, how is it possible to enforce such a policy on homeowners over thousands of miles of lines many of which are not always easily visible from a public place. The problems caused by trees affecting lineswon't be avoided. You want to keep your trees, how do you propose to maintain them? How often?, how do you certify to PPL you are meeting the obligation rather than just waiting and seeing until its too late. Is it supposed to simply trust you and hope nothing goes wrong that effects others in the area? As for your statement about accepting responsibility and giving the pool as an example, you really don't have an appreciation of the different exposures you are assuming, hence naivety.

But anyway we put a pool up homeowners looks at that basically as a drown hazard, which it is no lie about that, as for trees they do damage also, and maintaining them that a person planting or choosing to keep one can find out from someone that specializes in landscaping, same way as any homeowner finds stuff out for maintaining stuff on their property, same way we got info for the pool. Not too hard to do.

LMT and Keystone Consulting should together set up a fund or grant system to replace those trees (use some of that budget surplus money we have been saving) for 3 main reasons:

1. THEY allowed those trees to be planted in some cases as long ago as 20+years and as recent as 3
2. We would have a consistent look again along Sauerkraut and Willow that we will all miss
3. It would offset the loss of property value we will now face by losing all of our trees along willow and Sauerkraut

The township should by tree seedlings from LCCD and plant them along the PPL right of way that meet the criteria of trees allowed in this area. By the way township, this a reverse frontal street buffer that the township required for land development that is now being destroyed- you do have a commitment to the residents who have this buffer within their property along Sauerkraut Rd to provide this vegetative buffering. if not trees, then a fence or low growing shrubbery like forsynthia

These suggestions all seem like better ideas than the current plan. I will concede that PPL has reason to remove the trees, but LMT must work with residents to make the inevitable hack-job less devastating. The township and PPl "should" help, but what can we do to make it actually happen?