The lush Japanese maples, laurels, crepe myrtles and special dwarf mimosas have provided beauty and shade for Frank Cohen and Kay Kramer in their Morningside home for nearly 20 years.
The couple’s prized plants, trees and shrubs were included in the Atlanta Botanical Gardens’ annual Gardens for Connoisseurs Tour a year ago.
Now, nearly all of the trees that surround the couple’s house on Pelham Road have been tagged with orange ribbons.
Georgia Power needs to cut them down.
The home backs up to a high-voltage transmission line that runs from Boulevard, through Morningside and on to Norcross. Federal regulations require Georgia Power to prune or remove trees that could grow 15 feet or higher, so they don’t interfere with the transmission lines and cause possible blackouts, a company spokeswoman said.
Some of the trees in Cohen and Kramer’s backyard are 50 and 60 feet tall, Cohen told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“They basically are going to bulldoze the yard,” Cohen said.
Georgia Power left notices with Cohen and his wife a week ago, and company representatives visited the couple and neighbors to explain why the trees need to be cut, he said. The couple asked for an additional meeting with Georgia Power, scheduled for next week.
“We’re in a lot of pain here,” Cohen said. “It’s not only the loss of the trees but the value of the beauty.”
Besides calling Georgia Power’s actions “onerous and heavy handed,” Cohen said he doesn’t want the trees removed in the summer heat. Some offer a canopy for plants that flourish only in shade.
“They are going to destroy the garden,” he said.
The Boulevard-Norcross line is a 230 kilovolt line that distributes electricity to thousands of homes in metro Atlanta. While Morningside residents aren’t the only once who face losing trees, they have been the most vocal, a Georgia Power spokeswoman said.
“We have to maintain our rights of way under our transmission lines and the distribution lines,” said Konswello Monroe, a Georgia Power spokeswoman. “We understand people are attached to their trees, but it’s part of keeping the lights on for our customers.”
Georgia Power periodically inspects lines to determine if any vegetation is growing too close.
But the rules tightened after a massive power outage knocked out electricity to more than 50 million people in 2003. The North American Reliability Corp., NERC, determined that the blackout initially was caused by a tree that hit high-voltage power lines.
“That’s when it was really mandated, and you had to control the vegetation and not have it grow into the lines and possibly cause an outage,” she said.
Utilities can be fined if an outage occurs that could have been prevented by removing a tree beforehand.
The rules for how tall trees can be vary by state. Georgia Power also has an extensive list of trees that are 15 feet or shorter for residents to plant without fear of removal. The utility has offered to pay to replace a large oak tree on Pelham Road that will be removed next week, Monroe said.
Cohen and Kramer said they are willing to sell some of the prized trees or move them, just not now.
“We’re going to resist a lot of this,” Cohen said.
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