Drought conditions create additional challenges for tree trimming

JACKSON, Miss. – As cold weather pushes into the state for winter, vegetation management crews are hustling to finish removing limbs and trees at risk of falling on power lines during storms.

Entergy Mississippi, Inc. maintains nearly 18,000 miles of distribution power lines, and a key component of that maintenance is managing the vegetation under and near the lines.

Access to work areas can be tough. Workers, mostly contractors, routinely face obstacles ranging from poison ivy to insects and snakes to steep slopes and swamps. The vegetation management team follows a four-to-five year cycle to ensure that all lines are maintained. Work includes mowing, trimming, applying herbicides and removing trees outside of the right-of-way that are dead and in danger of falling on power lines. During 2011 Mississippi crews completed trimming nearly 3,650 miles of distribution line.

“Mississippi is geographically diverse, and every terrain presents challenges, both for preventive maintenance and for restoration work,” said Robert Clark, vegetation management manager for Entergy Mississippi, Inc. “But we’ve been doing this a long time, and we know what it takes to minimize the threat of overgrown vegetation while respecting the environment, whether in the rugged backwoods of southwest Mississippi or the swamps of the Mississippi Delta.”

The persistent 2011 heat and drought conditions in the southern states have created new obstacles in all Entergy service areas. Vegetation management groups typically spend most of their efforts maintaining vegetation and trees in the immediate vicinity of power lines. However, another threat is tall dead trees that are far enough from the lines to be outside of the right-of-way, but near enough to fall on power lines. With the drought, these trees, known in the business as “danger trees,” are plentiful. Workers for Entergy Mississippi removed about 4,500 of these dead trees in 2011. This year’s drought conditions will continue to affect tree maintenance requirements for 2012 and beyond.

“It’s sad to see the devastating effects of the drought up close,” said Clark. “We work hard to find the balance between preservation, reliability and customer satisfaction.”

The vegetation management effort is all part of Ennovations, a service reliability initiative that combines decades of industry experience, new technologies and extensive planning to make the company’s electrical service even more reliable.

Entergy Mississippi also participates in tree-planting projects and public education programs to teach people how to help the environment.

Entergy Mississippi, Inc. provides electricity to more than 435,000 customers in 45 counties. It is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. Entergy is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, and it is the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

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