Landscape Protection Services

Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative is responsible for ensuring the safe, reliable delivery of electric service within its service territory. At times, this may involve tree trimming or cutting. When trimming or cutting trees, Buckeye REC follows generally accepted industry guidelines and best practices to ensure minimal impact on the environment.

Standards for Vegetation Control

We base our standards for vegetation control on these nationally renown organizations:

Selective Herbicides

To help ensure safe and efficient operations, Buckeye REC has an ongoing need to maintain areas covered by easement, right of way, lease, or other land rights documents. Low growing vegetation allows for effective patrol, quick access in the event of an emergency, and also creates a well-defined corridor, reducing the risk of potential damage from nearby excavation.

Repeated mechanical clearing / mowing is often not fully effective for long term control of invasive or undesirable vegetation. Herbicides used in conjunction with, or in place of mechanical clearing methods promote desirable plant growth. Herbicides help foster biodiversity by promoting the growth of native grasses and wildflowers. Rights-of-way maintained in an herbaceous state have a positive impact on wildlife habitat including migratory birds, butterflies, bees and mammals. Herbicides are biodegradable and can be used to target unwanted vegetation such as trees, multi-flora rose or autumn olive without harming desirable growth. Herbicide applications minimize disturbance to landowners as mechanical maintenance activities may be required less frequently. Application of Herbicides is also less intrusive to wildlife in comparison to mechanical means of maintaining rights-of-way.

Applications will not take place within maintained land use sites such as lawns, areas of active agriculture, pasture lands, or hay fields. Depending on the location of the rights-of-way and the surrounding land use, tractor, truck, ATV, and backpack applications are used. Optimal herbicide applications are applied to the full width of the rights-of-way within one or two growing seasons after mechanical clearing. For subsequent years, spot spraying can be utilized to control undesirable vegetation and keep rights-of-way in an open meadow like condition.

Trimming from the Sky

In addition to our own Right-of-Way (ROW) crews, we contract with an aerial cutting company to help us keep the power on for our electric members. Their helicopter maintains clearance from our lines in the cooperative’s rights-of-way.

Aviation trimming can reach limbs growing on overhanging power lines that our equipment cannot. It is the most cost-effective and efficient way to keep line clearance and minimize outages for our members.

Protect Against Power Outages

Most or many power outages within the service territory are caused by trees that have grown tall enough to be blown into or fall onto power lines. In addition to causing power outages, trees can be a threat to public safety and property if poorly located. Proper planning can minimize the risks.

Plant the Right Tree in the Right Place

Make an informed decision when choosing which tree to plant. Visit the National Arbor Day Foundation's Planting the Right Tree in the Right Place page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to “why do you want to trim my trees?,” “why do you need to cut so much?” and more! For additional information and questions, complete contact us here or give us a call at (800) 231-BREC (2732).

Residents can help Buckeye REC minimize tree-related outages and ensure the beauty of their landscapes through thoughtful planting of new trees. Trees should be planted at least as far away from the lines as the trees’ natural spread. Spreading trees, such as elms, oaks and maples, are common outage-causing culprits and should be planted at least 50 feet away from power lines.

Before planting trees on your property, the location of utility lines should be considered:

Are lines overhead or underground?
Never dig near underground utility lines
Future access to these underground lines should be considered when planting

Your trees may not be actually touching the wires, at this time, but they could be close enough to sway into the lines in high winds. The electric line is bare mental, high voltage wire, which can cause burning and eventually degrade the quality of the wire.

Also all the trees on this feeder should be on the same approximate maintenance schedule. This improves reliability to everyone on the circuit and reduces the number of trips we have to make to maintain that reliability. The amount of time that it takes to restore power is also reduced. Pruning limbs before they cause a problem is ideal. By doing so, we can direct the growth away from the lines.

Our standards are based on several factors:

The minimum safe working distance for a tree worker
How much trees sway in high winds
The amount of ice on a tree before it touches a power line
The ability of limbs to break and fall on lines
The varying growth and regrowth rates of different species of trees

Buckeye REC’s goal is to deliver safe and dependable service to our service territory.

Right of Way Refusal

If you do NOT want trees on your property to be pruned or managed by Buckeye REC or our contract crews, please complete the form linked below.

Vegetation management and why it matters

Landscape Protection Services

Standards for Vegetation Control

Selective Herbicides

Trimming from the Sky

Protect Against Power Outages

Plant the Right Tree in the Right Place

Frequently Asked Questions

Right of Way Refusal

Buckeye Rural
Electric Cooperative

Our Mission

Landscape Protection Services

Standards for Vegetation Control

Why does Buckeye REC use herbicides?

What are some of the benefits to using herbicides?

Are herbicides safe?

Where and how does Buckeye REC apply herbicides?

Trimming from the Sky

Protect Against Power Outages

Plant the Right Tree in the Right Place

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Buckeye REC prune/cut trees?

How should I go about safely pruning the tree branches around my power lines?

How can residents help in ensuring that trees are not cut down?

What safety rules should I follow if I do my own landscaping and gardening?

Do Buckeye REC linemen do tree pruning?

What will my trees look like when you prune them?

My trees are not even touching any electrical wires. Why do you want to prune them?

Why do you need to prune so much?

Right of Way Refusal

Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative

Our Mission

Buckeye Rural
Electric Cooperative