Dec 10

Dec 10 PECO Plan Calls for Removal of 96 Trees from Swarthmore Borough

Borough Council Chair Mary Walk began Wednesday night’s meeting by addressing a meeting room so packed with Swarthmore residents that it overflowed into the adjacent hallway. She called attention to the unusually large crowd size and suggested she knew the reason for it: “I think we’re mostly here this evening about the trees and the situation with PECO.”

Walk then described what had been discussed in a call that took place on December 1 between representatives of the borough and PECO. “I was surprised to hear that their plan calls for 96 trees to be removed from the borough.” During the call, Walk said, PECO claimed that the removals are necessary because they want to replace existing electrical poles with ones that are 10 feet higher. PECO said this is necessary to enable them to increase voltage to residential customers from 4kV to 13kV, which they say will allow them to provide more reliable service, to shut down the Morton electrical substation (which is becoming obsolete), and to support an expected increase in the use of solar-generated electricity. (PECO also noted that an earlier draft of the plan had called for the removal of 150 trees).

In response, said Walk, “we gave them a lot of pushback.... I’m not someone who fell off the turnip wagon and believes everything PECO tells me.” Walk said that the borough team questioned PECO about the scope and severity of the tree removal and the pruning that the plan would require. PECO responded that, in addition to removing the trees, they would also be pruning trees 10 feet back from the new electric lines in order to give their crews enough space to work. Walk also reported that, in January, before starting any work, PECO plans to hold two town-hall meetings for Swarthmore residents, one of which will be via Zoom.

Walk noted that she had been planning to have a follow-up call with state and local elected officials before today’s meeting, but it had been rescheduled because PECO is “once again re-evaluating to determine if any engineering alternatives” can be found that will reduce the amount of vegetation needing to be removed. Mayor Marty Spiegel noted that PECO is supposed to contact affected homeowners in person before doing any work on their property.

Walk then read a statement from PECO, which she said contains “all the information that I have at this time.” She said that, over the weekend, the borough council had received many emails from residents on this topic, many of which had asked whether the new lines could be buried instead of being installed above ground. Mayor Spiegel explained, “PECO is under no obligation to do underground lines.… That would be at the expense of the homeowner, and it would have to be [agreed to by] everybody [whose property is] on a given line.” He also noted that, because burying power lines requires digging trenches, that alternative would still have a significant impact on vegetation.

Borough solicitor Bob Scott clarified that PECO is not legally required to obtain any permit or consent from the borough for the project to move forward. The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) is the only regulator that holds jurisdiction over the utility. Walk summed it up as follows: “We don’t have a lot of recourse when it comes to PECO. We are pushing back as much as we can. We take it seriously. We made it very clear this is an enormous problem.”

Approximately an hour of public comment then followed, beginning with Swarthmore resident Barbara Drebbing, who said that she stands to lose at least 10 trees under PECO’s plans. She also said she believes that PECO will in fact install 55-foot-high poles (which would make them 20 feet taller than the current ones). “We’re going to be the freak town with these poles,” Drebbing exclaimed. She also expressed a concern that the destruction of so much vegetation would cause increased stormwater runoff. “The cost to the borough of having this happen will be absolutely disastrous,” she said. “Tree-lined country roads will look like highways.”

Numerous residents agreed—and voiced other concerns as well. Mark Cook, who said that he had recently moved to the borough from Manhattan, noted that all the power lines there are buried, and said that there is never an outage. A number of other commenters recommended that the borough look more closely into the feasibility of burying the new power lines.

Candy Berlin, a resident of Wellesley Road, said that PECO has tagged three mature trees on her property for removal, and she wanted to know whether PECO will reimburse residents for the value of the trees taken. She also raised a concern about the impact of the plan on home values, citing the possibility that landscaping and views will be less attractive and that insurance costs may increase. She suggested that burying the new power lines would save PECO money because it would reduce the cost of tree pruning. She urged the council to stand strong in its opposition to PECO’s current plan. “Once we lose a large part of our tree canopy, we cannot get it back,” she said.

Several residents urged the community to “continue to fight that good fight.” Joel Zarrow exclaimed, to much applause, “We’re the voice that PECO needs to hear. We have to fight this in the court of public opinion, raise a royal stink!” He asked the borough council to “please lead! Organize us! Tell us what to do! Be our leaders, not just administrators.”

Many in the crowd also responded enthusiastically to comments by James Foggo, who observed, “People make assumptions about the nature of change that’s being granted with an easement.” He also made a personal appeal to two council members, addressing them by name: “Mary, Marty, we need your assurances today that you will do everything that you can.” He urged the borough council to demand that PECO provide an impact statement and a more carefully tailored plan.

Concerns about the project were not limited to aesthetics, cost, and home values. Alexis Brooks, a resident of Parrish Road, said she worried whether there might be increased radiation from the voltage increase in the power lines, and, if so, whether that might have a public health impact.

After the public comment period, the borough council completed two more items of business. First, it voted unanimously to appoint Bill Webb as Swarthmore’s new borough manager. He is replacing Jane Billings, who will retire on December 20 after 30 years of service. Webb, who was attending the meeting with his parents and husband, expressed admiration for the way Billings had done the job, noting that he would have “some very large shoes to fill.” Webb will take the helm on January 10 and will also serve as the borough’s secretary and zoning official. “It’s an honor and a privilege that I’ll be working for you folks,” he said.

The council also approved the appointment of a new borough public works manager. Swarthmore’s public works manager, Charles “Cuzzy” Rowles, is retiring at the end of this year after 30 years on the job. Jane Billings described Rowles’s role as “probably the most important job in the borough.” Rowles’s replacement will be Brian Tipping, who has been part of the public works crew since 1996. Tipping will step into his new role on January 4th—which, Rowles noted with a wink and a chuckle, is “one day after my 65th birthday.”

The Swarthmorean joins the borough council in congratulating Jane Billings and Cuzzy Rowles on their retirement, and wishes them good health and godspeed.

PECO has provided the Swarthmorean and the borough with a statement about the planned retirement of the existing substation serving our community and the installation of new equipment—specifically, new poles and higher voltage aerial wires—and how the project is currently envisioned.

PECO is currently reevaluating the design of the project to determine if any engineering alternatives can be implemented to help reduce the amount of vegetation work needed for the project. With that, the vegetation survey and a map of the impacted area is not available at this time as it continues to evolve. Customers will be notified before work begins.

Davey is the only contractor currently working on the tree surveys. During a tree survey, we evaluate the project area to determine the number of trees that may need to be removed or trimmed to allow for proper clearance around the aerial wires, according to the current electrical design standards that we follow. The standards are to promote electric reliability and safety by ensuring proper clearance and minimizing vegetation that could potentially cause a power outage.

If a tree will interfere with the construction of the proposed clearance of the wire, it must be removed. During the survey, all trees are marked with a small piece of orange ribbon, regardless of whether they will be trimmed or removed.

—December 6