 Ever vigilant, Billy Williams, 20, of Whitehall spotted on the
ground as Fox maneuvered the boom to cut overhanging branches. There
are many dangers in the job in addition to the height. The workers
work amidst live electrical lines. The boom of the truck must be
carefully placed to avoid touching the power lines. Larger branches
have to be taken down with care to prevent hangs and brushing the
dangerous high-power lines.Wright is a contractor for AmerenCilco,
with workers from Local 51, which does tree trimming work from state
line to state line. Their job is to bring Cilco power lines into
compliance with Illinois Commerce Commission statutes. According to
state law, tree limbs must be trimmed to within 10 feet of low-power
lines, and all branches overhanging high-power and three-phase lines
must be removed. Fox said, "The higher the line is on the pole, the
higher the voltage." Branches are trimmed away from lines for two
reasons: to increase safety and to prevent falling branches from
taking down lines and cutting power.
Workers from Wright spent a lot of time in Logan County during
the last two winters removing broken tree limbs that had damaged
power lines and cut power to residents. Their current work is
preventive.
Although Wright Tree Service is an out-of-state company, most of
the workers are from Logan County and other central Illinois towns.
"Many of the Wright tree trimmers live right here in Lincoln," Fox
said.
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In addition to trimming trees to prevent power outages, Wright
cooperates with Tracy Jackson from the Lincoln Streets Department to
remove trees for the city. Trees that crowd the streets or become a
nuisance are removed free of charge to the city.
After the branches are removed, limbs up to 6 inches in diameter
are fed into the chipper and chopped up into mulch. The workers
clean up after themselves, and other than the missing branches,
leave little or no trace that they had been there.
[Journeyman Billy Williams cleans up
the work site by chipping the branches, turning the refuse into usable mulch.]
Some homeowners are less than enthusiastic about their work. Fox
said, "Last week the husband came out and we explained what we were
doing and how we were going to do it and he was OK with that. As
soon as the job was done, the wife came out and was not happy at
all." It is hard to make trees look good when all the branches
facing a high-power line have to be taken down.
Don Parrish, supervisor for the crew, said Wright would probably
be working in Lincoln for another couple of weeks.
[Jim
Youngquist]
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