Aug 14, 2009 9:28 pm US/Central
ComEd's Clearing Methods Irk North 'Burbs
NORTHFIELD, Ill. (CBS) ―
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North suburban residents are shocked at ComEd's aggressive style of pruning vegetation under power lines.
CBS
Trees in several north shore neighborhoods are being wiped out.
Not by tree trimmers, but a mysterious chemical. Residents fear a fire is just a spark away.
Who's behind it? ComEd.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports.
The pictures emailed to us, taken by angry local officials, looked bad enough. But what we saw with our own eyes, was worse.
The remains of healthy bushes and trees stretch for miles beneath ComEd's North Shore transmission lines, from Northbrook down to Northfield, Wilmette, Glenview, all the way to Skokie.
The dead brush appeared overnight and without warning, after what ComEd sprayed miles of its power-line right of way, beneath those towering transmission lines with an herbicide called Garlon 3.
"Most people are not aware this has happened yet," Northfield Village President Fred Gougler said. "When they are, they will be outraged."
Kind of like Gougler was when the greenway sudden turned brown.
"This was done without any of our knowledge at all and to learn several weeks later that this was happening was shocking to us," he said.
How could all this happen without anyone in Northfield or anyone else being notified?
"There may have been some miscommunication between our contractor and members of the community, and we will continue work with all parties to correct those misunderstandings," ComEd spokesman Jeff Burdick said.
"Miscommunication or no communication?" Levine asked.
"I'll leave that for the parties to discuss," Burdick said.
It soon became clear they weren't going to stop with these bushes and small trees, which line the right of way beneath the power lines. Their next target: beautiful evergreens. And village officials didn't know it until workers showed up with chainsaws.
"What they said is their policy is anything that has the potential to grow over 10 feet tall is going to be completely removed," Northfield Village Manager Stacy Sigman said.
That still leaves miles and miles of bone-dry brush. Northfield's Assistant Fire Chief Tom Burke said he's concerned.
"Look how dry everything is," he said. "It's a tinderbox, it's ready to go, there's nothing left. Getting our fire trucks back here, getting hose back here, is going to be a problem for us."
"We are willing to talk to the village and other experts in the area of fire to find out what the risk is ... and determine any other possible next steps," ComEd's Burdick said.
But that's not all they want to talk about.
"We were fortunate that we were able to save these trees for now, and we hope ComEd will work with us to not take them out," Sigman said. "But we also have to address long extent of property where the devastation has already occurred and some of the the safety and natural environment complications that come with that."
We saw the herbicide-sprayed bushes just a few feet from fields where kids play football -- across the street from schools and right next to homes and apartments. People on the North Shore want to know if that's dangerous -- and even if it isn't, why they weren't told about it ahead of time.
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