Thinning Report

Jemez Electric Vegetation Management Program Results in Unit 1 of SLPPOA
Jack Nyhan, April 2015

We had called a Jemez Electric Coop lineman on an emergency basis for a tree that had fallen on a secondary power line below our home on Bonito Way in April 2015. This was of great interest to me realizing it could have started a fire pretty easily with the dry conditions in the forest at that time, like so many other major and minor fires in the Jemez Mountains. The lineman came from LaCueva and was at the scene within 15 minutes of the call.

This made me think about fire management on a bigger scale, i.e. in Unit 1 of SLPPOA. This was important to me as a home owner and as a professional involved with fire management at LANL, because fuel and an ignition source were right next to one another in this zone of the forest we live in. Since I did not know who to call about this in Jemez Electric Coop, I addressed a Board member I knew without much luck at the start. Finally, I was directed to the publication [attached below] and found out I should be talking to Lenny Ortiz who was in charge of tree thinning in this zone.

So to summarize, here’s what I found out:

If you have a tree falling and bouncing on your secondary line to your home (a black and silver insulated line), it is an emergency situation and it will be dealt with quickly by calling Jemez Electric Coop.

If this is not the case, and you observe that there are trees and tree branches that may fall on a primary (silver line) or a secondary line to a home, you qualify for help with the Jemez Electric Vegetation Management Program. In this program they act on an easement of trees 10 ft on either side of the Primary power lines above, but not the Secondary power lines They also take action on trees outside of this easement, i.e. on our private lots with our written permission and on the date when trees are downed. I got the permission of the home owners in Table 1 to do this on the day the contractors showed up.

The Secondary power lines have to have a branch greater than 2 inches in diameter rubbing against the line for them to take any action on it (this eliminated the first area on Chaco from help).

	Address	Lot	Resident	Phone	Description
1	90 Chaco Road	1-23	Carrie Connolly	505 239-7369	Treat area where line goes from pole to home parallel to Chaco Road
2	434 Hovenweep Loop	1-2	Mark Baca	505-259-0845	East-west power line corridor: take down marked and unmarked dead and live trees
2	95 Mesa Verde	1-5	Mike Schacht
3	84 Hovenweep Loop	1-34	Scott and Keri Currie	505-829-3409	North-south power line corridor involving at least a dozen trees between these two properties. Some trees on supply line to 84 Hovenweep Loop, some in the power easement, and some on property at 52 San Juan Road
3	52 San Juan Road	1-30A	Ron Weider
4	434 Hovenweep Loop	1-2	Mark Baca	505-259-0845	North-south power line corridor behind these properties on SLPPOA greenbelt and power easement line. Trees located near roads, and dead and live trees on supply line to Lot 1-35.
	441 Hovenweep Loop	1-35	Mike Brown
	29 Bonito Way	1-34	Jack Nyhan	575-829-3950
	45 Bonito Way	1-33	David Aubrey

Table 1. Four Treatment Areas in Unit 1, Sierra los Piños.

To summarize all of these activities, there were 20 tree removals and about 15 tree side trims. One of the worse cases was a large dead Ponderosa Pine on Mark Baca’s lot, before (Figure 1) and after removing it (Figures 2-4).

Another situation (Case 3) involved a case where the home owners had complained for a couple of years without any results. Figure 5-7 show that this was a dangerous situation and Figures 8-9 show the trees removed.