Black Forest – Xcel Energy clear-cut more than 1,000 trees near here before an El Paso County judge last week ordered it to stop.
“Xcel has raped and pillaged my property,” said Greg Wall, 50, a pharmacist who has lived for 19 years on his 8-acre plot deep in the ponderosa-pine forest directly east of Monument.
Xcel spokesman Tom Henley said Saturday that the company’s safety and the reliability of providing electricity depend on tree-trimming. He refused to comment further because of pending litigation.
The judge, however, ruled there are better ways to ensure safety, such as pruning rather than clear- cutting.
Since 1964, Xcel has had the legal right to a 150-foot-wide easement for its power lines that cut across a number of properties. Because of increased demand for electricity, Xcel last winter upgraded the lines from twin, 50-foot-tall wooden poles carrying roughly six lines to single, 100-foot-high steel towers carrying up to 18 high-voltage lines.
Wall said he has cooperated with Xcel. Last winter, he allowed Xcel to clear a 40-foot-square pad for a crane, then use a bulldozer to drag the crane across his muddy property. Xcel has trimmed the taller trees a number of times since 1998, he said.
In April, Xcel came to his house with an “encroachment agreement,” giving the utility permission to cut Wall’s 30- to 35-foot-tall ponderosa pines down to 10 feet high.
“They told me either I sign the agreement right now or they would clear-cut my land,” he said. “He told me he had a crew right over the hill and they would start clear-cutting immediately if I refused.”
He said he signed the agreement, under duress, and they cut 3 acres with trees.
“They chipped everything, then sprayed the chips more than a foot deep in some places,” he said. “That killed all the grass and flowers.”
Neighbor Mary Garren refused to sign the agreement and lost more than 100 trees on her 6 acres.
“They cut down my entire west pasture,” she said. “I cried and cried. These were 30-year- old trees. Now it’s naked and full of stumps.”
Garren’s neighbor, John Billiard, had enough foresight to call a lawyer. Attorney Harlan Pelz immediately went before El Paso County District Judge G. David Miller, who granted a temporary restraining order April 19, the day before Xcel planned to cut Billiard’s trees.
After receiving the restraining order, Pelz argued for a preliminary injunction, which would take Miller several weeks to rule on. In the meantime, Xcel continued cutting trees on other properties, arguing that the order applied to only Billiard’s property.
On Wednesday, Miller ruled against Xcel.
He noted that Xcel installed the power lines 40 years ago and that Xcel first trimmed the trees near the lines in 1998, then again in 2002.
Now it has changed to a clear-cut policy.
Xcel argued that clear-cutting was necessary as a safety measure to prevent trees from touching the lines, which could start fires or cause a blackout such as the 2003 blackout in the East Coast affecting 50 million consumers.
But Miller called the new policy “a cost savings.”
“There is no reason that safety cannot be determined by less onerous means than clear- cutting,” Miller ruled.
Billiard, a civil engineer in Centennial who grew up in the Black Forest, now has put his land up for sale.
“The Black Forest is a great natural forest, very peaceful, with a lot of wildlife,” he said. “Now it’s unbalanced. The trees are super-stressed and will start to die. The ips beetles will move in and infect the entire forest, which used to be very healthy.”
Attorney Pelz said that he will seek a permanent injunction against Xcel and that the landowners are contemplating a lawsuit.
Staff writer Mike McPhee can be reached at 303-820-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com.