Following recent storms, the Hydro Ottawa team has identified key areas throughout the city that are always greatly impacted by severe weather outages, more specifically as a result of tree contact with our overhead infrastructure. Gloucester-Southgate, suffering a great tree loss during the recent storms, has been one of the wards selected as part of this pilot.
After consulting with their internal teams, and looking at various vegetation management techniques, the Hydro Ottawa team has determined that a tree trimming strategy could be best for areas where many trees and bushes have either fallen in contact with their hydro lines, or, are currently in close proximity to them.
As part of this pilot project, their goal will be to remove only what is absolutely necessary with a focus on trees that are directly in contact with a power line. This will also include proactively trimming to reduce the chance of future growth into power lines. Hydro Ottawa will be working closely with the City of Ottawa’s Forestry Services Department to meet these standards and objectives.
Initially, this project will not require any power outages. However, we have been notified that if crews discover that their lines are too close to trees, they will require outages for safety reasons. In this case, Hydro Ottawa will inform customers ahead of time by email and/or SMS or phone. The information will also be available on their planned outages web page.
