Uniondale, NY - May 4, 2018 - PSEG Long Island announced it received the National Arbor Day Foundation Tree Line USA Award for 2017. This award recognizes public and private utilities across the nation utilizing tree-friendly practices that protect and enhance America’s urban forests, while providing an increased reliability of service.
"We are pleased to be recognized by the Arbor Day Foundation, for the fifth straight year," said John O’Connell, PSEG Long Island vice president of transmission and distribution operations. "PSEG Long Island is proud of its vegetation management program’s dedication to providing our customers with safe, reliable service, while remaining a good steward to the Long Island environment."
In 2017, PSEG Long Island removed over 11,000 hazardous trees and/or large limbs along the distribution and transmission system and trimmed 2,400 miles of distribution and transmission line clearance in accordance with the industry best practice clearance standard. The environmentally-sound techniques utilized by PSEG Long Island are in accordance with the International Society of Arboriculture’s published best practices and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A-300 Standards for Tree Care Operations. This preserves the health of the tree and directs future growth away from power lines.
The PSEG Long Island vegetation management program adheres to a four-year tree trimming cycle and its arborists and tree-trimming contractors trim tree branches away from electric lines to ensure a safe, reliable and consistent power supply. This effort dramatically limits damage from severe storms, lowers future line clearance costs and reduces peak energy demand. It also provides a zone of safety in which line workers can do their jobs, especially during storm events when restoration work is done under hazardous conditions.
A new vine mitigation program was implemented in 2017, which identified, cut and treated over 1,500 vine locations across Long Island and the Rockaways.
The Tree Line USA program is made possible through the Arbor Day Foundation, in cooperation with the National Associate of State Foresters. The National Arbor Day Foundation is a nonprofit conservation and education organization dedicated to tree planting and environmental stewardship. To learn more about the National Arbor Day foundation, please visit www.arborday.org.
For more information on PSEG Long Island’s tree trimming program, visit our website at https://www.psegliny.com/page.cfm/Home/Safety/TreeTrimming.
PSEG Long Island operates the Long Island Power Authority’s transmission and distribution system under a 12-year contract. PSEG Long Island is a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (NYSE:PEG), a publicly traded diversified energy company with annual revenues of $9.1 billion.