Certainly after Aug. 14, 2003, when the largest power outage in the history of our continent interrupted service to more than 50 million people in the United States and Canada, readers of this publication need no reminder that vegetation management is critical to the reliability of our nation’s power supply system. This outage was also the most costly, with estimates ranging between US$4 billion and $10 billion. President George W. Bush and then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien directed the establishment of a U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force to investigate the causes of the blackout and provide recommendations to help prevent future occurrences. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Pat Wood, III was named a member of the task force and established a Reliability Group (later reorganized into the Division of Reliability) at the commission to assist with the blackout investigation. The task force investigation determined that one of the precipitating causes of the outage was an all-too-familiar problem—vegetation management.

Outages caused by line contact with vegetation have been a preventable, albeit recurring, problem for the electric industry. Outages in July 1996 and August 1996 in the West interrupted service to 2 million and 7.5 million customers, respectively. Even the “treeless” prairie states of the nation’s heartland are affected by brittle cottonwood and fast-growing, hearty red cedar trees.

As a follow up to the task force blackout report, and to highlight the need for effective vegetation management, FERC surveyed the industry to determine electric industry vegetation management practices across the country. The results of this survey were summarized in a FERC staff vegetation management report forwarded to Congress last September. The report cited significant variation in trimming cycles, right-of-way (R/W) widths, and procedures for dealing with off R/W and danger trees, among other things, and concluded that clear, crisp and enforceable standards are required to set a consistent performance measure. It recommended that these be provided as part of the Version 0 standards the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) issued earlier this year. The commission believed this would help greatly to reduce the inconsistencies and, in some cases, seemingly lax vegetation management practices of some transmission owners. The report also noted a problem the industry identified in its return surveys—sometimes government agencies that own and/or manage federal lands make vegetation management difficult and protracted.

Both industry and government are off to a good start to address these issues. NERC’s Version 0 standards now contain procedures to help govern vegetation management with clear and enforceable language. In support of NERC’s standards, the commission adopted a policy statement in February (PL04-5-001) stating that the commission considers adherence to NERC’s Version 0 standards part of “Good Utility Practice” required under FERC’s open-access transmission tariff. In addition, the chairman made changes in the commission’s strategic plan advocating “prompt recovery of prudently incurred expenses to safeguard reliability, security and safety of the energy infrastructure” as well as encouraging “balanced innovative proposals that provide incentives for appropriate infrastructure investment.” Pursuant to the blackout investigation and in answer to industry concerns expressed in the FERC staff vegetation management report to Congress, the White House Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining convened a vegetation management group of federal agencies that either own or manage lands, or are involved in the policy and regulatory decisions of the electric utility industry. The work of this task force has been to initiate the development of an industry and interagency memorandum of understanding that will help streamline and standardize the vegetation management approval process for federally owned or managed lands.

Although these are laudable and positive steps forward, important work remains. For instance, a key premise of the FERC staff report to Congress was the expectation that NERC’s Version 0 standards would contain some measure of standardization for items such as vegetation inspection and trimming cycles as well as R/W widths wherever possible. These are absent from the new standards. This could result in substantial variations between utilities and compromise reliability. Although the development of standards like these will not be an easy task, I encourage the industry to tackle this issue, perhaps first by identifying regional best practices that can be developed into standards or, in the least, addressing recommended practices in NERC’s next version of vegetation management standards currently under development.

Similarly, government needs to finish the industry and interagency memorandum of understanding to enable vegetation management on government owned/managed lands. Consideration must be given to an expedited approval process for off R/W and “danger” trees that may need to be addressed outside of the normal procedures. The agreements should provide an efficient resolution mechanism when the interests of industry and government conflict. In closing, I’d like to thank interested stakeholders and the electric utility industry for all the careful attention being brought to this issue and to encourage continued dedication and effort. The safety of our citizens and the continued health of our nation’s economy depend on a reliable electricity supply.

Joseph H. McClelland, Director Division of Reliability in the Office of Markets, Tariffs and Rates U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission