The Lower Colorado River Authority is prepping a North Austin park for major surgery next week, but area residents are still hoping that a second opinion – theirs – will ultimately spare the life and limbs of more than a hundred trees.
The age-old struggle between man and nature and power lines has been playing out in the Gracywoods Park area for a couple of months already, with neighbors and LCRA representatives still not seeing eye to eye. On March 15, work crews will begin uprooting some 30 hackberry, ash, and cottonwood trees and trimming oak trees to create at least 15 feet of clearance between the vegetation and the utility's 69-kilovolt lines above. The trees are between 40 and 60 years old, but as LCRA spokesman Bill McCann points out, the agency's right-of-way dates back to 1939, long before the subdivision went up and before many of the trees sprouted from the ground.
Still, a coalition of residents called Gracywoods Trees is pressing forward with a petition drive to stop the hatchet job in this oasis along Walnut Creek. Additionally, the group will air its concerns to LCRA officials at a public meeting at 7pm tonight (Thursday) at River Oaks Elementary School. "They did grant us a little bit of slack when they decided to cut 15 feet instead of 25 feet," concedes Tom Coburn, a leader in the Gracywoods Trees coalition. "But what we'd like for them to do is change out the poles and raise the lines. They won't even consider it, even though it's not unusual for a power company to raise the lines."
Another alternative, Coburn said, would be for the utility to trim an 8-foot clearance, which is the minimum amount allowed by the National Electric Safety Code. The LCRA responds to both suggestions with two words: no and no.
"They're worried about trees, and we're worried about public safety," McCann said, noting that a 1999 fire in the area was caused by a tree being too close to the line. The utility studied the possibility of raising the lines – but that would interfere with the operation of Austin Energy's 138-kilovolt lines, which run parallel and between the LCRA's lines. And Kelly Wells, an LCRA regulatory case manager, points out that the types of trees and other vegetation at the site grow too high and too quickly for the utility to clear the minimum of 8 feet. She added, though, that more compatible trees would replace the trees removed from adjacent private properties.
Coburn, meanwhile, predicts that the neighborhood's property values will drop right along with the tree limbs. "We're middle-class folks out here and the park is one of the main reasons people choose to live in Gracywoods," he said. "This is really going to hurt us."
