DC plug webinar q&a transcript

DC PLUG: Burying Lines, Raising Questions (Webinar)

November 12, 2014

Casey Trees hosted a live webinar, DC PLUG: Burying Lines, Raising Questions, in partnership with the Urban Forestry Administration and Pepco to address the impact of DC PLUG on neighborhood street trees.

The webinar provided an overview of DC PLUG, the District’s ambitious plan to bury the worst performing power lines across the city, and outlined recommendations to safeguard the city’s tree canopy along the proposed burial routes.

Presenters:Maisie Hughes, Casey Trees, Director of Advocacy Emily Oaksford, Casey Trees, Planning AssociateSuraj K. Sazawal, Casey Trees, Advocacy Associate

Guests: John P. Thomas, DDOT, Associate Director of UFANathan McElroy, Pepco Staff ForesterScott Placide, Pepco Engineer

The following is a transcript of the webinar’s Q&A session. The presentation slides and a complete transcript of webinar presentation can be found here.

Maisie Hughes: Now is your opportunity to weigh in with all of your questions. We have here on the telephone representatives from Pepco and from UFA, and they’re here to take your questions. Let’s start with one for John Thomas. John, are you ready for your first question?

John Thomas: Yes, I’m ready.

Maisie Hughes: All right! So Vincent V. who is an arborist himself, wrote in with a question about directional boring. He wants to know if you’re considering, as

of 11

http://caseytrees.org/blog/dc-plug-webinar-recap/

Casey TreesDC PLUG: Burying Lines, Raising Questions

Q&A Session of 11

part of an alternative option, to do trenching or boring in the sidewalk, if you need to have power lines under the sideway.

John Thomas: Yes. UFA’s had that as a standard practice for several years now and it’s certainly the first step that we ask utilities to look at to make sure that they can do horizontal boring. And some of that is possible – and I think Scott can address more of the engineering side of it – a lot of it depends on how much space you have around to get it started and then pull it back out. So, it will certainly be something that we want to walk through to make sure we understand why it couldn’t be used or we’ll certainly look to have it implemented whenever possible, and we understand that that is one of the best ways to try to reduce the conflict between trenching and roots and trying to reduce that conflict and giving the tree the best chance going forward.

Scott Placide: Thanks, John. This is Scott Placide with Pepco. Additionally, Pepco is exploring opportunities where horizontal drilling may be the most practical method for installing power lines underground. However, in our experience working as the utility in the D.C. area, we don’t typically use directional drilling in our common underground utility practices for many reasons, one of them being the amount of space that setting up the equipment takes. It’s not a hundred percent a non-excavation practice. You do need to dig a large test pit at either end of the directional bore, so there’s still going to be a large amount of excavation involved with directional boring. And, also, the operation for directional boring is typically a 24/7 process, so in some of these neighborhoods where you have residents, you can’t just stop at three o’clock when it’s time for everyone to go home. You’ve got to keep the drills running until the project is completed. So there are many considerations with directional boring, but we are looking into opportunities where this may be practical for this project.

Maisie Hughes: Great. We have a clarifying question from William. William observed on his street that he has three wires on utility poles, but he looked at the plan and didn’t see that his street was included. I believe this means that his street is not slated for having the feeders underground. Is that the case?

Scott Placide: That’s not necessarily the case. We have identified the greater area of where the primary wires will be, but, at the end of the primary wires, you have the electrical equipment such as the transformer. And from the transformer, voltage is converted to the 120 volts that you have at your outlets at your home. Those wires will remain overhead and could extend maybe a block or two outside of the extensive proposed excavation.

Maisie Hughes: We have a question from Jim. John, I think that you can probably answer this. Jim wants to know if it’s too late to get the proposal changed to include all of the utility lines.


Q&A Session of 11

John Thomas: Yes, this is just a partnership that was formed, like Nathan said, between the Mayor and Pepco executives. I think that it would be probably cost-prohibitive to try to figure out how to do everybody, and it gets very complex, very quickly, and it’s hard to show that, but when you start looking at the space allocation and some utilities might be brand-new and be asking them to do something…I think this is one where it strikes a balance of providing some reliability and safety for residents as far as when we have storms and it works in both directions. So, I think, right now, it’s strictly going to be a relationship between Pepco and the City.

That doesn’t mean that on some of these projects there might be other opportunities to do things, that just isn’t the driving force, but I can’t say that. I’m sure there will be opportunities for D.C. Water and others to maybe make changes once we’re doing some work, but that would be more if we doing a total road construction, where we were digging out the entire road, as part of this, and maybe there would be an opportunity there. We hear you, but it’s not part of this project.

Maisie Hughes: I believe that the legislation that gave permission for this project to move forward focused only on the primary power lines and not any of the other lines going underground. What’s been approved at this point is to bury the primary power lines. We have a sense of which ones will be buried in the first three years, but we’ll have to take a look at any amendments to the plan to make sure that there aren’t going to be any dramatic changes.

We have a question from Bill, for John again. Does UFA have the resources to have an arborist representative on-scene when Pepco is doing work that is likely to impact trees?

John Thomas: Yes, like I said earlier, we have 20 arborists on staff. All 20 are in the field every day. So then we have our 2 landscape architects who will be creating designs and standards and making comments that are carried over into the contract. We will have our arborist on-site, and I won’t say that we’ll be there every second that activity is happening, but we will be there, and we also will be available so someone can call us – as we do now with most utilities – and we just stop what we’re doing and we can run over there.

The spaces that the arborists work in through the City are relatively small. Each arborist has their own geographical area they’re responsible for, so it’s very easy for them to get in and around that area to look at issues and, honestly, we’ll keep in close contact with Nathan and the construction group, but we’ll also have Public Space inspectors there, who’ll be managing the other aspects of this, which is just traffic control and how the project is actually being managed in


Q&A Session of 11

public space. And so we’ll have other DDOT employees there, as well. So there will be – between Pepco and DDOT – there will be someone there probably almost, well, every second, obviously doing the work, but there will be people who are there for oversight on a regular basis, and UFA will be there checking in and making sure. And what our goal is to do an inventory prior to these projects on these blocks so we know the conditions of the trees going in, and then we’ll do a follow-inventory so we can any changes that have happened.

Maisie Hughes: John, can you talk a little bit more about the outreach that you’ll be doing for a resident? Let’s say that you know that there’s a feeder that’s going to be underground in that community, what type of outreach will your arborists or your staff be doing to residents that are actually going to be impacted on their street?

John Thomas: Once we get going and if we have a block that has significant impact, obviously we will work to contact the owners, the residents, and let them know what’s going on. But the whole project will have constant contact with the community between, I believe, Pepco has contact that they’ll be making with residents when they do this. RDT Construction branch – Keith Foxx who is managing DC PLUG – that whole group has an outreach component with it.

The Mayor’s Office will always have some relationship there. They’ll be Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) meetings. So there will be lots of activity going on. We will be involved in all of that. So the arborists will be involved in all parts of that and at those different junctions. And, like I said, the last, worst-case scenario, I guess, if there’s significant issues or, say, something has changed and there’s an effect on trees, then we will have to do an old-fashioned door-to-door campaign or alert the ANC who can then alert the neighborhood, but we plan on being involved in this as much as everyone else is already involved in this. So, there’s always going to be someone representing DDOT or Pepco, or the Mayor’s office, and being able to talk to the ANCs or the community.

Maisie Hughes: Thanks, John. We’re getting lots of questions. Dolores wants to know if there are trees that need to be replaced, are you going to be using different species of trees than the ones that are currently there?

John Thomas: With any tree we plant, our arborists make a decision on-site, choosing the best species, “right tree/right place” concept where we are maximizing the canopy, but also putting in the appreciate species that’s going to survive in the long term and do well in that location. So, we will plant trees. The trees will not be planted immediately. They will be planted…because we plant trees only between October and April, so depending on whenever that space becomes available. If it becomes available in May, that tree is not going to get planted until the following fall or spring. So it’s not going to be something that’s


Q&A Session of 11

planted immediately after. So all the work can be done and everyone moves onto to their next block, but we won’t put trees there until the next planting season is available. And then the species will be determined by what is left, so if there’s no primary, we probably will look for different species and we will put the right species in that spot that works for the infrastructure that’s there and the space that’s available. You know, a lot of times we have private trees that are in front lawns, and that restricts the type of tree we can plant, so it’s really a case-by-case decision that the arborists make when they make that planting work order.

Maisie Hughes: Great! Thanks, John. I have another John who has a question about feeder lines that are currently buried. He wants to know – probably Pepco would be better to answer this one – where are most of the locations? Are the feeder lines that are currently buried throughout the city, are they located in the roadway or are they located under the sidewalk?

Scott Placide: So most of the existing underground Pepco lines can be found in Wards 1, 2 and 6, and their locations vary from the roadway to the sidewalk. It really depends on coordination between other utilities for the space that’s available in the right-of-way. We do have to maintain certain clearances from other utilities. Additionally, as I spoke to, a lot of our equipment, we install that in the sidewalk, because those are facilities that our line crews are going to need to access the most, and the safest place for them to access those facilities will be behind the curb in the sidewalk space.

Maisie Hughes: We have a question from Bill. He wants to know how a citizen can learn specifically when and where Pepco will be performing the work, especially work that’s involving trees, particularly pruning or removing trees, as part of this program.

Scott Placide: We have a full-blown communication plan as far as this project, so we’ll be working very closely with local community ANCs, communicating the progress of the project and upcoming construction schedules when we get to that stage of the project. As issues relate specifically to trees, I think John spoke to it a little earlier, in that there will be an established process for tree replacement and it could come to even knocking on local residents’ doors for giving out information.

Maisie Hughes: We have a question for Pepco. Any hope for a Maryland PLUG project?

Scott Placide: We haven’t seen anything from that. The Plan came from the Mayor’s Task Force in D.C., so it was strictly geared at the District of Columbia power line infrastructure.


Q&A Session of 11

Maisie Hughes: You can find Casey Trees’ public comments on our website. It’s www.caseytrees.org. If you want to take a look at our advocacy platform, it’s www.caseytrees.org/advocate. If you have any specific questions, feel free to email us at [email protected].

We have a question from Helen who has concerns about tree roots during re-pavement. Helen wants to know if you can more specifically articulate how you can guarantee oversight during the construction process? Your arborist won’t be there 24/7 while the construction is going on, so how is oversight managed for these types of projects? Helen’s concern is particularly around tree roots, where she saw a contractor inappropriately put in a sidewalk around tree roots. So, can you talk a little bit more about how you provide oversight?

John Thomas: Sure. The first phase of it is, really, like I said, the landscape architects will provide very clear and specific standards and specifications, and then drawings to go with it. So that, in itself, will become part of the contract package, which then the contractor is obligated. That sets the baseline for us to use. Whenever they deviate or something is deviated from those drawings or those standards, that’s when we are allowed to take action or enforce things.

Typically, what we do is we will visit the site before, during and after. Most of the crews that are going to do the work on the DDOT side are crews that we have worked with for years, and so they know, and are trained, and we’ve spent time with them how excavating happens. And though sometimes it looks bad around a trees when they’re removing the concrete, getting the concrete out and pouring it typically isn’t a problem for the tree. If they have to move – say the sidewalk has to be adjusted or made wider or there’s a buckling or there’s an issue which is really separate from all of this, that’s when we have problems maybe where the root and concrete conflict is there. But we have material like flexible paving material that we can use when we have issues that are not easily resolved using traditional methods or materials like concrete or brick.

And its important to know that roots don’t grow in the street, there’s not oxygen and water with the way that the roadbed is built, there’s nothing there for the tree to use to live, so the roots don’t penetrate that roadbed. And so we don’t have any issues if the work is all being in the road. The issues we’ll have is when it starts to cross the sidewalk, and that’s when we’ll be, much like we’re doing now with Pepco, is we’re going to look at each one of those trees on every one of these projects and we’re going to walk through what is the best course of action – are we going to move two feet this way or two feet that? – and spray paint where we want the trenching to happen.

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.caseytrees.org/advocate

http://www.caseytrees.org/


Q&A Session of 11

And then whenever there’s a trench that’s going to be impacted by a tree, then that’s when our arborists will work with the construction side of Pepco or our group to figure out if there are any other ways to do it, and, if not, then we will have to make a decision based on that impact to the tree and what’s best for the tree. In some case, we may have to remove a tree, because that is the best course of action. And in some cases, we may remove trees, because removing one tree helps set a pattern which eliminates disturbance with the other trees, and that’s something that happens on a regular basis where one tree is affected, but it saves 7 or 8 others down the line. So those are the types of things we’re going to be looking at.

Like I said, our geographical area for our arborists is quite small, and so arborists will be in and out and around. We can’t sit there all day. This is one project that’s happening in the City – there are a million other projects, maybe not a million, but there are hundreds of projects happening around the City that are just as impactful to trees. This one may get more light shined on it, but we have development and cranes and things happening all over the City so we have to be everywhere, and that’s what we do is we make sure we’re everywhere, every day. And the most important thing is letting them know that we’re here and available and we’re also going to be there watching them, and that really seems to help. We’ll have other D.C. employees there, that do public space monitoring, as well, so between the two groups, we’ll have a lot of oversight on the site.

Maisie Hughes: I have another follow-up question for John. The Questioner is concerned because in the past two weeks, she’s seen backhoes digging to put in a sidewalk and breaking branches in the process in order to remove chunks of concrete and to repave. Is there a way that she can report this to the UFA, or is there somebody that she should be in contact with in her neighborhood, so that you can send inspectors out to take a look at the work that contractors are doing?

John Thomas: First, not every contractor is a DDOT contractor, and not every sidewalk is always a DDOT project. Developers are required to rebuild sidewalks, or people just do sidewalk work as part of other redevelopment. So we would want to make sure that it’s Department of Transportation people or just developers doing work. And, as always, 311 – anytime there’s a problem anywhere in the City, I can’t stress it enough, it’s the best way to engage any agency in the District of Columbia. It’s the tool that the Mayor uses to judge our performance and how we’re doing to address residents’ concerns. Dial 311. Tell them you have construction happening out there and you need an arborist to come out immediately because you’re worried about the tree. We will either get that in the service request system within a few minutes, and the arborists using the live connected computer in the field, they’ll see that service request pop up on their screen, as well, or they will route you right to our office. They’ll take the


Q&A Session of 11

call and then they’ll dispatch an arborist to go look at it. But 311 is the best way to do work with UFA. It is the tool. We get about 14,000 service requests and we make about 20,000 work orders a year.

Maisie Hughes: Great. And just to clarify, John, even though not all of the contractors who are working in the street are contractors for the District government, you, as the person in charge of UFA, help to manage the tree bill which protects all trees in the city, and so that’s why people should still contact you via 311 to make sure that you can go out and inspect all trees. Is that correct?

John Thomas: Yes. Whenever you have a problem with a tree, you should call 311 and let us know. The tree bill protects trees 55 inches or greater that are on private property.

Maisie Hughes: There are also tree protection for smaller trees that are in the public right-of-way, too. Right, John?

John Thomas: Right, the Bluebook has tree protection standards, which is our District Department of Transportation Design and Engineering Guide, that provides tree protection measure for street trees during construction or use of public spaces. Also if they have a legal permit, those standards and specifications are on the permit. So, special trees are trees that are 55 inches or greater and they’re filed under that law. But anything other than that are filed under the Blue Book. And anytime you see anything going on in public space that doesn’t look right, call 311. It doesn’t matter if it’s a tree, a light pole, a parking situation, someone’s breaking a parking meter, or doing anything, any construction, or someone’s parked a truck on the sidewalk, or doing something that doesn’t look right or is causing a problem, if you call 311, that will be routed to the DDOT and DDOT will get someone out there to take a look at it right away.

Maisie Hughes: All right. I think this question probably will end up going to John, too. Christie asks, “Will the City consider burying the power lines in the roadway? This could achieve multiple benefits, not only saving trees but also kicks our implementation of the City’s other transportation objectives such as added bike facilities and sidewalks as identified in the “MoveDC” plan?” The question is, are there going to be opportunities for synergy within the construction of the DC PLUG project?

John Thomas: That is the goal of DC PLUG, one of the drivers and Keith Foxx, the project manager is to – and it’s already happening where… I mean it’s not just UFA. DDOT is involved in this. There are 15 or 20 people involved in this – every part of DDOT are in these meetings and every part of DDOT is representing their piece of this pie to Keith and Keith is trying to represent the


Q&A Session of 11

entire part of DDOT back and forth with Pepco, and then Pepco’s representing their piece. So finding that middle ground between Keith and Scott’s group is… Keith’s coming to that table with all the background that we’ve provided him, and that’s UFA, that’s Public Space Inspectors, that’s Public Space regulation people, it’s parking meter people, streetlight people, the bike group, the pedestrian group – everyone is meeting with Keith to make sure that all their concerns are being addressed when they develop standards and specifications and drawings and talk about placement of anything that has to go in the right-of-way, much like we do with every other project we have, and that conversation happens kind of behind and Keith’s just taking the ball forward as the representative to make sure that he’s able to try and articulate what DDOT needs. But the goal is to, and that is the idea between the cost savings of this is to look for existing projects that we can do this type of work on that are already underway or have other funding levers to it, and trying to look to do this so that we’re not impacting any of our assets out there or maybe making it easier for some of our assets. But that is, that’s the theme behind all of this is to try to find synergy with both Pepco, but also with DDOT’s assets as well.

Maisie Hughes: Great. People who asked questions but had to leave the webinar- we will follow up with answers to your questions via email. Here’s your last opportunity to throw out a question for us.

Emily Oaksford: Another general question – and this probably would go to any of you. How long will construction take on any given street? Along a roadway or feeder line, what’s the expected kind of timeframe?

Scott Placide: I can take this one. Particularly for a specific block, the construction duration is going to vary depending on other utilities that we may need to work around and also the scope of work on that street. If there are multiple facilities that need to be installed, such as multiple transformers, it’s going to take a little longer to install each of those manholes and underground vaults. For stretches where we don’t have a lot of facilities and it’s just conduit that we’re going to be trenching, duration’s going to be less. So it will vary. But construction start dates are definitely going to be communicated to the community on when we’ll be starting construction.

Emily Oaksford: I just had a follow-up question about – you mentioned the communications plan, which is part of the DC PLUG Plan which was approved. In detail, what does that involve aside from doing presentations? Is there any opportunity moving forward for the public to provide insight or comments that could impact the project?


Q&A Session of 11

Scott Placide: There will be a phone line, where you can call with questions about the project or to talk to someone involved with the project. Our communication plan was part of our filing with the Public Service Commission, so we filed that plan, and we’re waiting to hear comments back from the Public Service Commission, so there could be some additional stipulations to that plan. We do plan on having a couple field office locations where community members may be able to come in and ask questions there. But we’ll have multiple ways that the community can reach out to members of the DC PLUG project.

Emily Oaksford: I have another question about the transformers that you say need to be buried under the sidewalk due to servicing of the equipment for your crews. Of this 163 miles of feeder lines, how many transformers will there be along a roadway?

Scott Placide: Typically one transformer will feed approximately one block of customers – you know, sometimes more, sometimes less. In our Triennial Plan that we filed with the Public Service Commission, we’ve estimated about 500 transformers per year, and that’s distributed amongst the Wards that are affected by this project.

Emily Oaksford: Do we have any other questions from the audience?

Maisie Hughes: We do. I think someone has a clarifying question regarding the tree replacement component of the plan, John. Can you explain what a typical schedule is like if you decide that you need to plant a tree through the DC PLUG project? For example, as from the moment that you decide that this block needs to have trees replanted in it, how long can the community expect to wait in order to see that tree actually planted in that spot? And, also, what are some of the indicators, like the dots on the sidewalk, the dots on the trees, that you use to communicate with your contractor about trees that will be removed or replaced.

John Thomas: Yes, so we are planting 8,000 trees, approximately, every year, City-wide, and we will just incorporate this open space in with our regular planting program. I’m not saying we’re going to elevate it to some special status of being DC PLUG. An open space is an open space to us, and we want to get a tree in there. We have a lot of trees to put in and we’re running out of spaces, so an open space doesn’t last long, but we are going to still follow the same system we’ve followed for the twelve years I’ve been here. We plant between October and May, so it just depends. If your tree gets removed in November, you will have to wait until the following October for a possible replacement. Say, there’s trees that get removed; we’re going to mark them for planting and put them in the queue and the next available planting season is when that will be planted.


Q&A Session of 11

After, typically after July, and maybe sometimes into August, but, typically mid-July is when we finalize our list for the year. So anything that happens after mid-July will be used for, not that current season coming in October, but will come in the following October. And that’s just because we do need to order these materials from a nursery. We have to find the ability to procure them and get all the species we need, and then the contractor needs time to get that list and sort it out and get his crews ready, and a lot of that takes time, that prep time is needed, so that’s the worst case scenario, but none of these will be missed or forgotten; they’ll be captured in our system.

So once the tree’s removed, a new work order is made for planting, that’s given under our planting project, and it just goes into the system and does all the other planting. Like I said, we’re up to about 8,000 trees a year. So we should have plenty enough ceiling to get these trees in. I just want to make sure that people don’t think we’re going to plant it like, literally, when the project crews drive off and move to the next block, that we’re going to follow right back with trees. That’s not going to happen just because most of this work… Maybe it could happen, theoretically, I guess, if they’re working between October and April and we know about it and all that and the timing is right, but, most likely, that timing isn’t going to be that fast, so these are going to planted in the next available planting cycle.

Maisie Hughes: All right! Thank you, John, for answering all of those questions. Also, thank you to Scott and Nathan who are here from Pepco and to, our course, our advocacy team here at Casey Trees, Emily and Suraj, and all of our volunteers. Thank you to our Tree Advocates for all your questions today. We are going to make our best attempt to get the rest of your questions answered.

One quick and easy way to communicate with all of us here at Casey Trees is to send an email to [email protected]. And you can also find our direct contact information on the Casey Trees website. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed having lunch with us, and have a fantastic day.

mailto:[email protected]

DC plug webinar q&a transcript

Environment

Transcript of DC plug webinar q&a transcript