County Road Easement Cleanup

[RancherGuy]

I wish I could keep them out except with permission. But this particular property is roughly 100 acres with multiple entrances. None of which I can see from the main house. They just come on the property whenever they want.

They *do* have a legal right of way to maintain the power lines. But it's only a few feet to either side of the lines-- just a narrow strip through the property.

I can play hardball by not letting them have any access except their tiny narrow strip. Which is darned inconvenient on them. But they can respond by refusing to do any post-trimming cleanup, saying "we can't get our truck in here ...."

I have empathy for your situation. I have 6 pipelines through my place ... started with 4 when I bought 25 years ago. I don't know if I can suggest anything to help you, but I can tell you about my experiences.

When I bought I was naive. They owned a ROW and I didn't understand their limits or what I was supposed to put up with. BTW, ROW is only paid at the time of installation - nothing annually. They would come and dig up my pasture for repairs. They took advantage, but are now sitting up and paying attention to me and even calling ahead of time. Out of my frustration, it all changed when I sent a "nice" letter demanding compensation for damages that they caused. The more I did it, the more comfortable I felt putting healthy numbers on a list of damage issues. I itemize everything I can - its my grazing pasture. No grass means dirt and nothing for cattle to eat. Sure, it's a relatively small area, but I list what it would take to return it back to the way it should be. Leveling, seed, water, fertilizer, re-leveling after a couple of years of settling, more seed, water, fertilizer. Takes 3 years to get it back. Once I took pictures of them using my pasture for a parking lot - 100 feet off of their ROW because that is where the shade was. I even found and photographed poop piles and paper towels because they didn't have a Portapotty, so I charged for that too - by the day. I charged for equipment stored on my place after the job was finished. You name it, I listed and charged. Photos are golden. Rarely do they challenge the invoice.

 

[Avenger]

A quick update. They had lunch last Friday in my driveway when I returned home from running some errands. Their pickup had a magnetic sign on that said "Contractors for inland Power."
Being friendly, I pulled my pickup next to them, two people in the cab. They rolled down their window and here is roughly the conversation I had with them:

Me: "Hi! How's it going?"
Them: "Great! Going well. Almost done."
M: "Where are you stopping?"
T: "Just a bit further, need to stop for lunch break, otherwise we would have finished already."
M: "Oh, gotcha. I see you work for Inland?"
T: "Operators Union, hired out by Inland, yes."
M: Just clearing brush and trees along the powerlines?"
T: "Yep."
M: "Well, it looks great! That flail does a hellova job!"
T: "yes it does!"
M: "Well, I'll let ya get back to your lunch. Thank you for sharing, have a great day!"
T: "Yep, you too!"

And I drove up to my house.
The trees do pose a problem with the powerlines, and they come and drop some when either they see them leaning or dying that might threaten the lines, or they come out when I see them. Typically, and has only happened twice since living there, they show up and simply fall the trees into my property. If I can get to them easily, I buck them up for firewood.
I was just amazed that they would come out for the brush. The lines are really far away from the brush, but I'm not complaining. Least now I know exactly where to put the t-post fence along the road!

 

[dodge man]

It’s been about 15 years ago but a tree on my property fell on the power line and broke it during an ice storm. If you had gone out there beforehand you would have picked 20 different trees that would have been a problem first. They can be pretty far away and still cause a problem.

 

[gtbensley]

That's a sweet looking setup!

Local power company has come through my property twice on the 7 years I have owned it to clear around the lines.

Never again, they have absolutely butchered the task and made the lines no better while making the property look like garbage.

This past winter they came through and cleared small brush by hand. Being that we had 2ft of snow on the ground it now looks like I have some sort of medieval barricade in front of my house. The stumps are 2 ft tall and most slant cut, perfect for someone to impale themselves on.

They left anything that was larger and clearly rotted that lean to the lines, yet cut stuff 20 feet away from the lines if it made their walk easier back to the road.

They do ask....and the answer will always be a no from now on. The work does nothing to help keep the power from going out, at least on my property.