SEC conducts tree trimming through its annual vegetation management program. The Cooperative spends millions of dollars annually to clear and maintain its rights-of-way. The Cooperative can only trim trees within its legally defined right-of-way and can only remove specific hazard trees that its foresters and arborists identify through their ongoing patrols. Based on data from the January 2025 ice storm, less than 2% of outage-causing trees were within SEC’s right-of-way. Such tree-caused outages were dominated by green, healthy trees that failed under the immense weight of the ice and would not have been removed as a hazard prior to the storm.
