This document summarizes a webinar hosted by Casey Trees about the DC PLUG project, which aims to bury the worst performing power lines across Washington D.C. to improve reliability. It provides an overview of the project, defines key terms like primary lines and feeders, and explains what utility poles and infrastructure will look like after primary lines are buried. Concerns were raised about potential impacts to street trees during the line burial process. Presenters from Casey Trees, the Urban Forestry Administration, and Pepco sought to address questions from webinar participants.

1. DC PLUG: Burying Lines, Raising Questions (Webinar)
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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 presentation 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 Associate
Suraj K. Sazawal, Casey Trees, Advocacy Associate
Guests:
John P. Thomas, DDOT, Associate Director of UFA
Nathan McElroy, Pepco Staff Forester
Scott Placide, Pepco Engineer
The following is a transcript of the webinar presentation. The presentation slides
and a complete transcript of the Q & A session can be found here.
[Slide 1]
Maisie Hughes: Welcome to today’s webinar called DC PLUG: Burying Lines,
Raising Questions. Today, we have lots of people here to help coordinate this
webinar. I’m Maisie Hughes from Casey Trees. We’re also here with Suraj K.
Sazawal and Emily Oaksford, also from Casey Trees, and we have guests from
both the Urban Forestry Administration (UFA) of the District Department of
Transportation (DDOT) and Pepco. We have John Thomas, who is the
Associate Director of the UFA, and we have Nathan McElroy, Staff Forester,
Pepco, and we also have Scott Placide, Electrical Engineer, Pepco. We’ll be
doing this webinar together to make sure that we can answer all of your

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questions about this very massive project.
[Slide 2]
Here’s an overview of today’s webinar. We’ll start by discussing the project’s
background and what we already know about DC PLUG. Afterwards, we’re
going to make sure that we get all of your questions answered. In order to get
your questions answered for this webinar, type your question into the question
box that appears on your screen.
Let’s start by providing an overview of the DC PLUG project. If Mr. McElroy can
speak to what the DC PLUG project is all about, we can get started.
Nathan McElroy: The “PLUG” stands for “Pepco Lines Underground.” Back in
2012, after a couple of the major storms, Mayor Gray came to Pepco’s CEO, Joe
Rigby, and he explained that he wanted to have a game-changer. So there was
a lot of work to come up with this proposal for the PLUG and that’s what we’re
going to talk about now.
[Slide 3]
Maisie Hughes: Thank you. Today, we’re going to identify what Casey Trees
knows about the project and outline our public comments, and we are going to
inform District residents about how their community will be impacted by this
project.
[Slide 4]
If you’re on this webinar, you probably already know that Casey Trees is a local
nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C, with a really simple mission: To
restore, enhance and protect the tree canopy of the nation’s capital. Mr. Thomas
would like to give a brief overview of what UFA is. John?
[Slide 5]
John Thomas: UFA is the Urban Forestry Administration, and we are located, or
housed, in the Department of Transportation. The reason we’re there is we are
the front line to help protect street trees throughout the District of Columbia, as
well as help manage green spaces that are dealing or managing with stormwater.
Our main goal, our main mission, for the most part, is to improve the street tree
canopy of the District of Columbia, and in that action we will improve air quality,
we increase the ground water retention that helps to moderate temperature as far
as heat island issues, and improve the aesthetics and other benefits to our

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community.
We have twenty certified arborists out in the street every day inspecting trees,
resolving issues, planting new trees and making sure that our street tree canopy
is something that’s here for many generations to come.
[Slide 6]
Nathan McElroy: Thanks, John. This is Nathan McElroy. I also want to thank
Casey Trees for hosting this webinar. It's a great way to get the information out,
and we really appreciate being invited. Maisie and the staff put a lot of work into
putting these slides together.
As you know, every day, Pepco provides safe and reliable electric services. It
takes thousands of personnel to do that. My part is to keep trees away from lines.
In D.C., there’s approximately 700 miles of overhead wires, and we have to
maintain clearances of trees around those wires.
With me today is also Scott Placide. He’s an engineer who has been living and
breathing the PLUG project for pretty much all this year, and so he knows it
inside and out, much better than I do, so he’s here to help with any questions.
[Slide 7]
Suraj K. Sazawal: Thank you, Nathan. We’ve all experienced the lights going
out after a big storm knocked out the power. It affects hospitals and certain types
of medical equipment, businesses are inconvenienced, and we worry about the
food in our refrigerators beginning to spoil. To help improve service and reliability,
the District and Pepco have proposed a plan. Called DC PLUG, this ambitious
project is designed to keep the power running even during severe weather, by
burying the worst performing, primary power lines across the District.
[Slide 8]
Now, what I want you to focus on is the word, “primary.” It would be great if all
the overhead power lines would be buried. Not only would this improve reliability
for residents, but it would also be beneficial to the long-term health and
appearance of your neighborhood streetscape. But under the current proposal,
only the primary power lines will be buried.
[Slide 9]
So what exactly are “primary lines?” Primary power lines are the high-voltage
power lines usually found at the top of utility poles. When you lose power, it’s

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usually because these lines were interfered with, often requiring hours of repair
work. Casey Trees welcomes the burying of primary power lines, because trees
near these lines are pruned much more aggressively than trees near other types
of power lines. Maisie will explain the different pruning requirements for trees
later in the presentation.
[Slide 10]
I will now define a few other important terms that you should know, for example,
“secondary and communication lines”. These types of wires, including ones from
phone and cable companies produce a lot less voltage, connect directly to
residences, and are not included in this plan. They will remain aboveground on
the utility pole.
[Slide 11]
The next term is “electrical transformers”. An electrical transformer is an
electrical device that can convert electricity of one voltage into another, making it
safer to move along the wire. Some transformers will be removed from the utility
pole as part of this undertaking.
[Slide 12]
And the last term I’ll define today is “feeders”. Feeders connect power stations
with residences and businesses in different parts of the city. Basically, feeders
bring the power into a neighborhood. To give you a better idea of what I’m
talking about, here’s a map showing the proposed undergrounding route for
Feeder 14093. I picked this feeder because it supplies the power to residents
here at Casey Trees’ headquarters in Brookland, and also because Pepco
identified it as one of the 21 worst performing feeders in the District. So for each
of the 21 feeder areas that have been selected as part of the DC PLUG project,
like this one, the primary power lines in that area will be buried.
[Slide 13]
Okay, now that you know the terminology, I’m going to show you what you can
expect to see after the undergrounding takes place. Let’s imagine that when you
look outside your window right now, this utility pole is what you see. It has
primary power lines running along the top, and has three transformers attached
to it. So the next slide will show you what will remain after the primary power
lines are buried.
[Slide 14]

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Did you catch the difference? Maybe we need to do that one more time.
[Slide 15]
So, again, here’s what you see if you look outside your window today.
[Slide 16]
And here’s what will remain after the primary power lines have been buried.
[Slide 17]
Burying only the primary power lines should help improve service reliability
during bad weather. For nearly a decade, a series of severe weather events
caused widespread and sustained power outages across the region affecting
thousands of District residents. Many frustrated residents began calling for
undergrounding power lines.
[Slide 18]
The tipping point came in 2012. Days after the 2012 Derecho, the D.C. Council
held a hearing where residents and business owners called on the City to take
action. This set up a chain of events, including the Mayor creating a taskforce to
evaluate options for improving reliability during bad weather. After reviewing
many recommendations, the D.C. Council eventually passed legislation that
outlined the financing framework for burying the power lines. The legislation also
required Pepco and DDOT to submit a proposal explaining the scope of the first
three years of the project. That proposal is called the “Triennial Plan.”
[Slide 19]
Filed in June of this year, the Triennial Plan identifies the first 21 feeders that
Pepco proposes burying during this project’s initial three years, and offered
estimates of construction materials and costs, but it does not include important
details like where, exactly, the right-of-way where the lines will be buried, or how
many street trees might be affected by this project. If you want to view the
Triennial Plan, the financing framework, or the recommendations made by the
Mayor’s taskforce, I’ve included a link on this slide to the Office of the City
Administrator’s DC PLUG website.
[Slide 20]
Nathan McElroy: Thank you, Suraj. Reliability is going to be one of the key
components, one of the main reasons why this project was introduced. Reliability

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is going to be improved on a day-to-day basis. Outages caused by car struck
poles or animals getting entangled, and, of course, trees, are all going to be
reduced, but the real, big benefit will be during major events, meaning hurricanes
or Derecho-type events, where residents experienced outages that lasted two,
three, four, even up to six and seven days due to the catastrophic damages.
Those will be greatly reduced and outage restoration will be significantly
improved.
And then some other more ancillary benefits that the District is going to
experience are the economic benefits and, by that, one thing that comes to mind
for me is the large amount of people that are working out of their homes, it’s
going to be better for them. They’re not going to have to move when they have a
significant outage, or move out of their home. It’s also going to attract business
investment if the reliability improvements are there. And, of course, there are
going to be jobs created by a billion dollar project. And the other benefit that
Casey Trees is, obviously, very interested in is the forest canopy benefits. By not
having the primary lines present, there’s a smaller utility envelope required,
which is going to allow more green space. That interface between the gray and
the green interface is going to benefit the green.
Maisie Hughes: Thank you, Nathan. John, do you want to dicuss tree
preservation and vegetation management?
[Slide 21]
John Thomas: Yes. Currently, UFA works very closely with lots of different
owners of properties or parcels throughout the District of Columbia. Urban
forestry is one of the big owners or overseers of the public space or the right-of-way,
which are the areas that are between sidewalk to sidewalk throughout the
City. Other owners are people who have private property. We also have National
Park Service and other federal entities, and then we have other large tract
owners, like George Washington university or the IMF and World Bank – larger
organizations like that.
And then, of course, Pepco is a player as well. Other utilities, they’re not land
owners, necessarily, within those trees along the right-of-way and wires, but
they’re obviously someone that has a vested interest in working in that area.
[Slide 22]
And then, UFA with its 20 certified ISA- certified arborists, work very closely with
Pepco’s foresters and contractors and construction staff. We’ve made a huge
push over the last ten years, very specifically over this last six or seven years, to
really drive home this following the industry standards that are coming out

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through the International Society of Arboriculture, and following all new academic
research and how trees are reacting to pruning cuts and the best way to manage
that process. We’re seeing great payback for that. The last few years, we’ve
seen trees really respond well to following very strict industry guidelines.
And then going forward, we’re going to apply that same type of principles, where
our foresters are working hand-in-hand with Pepco foresters every day of the
week on every project. We will do the same thing through DC PLUG, where
we’re already involved in the design process, or even one step further back,
we’re involved in the walk-throughs that are talking about how and where all this
may happen in the public space and, also, working with our two landscape
architects that are on staff at UFA. They’re reviewing all the drawings, the
standards and making sure that everything is as tree-friendly as possible. And
then our arborists are ready to be there onsite when we have a problem with any
construction, once it’s actually onsite and the work is happening and changes
may need to be made due to other utilities or a lot of times when you dig, you find
things that you didn’t know that were there and it alters the plan a little bit. So
we’ll be ready there to move forward.
And as we go on, our arborists and our landscape architects will continue to play
that role, where they’ll be involved in every phase of this, with the ultimate goal of
trying to find the best place to position the underground utilities, in and around
our trees, that our trees have the best chance to succeed and be here for
generations to come.
[Slide 23]
Maisie Hughes: Casey Trees has already submitted public comments on this
project. We have four main points. We would, of course, prefer if all of the
overhead lines were underground, but we understand that the difference
between burying all of the lines underground and just burying the primary lines is
the difference between one billion dollars versus five billion dollars. But we also
feel that pruning for secondary lines is far less aggressive than the pruning that
has to happen for primary lines, so we think this is good news for street trees.
[Slide 24]
We also, in our comments, suggested that since we’re going to have the poles in
the ground after the project is over, that if you move the secondary lines higher
up on the poles, it would leave an opportunity for trees to grow even larger. We
also recommended that all of the lines that are going to be buried, if they could
be buried in the center of the roadway, as far away from the tree box as possible.
And we wanted to encourage the City to determine the precise number of trees
potentially impacted by this project, and to develop a plan for the rapid

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replacement of any trees lost or damaged during the construction of this project.
Lets quickly review the distinction between pruning for primary power lines and
for secondary power lines.
[Slide 25]
This slide shows best practices for pruning around power lines. There are three
main types of pruning cuts that you will see around primary power lines. So on
the left you see a lovely, round, beautiful tree before a “V”-shaped pruning, and
then, on the right of the slide, you can see what you may typically see in
Washington, D.C., after an aggressive pruning around primary power lines.
Likewise, you can see what would happen in a side pruning or after an “L”-
shaped pruning. What brings this distinction home even harder, in order to prune
for primary power lines, you have to have ten feet of clearance, so that means,
oftentimes, you will have to remove an entire branch of a tree in order to follow
best practices for pruning around primary power lines.
[Slide 26]
This is not the case for pruning for secondary power lines. To prune for
secondary power lines, the ISA recommends only a two-foot clearance from
secondary power lines. That means you get a much fuller canopy and the tree is
much more aesthetically pleasing.
[Slide 27]
Emily Oaksford: So, while burying the primary power lines is welcome news for
the long-term health and appearance of our street trees, the project’s full impact
on our neighborhoods can’t really be determined until more details are released.
Since DDOT has the jurisdiction over all land within the public right-of-way, that
means that they have the ability to bury the lines under either the roadway,
(where vehicular lanes are), in parking lanes and bike lanes, or even in the
sidewalk amenity zone (which oftentimes includes benches, street trees, and tree
boxes). Right now, the lines could be buried anywhere within that right-of-way,
because it’s not specified.
[Slide 28]
Scott Placide: Thank you, Emily. Currently Pepco and DDOT are at a very high
level in planning for the DC PLUG project Right now, a lot of our plans basically
mirror the underground paths of the feeders to mirror the existing overhead wires.
There are many considerations that we need to make in order to engineer the

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best possible route for these feeders. One consideration that we make is the
placing of transformer and electrical equipment vaults. This equipment requires
safe operation and access by our utility crews, and the best location for these
facilities is, typically, behind the curb where crews, during access, will have
protection from vehicular traffic and, also, the equipment can be safe and avoid
exposure to the chemicals and salt that are used to treat roads during the winter
season.
Additionally, as we get down in this iterative design process to a detailed design
level, we’ll be conducting topographical and sub-surface utility field surveys to
determine the best location for our underground utilities. There are currently a lot
of other utilities that have underground facilities within the public right-of-way,
and Pepco’s underground power lines need to maintain certain distances and
clearances from the existing utilities for insulation.
[Slide 29]
Emily Oaksford: So because of what Scott just mentioned, there is some push
to bury the lines and transformers under the sidewalk. But this is a concern to us,
because any undergrounding within or adjacent to the sidewalk amenity zone
could be detrimental to our street trees. And that’s because any intense
construction in and around a tree’s critical root zone can fatally injury mature
trees. We also want to point out that there may be additional costs associated
with burying lines under the sidewalk area, because of repaving concrete and the
reinstallation of, say, benches, bike racks and street lamps, that may end up
becoming more costly than just repaving asphalt (the pavement generally used
for a roadway.
[Slide 30]
So, to determine the amount and how many street trees might be potentially in
harm’s way, we mapped out where those 163 miles of feeder lines that are
proposed to be buried in the District, based on the three-year Plan. Along those
163 miles of feeder lines, there lie 17,000 street trees. And since primary lines
are located, usually, just on one side of the roadway, we estimate that as many
as 8,700 street trees could be affected during construction.
[Slide 31]
To see what that really means on the ground level, we did an up-close analysis in
Ward 7’s Hillcrest neighborhood. The pink highlighted streets indicate where the
feeder routes will be buried. We can see all the street trees that are within the
feeder route impact zone. So, within this one neighborhood (Hillcrest), 430 trees
could be impacted. That’s just on one side of the street. We know that 400 trees

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in one neighborhood, a loss like that could be devastating to neighborhood
character, property values, and even sense of place.
[Slide 32]
So, Scott described to everyone what we’re up against. There are a lot of
existing utilities and underground pipes and wires under our streets right now.
We realize that there are going to be potential conflicts. But, we here at Casey
Trees in our public comments, we want to see a plan that prioritizes
undergrounding primary lines under the roadway so that, whenever possible, and
as a standard, construction disturbance happens far from the roots of street trees.
We think this will provide the best chance to preserve that beauty of historic, tree-lined
streets.
[Slide 33]
We also would hope that the City could enhance the DC PLUG Plan. We would
like the Plan to include more information that would specify where the wires are
going to be located in that right-of-way and how many trees are going to be
impacted.
We also want to see the Plan include a plan for replanting trees where they must
be removed and an appropriate tree-protection plan for during construction, when
trees that can be preserved can be properly protected.
[Slide 34]
Maisie Hughes: To summarize Casey Trees’ position, we want, as a matter of
practice, for the power lines to be undergrounded in the roadway. We want
Pepco and UFA to determine the number of trees potentially impacted once they
have more information about what’s going on underground. And, we want them
to commit to developing a plan for rapid replacement of trees.
[Slide 35]
We learned today that the Public Service Commission voted on November 6th to
approve the Plan, as is, with some minor amendments. Today, the Public
Service Commission will have on their website all of the results of that vote, so
you can check that out by going to this link here to the Public Service
Commission to find out more about the amendment that they want made for the
plan. But you could also contact D.C.’s Office of People’s Counsel. That office is
here to really advocate for what citizens want. And, of course, you can always
check out Casey Trees’ public comments on our public comments page or give
us a call if you have any other questions.