{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Landowner insists on PG&E re-evaluation of marked trees","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":389,"description":"November 3, 2021 — PG&E crews have been moving through public and private forest lands throughout northern California, taking down thousands of healthy trees within hundreds of feet of its lines. Many landowners believe that if they refuse to allow this work to be done, they, not PG&E, will be liable if the utility’s infrastructure causes a fire that spreads in the surrounding vegetation.\r\nBut Harry Vaughn, a landowner in southern Humboldt, may have found a way to save the marked trees on land that’s been in his family for generations — and make PG&E pay for it. \r\n“We had all these people walking around our property without identifying themselves, and at some point, you just get pissed off,” he said. “You find out what your options are, because the landowner does have options.”\r\nVaughn said PG&E contractors had been on his property almost every day for more than three months, often at odd hours with little or no notice. Crews marked almost 700 trees, many of them high-value Douglas firs. He estimated that he would suffer losses up to $80,000 if the company removed all the trees they had marked along one of the power lines. When I visited at the end of September, he led me around his mushroom farm, his shaded fuel breaks, a salmon restoration project, and a grove of tanoaks that he’s dedicated to scientific studies of sudden oak death. We paused next to a Douglas fir with a big yellow X on its trunk. The tree stood just outside the dappled shade that’s essential to the well-being of the shiitake mushrooms he sells at the farmers market in Miranda. \r\nVaughn also has a non-industrial timber management plan on his 260 acres of mixed canopy.\r\nHis situation may have taken a turn, with the help of the registered professional forester he hires to writes those plans. The forester also does contract work for PG&E, and has access to the company’s database of marked trees. He and his subcontractors are being paid by PG&E, so at this time, Vaughn is not picking up the tab for...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}