{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Landowner \"in shock\" by extent of tree removal","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":390,"description":"August 17, 2021 — Paul Putter’s homestead used to be nestled in a grove of hardwoods and conifers. It was shady and cool, and he used to jog on a trail beneath the canopy. But now, with PG&E’s enhanced vegetation management program, crews of contractors are taking down any tree the company thinks could fall on a power line and start another massive fire. On August 7, kzyx was on site to see crews feeding dozens of smaller trees into a chipper and pouring large ones into a big red dumpster. “Maybe a hundred trees,” Putter estimated. “All along their power line, but some of them quite far away from their power line, maybe a hundred feet...I’m in kind of shock here. The extent of what they have cut on my property alone is really quite incredible. ”\r\nPutter signed a contract on June 24th, though landowners all over the county have told kzyx they’ve had trees felled by PG&E crews with no contract. Putter’s document is basically a checklist, with the number 32 written by hand on a line following the typewritten words:” Tree Quantity.” PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras apologized for not being able to reach someone at the company who could explain the contract in time for this story. “I think I might have signed something without really understanding what the full implication of it was,” Putter noted. “It just didn’t register, what was going to happen.”\r\nThere’s no independent third-party environmental review for this work, and landowners complain about a lack of precise information about what it will entail. \r\nIt is legal. PG&E submitted its vegetation management plan to the California Public Utilities Commission late in 2018, and it’s now a part of the Public Resource Code. \r\nThe utility is required to give notice to landowners and provide damages if it removes a valuable tree, but the process is not defined in the code.\r\nIn April of this year, the CPUC placed the company into an enhanced oversight and enforcement process, because its wildfire safety division found...","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}