Right, or Responsibility?

What a mess hurricane Irma created, here in BP and in various other parts of the county and south Florida.  And it could have been a lot worse.  We did not take a direct hit, as we thought we would, and there wasn't much rain.  The two things that happened most were downed branches and trees, and power outages.  Frequently, it was problem one that led to problem two.  That was certainly true in BP, where whole trees fell over, and they took lines with them.  The trees simply weren't strong enough and stable enough to resist the wind.  As an aside, I still say that the problem trees were banyans/ficus, australian pine, and seagrape, more than any others.

In any event, the reasons for the damage we all suffered were trees that could not withstand hurricane force winds, and trees that were not adequately and appropriately pruned for maximum strength and resistance.  Last year and the year before, our then Manager, Heidi Siegel, with the support of the Commission, engaged a company called Raydel to do Village-wide tree work, to improve our canopy, so it would be stronger and more resistant.  I can only assume the damage we suffered from Irma would have been worse, if we had not hired Raydel.  But we ran out of fiscal resolve to continue the tree maintenance program, and we got the result we got.

Raydel was hired to prune trees in the medians and other public spaces.  They were not hired to prune trees on private properties, or even in swales.  It's been our general understanding that such attention is the responsibility of property owners.  On the other hand, FPL, out of its concern for power lines, has been known to prune trees on private properties, because those trees, or specific branches of them, have represented more or less direct threats to the power lines.  Some property owners have been exercised about FPL's taking this kind of initiative with their-- the property owners'-- trees.

Every municipality served by FPL, most certainly including BP, has a contract with this electric company.  The contract allows FPL to sacrifice at least specific tree branches, if they threaten power lines, and that includes branches on private property.  It absolutely and without question includes branches and trees in public rights of way, including swales and other easements.  FPL is not wrong, then, to remove all or part of a branch that they think threatens the lines.  They're not obligated to be "nice" about it, or to employ the most pleasing pruning design.  Again, the assumption-- my assumption, anyway-- is that if you want pruning done "right," you get your own tree service, and have them remove branches as you think they should be removed.  But removing those branches that threaten the power (the power coming to your house!) is not your call.  And that's by contractual agreement.

The City of Coral Gables (CCG) has interpreted the contract to say not only that FPL has the right to do tree maintenance with a goal toward preserving the delivery of electric power, but frankly, and contractually (according to CCG governors and attorneys), they have the responsibility to deal with the trees.  CCG is suing FPL for not having been more aggressive about tree maintenance, and thus jeopardizing the delivery of electric power in CCG during and after hurricane Irma.

It's a different view to take, and I don't know how successful CCG will be in proposing to shift blame for the power outages from themselves, and all the owners of private property in CCG, onto FPL.  In theory, if CCG wins, the public will be excused from worrying about, and paying for, tree maintenance, but it will also be deprived of the opportunity to demand a specific approach to the task.  FPL's goal is to keep the power lines free.  It's not to make your canopy as pleasing and pretty as possible.  If that's what you want, you have to do it yourself.

One question is what would happen, and what would have happened, if FPL had known what we didn't know, or pretended not to know, and if they had done what we didn't do?  What if FPL had come through BP and removed all the banyans/ficuses, austalian pines, and seagrapes we left standing?  Presumably, there would have been a greater outcry than there was a few years ago, when the county removed several australian pines on Griffing.  But FPL would have been right, and those of us who would have insisted the trees were no threat would have been wrong.  And apart from whether anyone is right or wrong, no one who lost power failed to complain about it.  It's a huge trouble and expense to FPL, when they have to clean up the power outage mess, and no one else likes it, either.

This, of course, raises the other question of who's going to pay for tree maintenance.  Part of CCG's argument is that FPL's profit last year was about a half billion dollars.  Presumably, CCG is trying to argue that FPL has tons of money, and they should easily be able to pay for tree maintenance.  But FPL is a private company, not a public service, and their goal is to make as much money as they can.  They're not in any way looking to "do the right thing," even if a better canopy would have saved them the time, trouble, and expense of dealing with lost power, downed lines, and the reason the lines were down.  You'd think that as a private business, they'd be smart enough to think about that, but they're not.  Almost no business is smart that way.  And anyway, they just shift the cost onto their customers, pleading to the Public Service Commission that it cost them $______ to restore everyone's power.  So if you don't pay the cost by hiring your own tree service, or by paying enough extra tax to the municipality to do this for you, you'll pay it to FPL.  And you'll lose power anyway, because FPL isn't smart enough..; oh, never mind.  Or maybe they are smart enough.  Maybe they've figured out that it's easier and more successful for them to get the PSC to let them raise rates in response to the extra expense of hurricane clean-up than it would be to get the PSC to allow them to build a larger fund in advance, on the actuarial assumption that the expense will come eventually.

We should try to keep abreast of CCG's campaign to get FPL seen as the responsible party, when it comes to power outages caused by branches and trees that shouldn't have been there.  Maybe it's a suit (excuse the pun) we should follow.  In the meantime, it would be really stupid of us to forget what this is all about: trees and branches that should have been removed, but weren't (because everyone got cheap and short-sighted) and which should be removed now.