Nashville jumps to 15-foot clearance, $15M in extra cuts

A nor'easter killed a housing worker in Brooklyn and hurt four more at a playground, Nashville's utility widened its clearance rule and started throwing money at contractors, and EAB turned up in two more Minnesota counties. Florida keeps chipping away at local tree permits too. Coffee's on.

The big one

Nashville Electric Service pushed its required clearance around power lines from 10 feet to 15 feet and cut its trimming cycle from four years to three. Then it fell behind. To catch up before winter storm season, the NES board authorized its CEO to sign off on up to $15 million in extra vegetation-management contracts without waiting for the October board meeting (WSMV).

For line-clearance crews and contractors in middle Tennessee, that is a wall of work landing fast. A wider clearance spec and a shorter cycle mean more cuts per mile and more miles per year, and the utility just told everyone it needs help now, not next spring.

The worry from canopy advocates is that rushed work damages Nashville's trees. That is a real risk when a utility hands out money on a deadline and crews get pushed to hit footage instead of making clean cuts. Fifteen feet of clearance done with proper directional pruning is one thing. The same clearance topped and stubbed to save time is another. The contractors who show up with certified arborists and hold their standard under pressure are the ones who keep this account when the panic ends.

The canopy

Florida keeps gutting local tree permits

Winter Park officials are debating whether to scrap the city's tree-removal permit process entirely, because Florida law now restricts what cities can require on qualifying single-family residential lots. The law lets an owner remove a tree once an ISA Certified Arborist or Florida-licensed landscape architect documents it as a risk from an onsite assessment using recognized risk procedures (Winter Park Voice). The permit is dead, but your signature is now the gate. Charlotte is running a version of the same idea, where its no-fee exemption process requires the arborist to be both ISA Certified and Tree Risk Assessment Qualified (WFAE). The credential is turning into the permit. Guard the signature.

Texas utilities blew off their wildfire plans

Only eight of 160 Texas utility companies filed the wildfire-response plans that state law requires (HPPR). Those plans are supposed to cover how a utility manages grass, shrubs and other vegetation in wildfire-risk areas, plus equipment inspections and high-risk weather operations. When regulators start enforcing this, the vegetation piece turns into contract work for crews who can document fuel reduction near lines.

A one-tech plant-healthcare rig

Mobile Tree Spa out of Charlotte put out an all-in-one plant-healthcare unit built around an ELGi portable air compressor (Business Wire). It is a tow-behind meant to let one technician do work that used to take several people and machines. If it holds up in the field, that is fewer bodies tied to soil and injection jobs.

Texas names its arborist of the year

Jaci Randel was named 2026 Texas Arborist of the Year at the Texas Tree Conference (AgriLife Today). Congratulations to Randel and everyone recognized at the show.

Safety report

Leighton Brown, a 56-year-old NYCHA maintenance supervisor, was struck and killed by a falling tree around 3:30 p.m. Saturday, September 26, in the parking lot of the Cypress Hills Houses at 700 Euclid Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn. First responders did CPR and took him to Brookdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. It happened during a nor'easter, but authorities had not determined whether the wind brought the tree down, and NYCHA had not confirmed whether Brown was on duty when it fell (ABC7 New York).

Around 5:30 p.m. that same day, a falling tree hurt four people at Kelly Park Playground near East 14th Street and Avenue S in the Homecrest section of Brooklyn. FDNY said the injuries were minor and the four went to Maimonides Medical Center (ABC7 New York). Same storm, same afternoon.

In Georgia, a 34-year-old man clearing brush and small trees for a driveway near Whitsel Road outside Hull took a chainsaw to the head and eye on September 17. Madison County deputies said the saw kicked back while he cut at about head height. Deputies carried him out of the woods on a backboard to Piedmont Athens Regional, where he was expected to survive (Reuters). OSHA lists kickback as a top cause of chainsaw injuries. Cutting at head height with the tip exposed is how the bar comes back at your face.

Pest and disease watch

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture confirmed emerald ash borer in Lincoln and Pipestone counties, its first finds in both, after detections at a campground near Lake Benton and a yard-waste site in Jasper. An emergency quarantine now limits movement of firewood and ash material in those counties. Minnesota is up to 62 counties with confirmed EAB, and the state held a virtual info meeting for residents and tree pros on September 30 (Dakota News Now).

Michigan is going after the same problem at the source. Starting January 1, 2027, the state will ban imports of untreated out-of-state firewood to slow Asian longhorned beetle, oak wilt, beech bark disease and spotted lanternfly. Heat-treated certified firewood is exempt (Detroit Free Press). Wisconsin is pushing the softer "Buy Local, Burn Local" line for National Firewood Month, and its state parks already bar wood hauled more than 10 miles unless it is treatment-certified (Wisconsin DNR).

Species spotlight

Paperbark maple (Acer griseum) is a tree you shape, not one you rig. It tops out around 20 to 30 feet with a 15 to 25 foot spread, so the fine, dense wood sits on a small frame and rarely sees a rope. The work is light and detailed, pruning to open up the structure and show off the cinnamon-colored bark that peels in papery curls and holds through winter. Best done in summer or full dormancy, and it doesn't need much.

It is native to central China and hardy in zones 4 through 8. It wants moist, fertile, well-drained soil, tolerates clay, and hates drought and salt. Watch for verticillium wilt, aphids and scale. Its seeds barely germinate, which keeps it scarce and pricey in the trade, so treat the ones you're called to as the specimen they are.

One for the lunch break

A whitebark pine in Grand Teton National Park has been dated at 1,289 years old, the oldest whitebark pine on record. The tree died in 2021 after mountain pine beetles got into it, and it beat the old record-holder from Idaho's Sawtooth Range by 22 years (Yahoo News). It was standing when the Vikings were still figuring out longships, and a beetle the size of a grain of rice finally took it out.

Stay safe out there,

The TreeNerd crew

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