Today could be the day I get arrested.
Granted, I have managed to stay on the right side of the law all my life, but there comes a time when you just have to say no, not on my watch.
It may be my day to take a stand for something I believe in, with all of me, not just my ink pen.
This is in direct conflict with my ethics as a journalist. We, in the fourth estate, are charged with maintaining neutrality, not getting involved, not forming for or against opinions, and I have so blown that in this.
Wrightsville’s most picturesque street has become a casualty of the power company. Driving back to work Tuesday afternoon from Live Oak Drive, I actually felt ill. Walking under the native live oak trees that were there before the first house, seeing how the trees have been mutilated in the name of “maintaining the power lines,” I fought back tears. I was not alone; former mayor David Cignotti who lives on Live Oak, and a host of his neighbors, are hopping mad. Mad enough to do something out of the ordinary. So am I.
I don’t live on that street, but, this morning at 7 a.m., I considered my options.
One of the questions I mulled: am I prepared to climb up into a tree to draw attention to this way of doing things that needs to be changed? Before I left the house on foot, I donned jeans, a hoodie, and warm, thick socks and boots with thick rubber soles I could climb in. I thought about pulling a chain and lock out of a tool box in the garage.
Before the Asplundh and Duke trucks arrived and got into position, JoEtta Cobb went home and came back with a ladder and was quickly in a tree. Architect Mike Saiied soon loaned her his work hard hat and reflective safety vest.
More residents of Live Oak Drive and Harbor Island began to gather in the divided median. They came to protect the two trees on the historic street that had not yet been “trimmed” by Duke’s contractor. The temp began to drop and the wind picked up and it was cold. Not long after, Ari Miller-Sisson was up the tree with Cobb. Up the street in front of Wrightsville Methodist, Duke and Asplundh vehicles gathered, workers milled, truck engines running.
The battle lines were drawn.
While fully vested in trying to avert disfigurement to the town’s heritage treescape, Mayor Bill Blair said Tuesday, “Duke is going to do what Duke is going to do.” On Wednesday he told me, “Do what you need to do.”
The initial Wrightsville tree “trimming” began well enough Tuesday morning on South Harbor Island’s Live Oak Drive; Blair and town manager Tim Owens had been in close contact for weeks with Duke’s representatives, including John Elliott, making the town’s wishes clear. Blair and Owens expressed some degree of confidence that the contractors understood the town’s appreciation of its heritage trees.
And to their credit, the live oak “trimming,” while serious, was done with some degree of restraint on the southern end of the median. But as the day waned, the subcontractor tore into one cluster of trees. When they had finished, the damage to the formerly heavily shaded divided median came close to making me cry. Cignotti called it the St. Patrick’s Day Massacre.
One trunk in a dual trunk had been completely cut away with a lateral cut, leaving what remained looking like trees you see in war zone pictures: stick trunks with few broken branches left, only a handful of leaves.
Asplundh and Duke quit work for the day before they got to the two northernmost trees on the median, both with full canopies. Early Wednesday they came back again to continue, but residents were having none of it.
Before long Owens arrived, followed by a police officer and then the chief. Mayor Blair, in Charlotte for a meeting, had the meeting cancelled and headed home.
Residents were resolute. They offered up a plan to pay a private contractor to properly trim the two remaining trees and let Duke come inspect to see if they were done to the power company’s specifications.
A spokesman for Duke declined. Phones and social media blew up all over town. State Reps. Ted Davis Jr., Rick Catlin, Susi Hamilton and Sen. Michael Lee were contacted, seeking help.
The crews departed but residents were told they would return. It was implied residents could be arrested if they continued to interfere.
While the residents’ offer to pony up the cost to trim the two remaining live oaks on their street would solve the immediate need, it does not deal with the bigger picture — Duke’s heavy hand with trees. The plan is to cut tree limbs and branches away from power lines and transformers on all the town’s streets, including the well treed South Harbor Island streets, plus North Channel, as well as the heritage live oaks on the Loop. The danger is great to the town’s beloved and unique beauty.
The broader issue is, why is Duke allowed to do whatever it wants in the name of maintenance, or generating electricity? From poisoning rivers and wells to mauling heritage trees, no one, it seems, has the power to stop Duke Energy or its subcontractors.
Holding the state in a tight-fisted grip, beholden to none, Duke enjoys an absolute monopoly.
How it is that one entity has so much control? Every other body, from towns to the state government, not to mention citizens, has absolutely no say in what Duke does, regardless of how grievous. When do we get to the tipping point when enough is enough?
