Bob Allen is the Manager Vegetation Coordination, Strategy, and Innovation for Eversource. Bob wrote this article for the Spring 2024 UAA (Utility Arborist Association Newsline). In it he gives us the history of how the four Eversource arboretums were conceived and developed. The Eversource/UMass Utility Arboretum is one of the four. It opened in April 2017. This article is published with Bob's permission.
A Utility Arboretum Demonstrates How Species Grow And Co-Exist With Overhead Utilities
As a manager of vegetation management for New England’s largest utility, I dedicate a lot of my work to educational partnerships with arborists, municipalities, students, and the public about planting the right tree in the right place, as well as preparing for and combatting the natural threats to our trees – including disease, invasive insects and winds – that further contribute to these immutable forces of nature as the leading cause of power outages in our region. The windstorm that hit Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in early 2012 was especially devastating to the Urban Forestry Center (UFC), one of the Granite State’s crown jewels of arboriculture. A grove of mature spruce trees was blown down by the wind off the water and by the end of the storm, there was a jumbled mess of tops, limbs, and timber laying where majestic conifers once stood.
In the aftermath, a few individuals from the New Hampshire Community Forestry Advisory Council (CFAC) gathered on site to brainstorm about what we could do with this new clearing that opened a vista to the water from several vantage points. While this was a wonderful outcome in one sense, there was also a decided lack of trees – and this is a forestry center after all.
The session led to a few ideas, but one stood out with education at the heart of the UFC – a Utility Arboretum. Many utilities, universities, garden clubs and tree companies have always suggested “Right Tree, Right Place” and “Plan Before You Plant” when discussing tree planting – and a utility arboretum would enable the UFC to host a demonstration site to educate the public about species that can grow and co-exist with overhead utilities.
Experts Convene To Design the First Utility Arboretum in NH
At the next CFAC meeting, the idea was presented and unanimously approved – so we quickly got to work, bringing together a group of experts to get the idea off the ground. Along with AJ Dupere and Angie Hammond from the New Hampshire Division of Forests and Lands, I was fortunate to help spearhead this effort with a talented group of stakeholders including from Asplundh Tree, the United States Forest Service (USFS), and Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH, a predecessor company of Eversource) to develop the plan for the first Utility Arboretum in New Hampshire.
We secured funding to purchase trees and mulch, the PSNH line department created a design and provided materials, Asplundh Tree provided equipment and labor, and the USFS provided administrative support while New Hampshire Forest and Lands personnel prepped the site, supplying labor and equipment. Thanks to the collaboration, a two-pole line including de-energized primary and secondary wires was built, a dozen low-growing trees were planted and signage was installed where the Eversource Utility Arboretum now abuts the center’s parking lot – allowing great access for folks interested in learning more about planting trees at this popular destination.
Eversource Merger And Expansion Into MA
The following year, after a merger between Northeast Utilities and NStar led to the company that would become Eversource, our three-state vegetation management team held our first “all-hands” meeting there – successfully enabling us to come together quickly as a team with our shared love for trees and representing our director Vera Admore-Sakyi’s clear message about the role of vegetation management in our new company. Vera was so impressed with the Utility Arboretum and the communal story of how it came together, she empowered me to build arboreta in Massachusetts and in Connecticut – helping lead to my role with the new company expanding beyond New Hampshire with responsibilities in Massachusetts shortly thereafter as well.
The Emergence Of The Eversource/UMass Utility Arboretum
We then began working with several tree wardens in Massachusetts to find an ideal site for the next Utility Arboretum. As it turned out, there was land available at UMass Amherst in an area of campus known as the Agricultural Learning Center (ALC). Working with Dr. Dennis Ryan, Dr. Brian Kane, Professor Mike Davidsohn, and UMass Head of Grounds Todd Cournoyer, we were able to secure a site located within the ALC that was perfect. Preeminent horticulturist and author of several books including the monumental Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, Dr. Michael A. Dirr – whom I had met previously on a tree walk at UMass and corresponded with about utility arboriculture and underutilized tree species in the landscape – also later met us at the proposed site for a very productive discussion.
The site for the Utility Arboretum was next to a gravel road that was mostly used as a path for jogging, biking and dog-walking with approximately 1,200 linear feet of roadside planting space available but would require significant site work prior to drawing up plans for the pole placements and the plantings as the area had not been maintained regularly. There was poison ivy, bittersweet, sumac, and various brambles and briars that needed to be cleaned up, and during the brush cutting we also uncovered stones, stumps and other detritus.
Eversource Vegetation Management Contractors From Asplundh Tree, Northern Tree, And Distinctive Tree, Work Hand-In-Hand With The UMass Amherst Grounds Crew
Eversource Vegetation Management contractors from Asplundh Tree, Northern Tree, and Distinctive Tree worked hand-in-hand with the UMass grounds crews to clear the area, and we were happy to eliminate invasive species and reclaim the natural landscape – which took about a week of work for a bucket truck, a brush mower, and a skid steer. We were then able to bring in an Eversource engineer to design the pole line, which included input from our arborists, UMass professors and their Head of Grounds, along with Eversource field training personnel. The final design included seven 40-foot poles, 1,000 feet of primary wire in several different configurations at the pole tops, individual transformers and cluster mount transformers, secondary line, appropriate guying, and a pad-mounted transformer.
Poles, Wire, Transformers, And Guying From Eversource Training Yard Reused
With 100% buy-in from Eversource Chief Operating Officer Werner Schweiger, we were able to get the material and equipment needed for the project. Due to very precipitous timing, Eversource was tearing down the old training yard and building a new one – meaning there was material available, including the poles, wire, transformers, and guying needed for the arboretum. Our Vice President responsible for vegetation management at the time, Steve Driscoll, also had training under his purview and we were able to quickly transfer everything from Berlin, Connecticut, to the UMass Amherst campus.
Lineworker Apprentices Gain Higher Education Experience Building The Arboretum
The training group also had a class of lineworker apprentices that had progressed enough in their craft that they were able to work aloft on de-energized lines, so the apprentices built the pole line while gaining valuable experience that otherwise would not have been in their curriculum. With the continuing holistic focus on education through our burgeoning utility arboreta initiative, this was nice symmetry – we were constructing a demonstration site on the campus of a first-class university, whose students, professors, and landscape crew also partook in the construction by planting trees and shrubs. When completed, this project featured more than 50 trees and shrubs, becoming a world-class demonstration site that we have used for training, contractor “safety days”, as an outdoor classroom, and for Earth and Arbor Day celebrations. The fact that this pole line is not energized allows for unique training and safety demonstrations, and we also left four mature trees in the wire zone for students to learn about working within proximity to overhead electric lines. Training at this site has increased every year since it was built, and our next safety and training session is scheduled for June, when several crews will show examples of pruning and rigging on these mature trees. The UMass landscape team has been an excellent partner, still regularly maintaining the Utility Arboretum amongst the huge, beautiful campus that more than 20,000 students use.
The Hooksett NH Utility Arboretum
Back in New Hampshire, our vegetation team was transferred from Manchester to a neighboring town, Hooksett, a few years ago. This new location was like a blank canvas for us, and there was already an energized off-road line that ran parallel to the access road to our office facility while feeding the operations of a large manufacturing firm nearby. As it was being maintained at the time by brush mowing of the right-of-way floor and side-trimming of the wooded edge, we asked for and received permission to use the line as another demonstration site and Utility Arboretum in New Hampshire.
Unlike our original arboretum at the UFC in Portsmouth, this property was over 600 linear-feet-long and 50 feet from the access road – offering a uniquely exciting opportunity as a great location for us to showcase the trees that we believe can co-exist with overhead lines their entire life. The soil was mostly sandy, so we tilled in several loads of a more robust planting mix. We selected more than 60 trees to plant there, then built a path that our employees could use to stay active, “get their steps in” and take refreshing mental breaks. The other benefit of the path is that it is easy for community groups, garden clubs, classrooms, and tree companies to partake in guided walks. Working with several of our contractors who donated labor, equipment, material, trees, large rocks, and benches, this became the only one of our four Utility Arboreta that has energized lines. While this limits the amount of training that can be scheduled at the site, it is the most accessible for the general public of the four and there is plenty of parking, the path is flat, and the site is bordered by a pond and woodland, adding to the park-like feel of this arboretum. As with the UMass site, there are also multiple signs explaining the reasons behind the creation of these outdoor classrooms.
Educational Partnerships
Recognizing the benefit of our educational partnerships with arborists, municipalities, students, and the public, the New England Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (NEC-ISA) bestowed in October 2021 its prestigious Gold Leaf Award to Eversource Vegetation Management for our commitment to improving the landscape by the construction of these arboreta. Additionally, our “30 under 30” poster that we developed as an informational resource for our customers and partners throughout our communities was given high marks and was readily accepted by the tree and landscape communities as a forward-thinking guidance document. The NEC-ISA held their annual conference for 2021 in Manchester, and a tour of the Eversource Hooksett Utility Arboretum was a part of the agenda. More than 20 arborists attended the tour and were able to ask questions regarding species that were planted at the site and where they were sourced from.
Eversource leadership attended the conference and accepted the award, and when touring the Hooksett site, they were so impressed with the design, I was asked to reboot the arboretum that was under construction at Eversource headquarters in Berlin, Connecticut. I was happy to help on completing this site, which is located directly across from our new training yard – greatly enhancing foot traffic. The site isn’t flat or well-drained but does receive several hours of sun, which helped us to select the species that we planted there. There is a wildflower meadow that is constantly visited by birds, bees, and moths, a natural complement to the “Pollinator Roadmap” that we created at Eversource to highlight various plants and their pollinators. This trifold opens out to a small poster and has been very popular with our municipalities, nurseries, garden centers, and schools.
Four Utility Arboreta Established
With 36-plus years in Utility Arboriculture, I have been involved in many projects and worked through several major storms. There is much good work and many ideas for improvements that came out of those long hours.
But what I am most proud of is the creation of these four Utility Arboreta – especially the public and private partnerships that needed to happen to make them a success, the backing of our senior leadership to create them, the involvement of folks within the tree and landscape communities, and the work that was performed by our contractors and arborists. The collective effort and willpower from all these partners led to making these demonstration sites a success that will instruct and provide research opportunities for decades to come. It also underscores our shared commitment to public education and safety while affirming a fundamental aspect of life for all people: our trees are integral to who we are and essential to life on our planet. We must nourish, cherish and co-exist with these wonderfully beautiful natural resources.
Contact
Bob Allen
EVERSOURCE
Vegetation Management Manager Vegetation Coordination, Strategy, and Innovation
robert.allen@eversource.com