Sometimes the Little Guy Wins

Years ago Jill and I had the notion to begin planting trees on our side of the county highway to contribute to a quarter mile of roadside beautification.  But not before I spoke with a mucky-muck guy at the power company about any plans to move the utility poles from the south side of the highway (where they are) to the north side of the highway where we are.  I explained to this guy that the last thing in the world I wanted was to plant a bunch of trees only to have the utility poles moved and the power company shear my trees in the weird fashion they are wont to do.  The power company assured me there were no plans to move the poles.

So we planted all manner of trees that look absolutely beautiful today and spent a few thousand dollars to bring the electric utility to our side of the road by tunneling beneath the roadway so as to have everything buried underground.  No ugly utility poles and overhead lines in our yard.

Wouldn't you know it - after all the planting and thousands of dollars of tunneling we were notified that the power company was going to upgrade the power lines and move the utility to our side of the road.  

Whoa!

I got on the line and spoke with any number of power company engineers gradually moving up the food chain to eventually land with some executive types where I politely explained that a considerable amount of time, labor and money was spent as a consequence of assurances that the utility would remain on the south side of the county road.  I had notes, dates and emails to back-up the chronology of those discussions.  I explained that if they wanted to move the utility they would have to reimburse me for the time, labor, money, nursery stock, underground buried line, etc. I also pointed-out that leaving the utility on the south side would save considerable money in relocation costs and all sorts of money in tree trimming - namely because if they made a casual observation there are thousands more trees on the north side of the extended length of county road versus the south side of the highway.

In the end they saw the wisdom of this layperson's explanation and upgraded the power line and replaced the poles leaving everything where it is - on the south side of the road.

I felt like how Old Testament David must have felt after slaying Goliath. Whew.


And this is basically why.  With all due respect to my handful of friends that work for the power company I had to share this.....