SUBCHAPTER 3.600 MAINTENANCE OF
ELECTRIC UTILITY RIGHTS OF WAY
3.610
ACCOUNTING
3.611 Separate
Accounts
Each company shall keep a separate account of all
expenses incurred in maintaining transmission or distribution rights
of way. The accounts shall be kept in such a way that the following
information can readily be extracted:
(A) Transmission maintenance costs
can be segregated from distribution maintenance costs and expressed
in dollars per brush-acre; transmission and distribution shall be
defined for these rules the same as for FERC Form 1
reporting.
(B) Estimates
of the average per acre costs for foliar, stem treatment, and hand
cutting, expressed in dollars per brush-acre.
This information shall be filed with the Board and
the Department of Public Service at the same time as the FERC Form 1
or the Department of Public Service annual report is filed.
3.612
Consistency
This rule shall not be construed to require the use
of accounts inconsistent with those mandated by any state or federal
regulatory body.
3.620 NOTICE
3.621 Personal Notification
(A) Persons owning or occupying
land lying within 1,000 feet of a utility right of way may request of
the utility, in writing, that they be notified individually by mail
during the year, but not less than 30 days before, any treatment of
the line with herbicides.
(B) The landowner or resident is
responsible for contacting the company, in writing before February
15, to request placement on the mailing list.
(C) The company may, as an
alternative, place all residents of a town in which herbicides are to
be used on its mailing list.
(D) The company may assure itself
that a requesting party meets the qualifications of paragraph A, and
may drop from its list a person determined not to meet those
qualifications.
(E) The
utility shall annually report to the Board and the Department of
Public Service the number of written inquiries received concerning
notification and the number of notifications actually sent.
(F) After each maintenance cycle
the utility may destroy its mailing list and begin anew; if it does
so, it shall include as part of its notice provided in subsection (A)
a coupon for the recipient to return for entry on the new
list.
(G) Inadvertent
failure to comply with this section shall not raise any presumption
of negligence in any civil action.
3.622 Information Sheet
(A) Each year the Vermont Electric
Power Company, Inc., (VELCO) shall prepare an information sheet
explaining, in neutral terms:
(1)
Methods of herbicide application used in Vermont.
(2) Types of rights of way which
are treated.
(3) A method
to identify the owner of a utility line by examining the poles or
other landmarks.
(4) How
to contact distribution utilities for further information.
(5) How to determine whether a
particular line is to be treated.
(6) The right to notice by mail as
set forth in Section 3.621 hereof.
(7) The right to alternative
treatment methods as set forth in Section 3.640 hereof.
(8) The address and telephone
numbers, including any toll-free numbers, of the Consumer Affairs
Division of the Department of Public Service and of the Plant
Industry Section of the Department of Agriculture.
(9) The duty of each landowner or
resident to make the utility aware of the location of a potentially
affected water supply, and of any other environmentally sensitive
area where herbicide application ought to be avoided.
(10) The fact that herbicide
applications may start as early as April 1, so that requests to
utilities for notice by mail must, unless waived by the utility, be
made by February 15 in order to be placed on the mailing
list.
(B) The
information sheet shall be submitted to the Board and the Department
of Public Service for review by November 1.
(C) The information sheet shall be
distributed in camera-ready form to the distribution utilities by
December 1 of each year.
(D) The distribution utilities
shall print and mail the information sheet to each of their
customers, either separately or as a bill stuffer, before February 1
of each year. If editorial comments are added by the utility, they
shall be separated from the information sheet content and identified
as such.
(E) If by
January 1 of any year a distribution utility files a certificate with
the Board and the Department of Public Service which states that no
herbicides will be used in that year within that utility's service
territory, either by that utility or by any other utility with rights
of way within that service territory, the provision of subsection (D)
above shall be waived for that year. The Board may require the
utility to substantiate its certification.
3.623 Published Notification
(A) VELCO shall also prepare
newspaper advertising containing the information required by Section
3.622 above.
(B) Once
each week for four weeks in January, the advertising shall be placed
in those newspapers listed in Appendix B of the Department of
Agriculture's Regulations for the Control of Pesticides, or any
successor list which is used for similar purposes.
3.624 Coupon; Costs
(A) The mailer required by Section
3.622 and the newspaper advertisements required by Section 3.623
shall each include a coupon for use by a person wishing to exercise
the notice privilege created by Section 3.621.
(B) VELCO shall bear the costs of
developing and distributing the information sheet to the distribution
utilities as required by Section 3.622 and of creating and causing to
be published the advertising required by Section
3.
623; provided, however, that VELCO shall be compensated by any other
transmission-only company doing business in Vermont, in the
proportion that such company's line mileage bears to the total
transmission line mileage in the State.
3.630 PLANS
3.631 Plan Required
Each utility, including VELCO, shall submit to the
Board and the Department a long-term vegetation management plan which
should include:
(A) A
general statement of policy and goals;
(B) Identification of a
biologically sound schedule to achieve long-term objectives,
including a specified time interval between original control and
subsequent scheduled control;
(C) Description and identification
of the species to be eliminated or controlled, versus the species to
be left, in various types of vegetative settings;
(D) List and description of
techniques and conditions under which given mechanical, chemical, and
other methods would normally be considered appropriate;
(E) Procedure for identifying,
evaluating, reporting, and responding to right of way maintenance
problems;
(F)
Establishment of clearance standards sought, based on voltage of
transmission line, and the part of the right of way to be controlled;
i.e., central strip, side strip, high visibility, other;
(G) Establishment of standards and
practices for:
(1)
Wetlands;
(2)
Wildlife;
(3) Erosion
control;
(4) Aesthetic
considerations;
(H) Establishment of right of way
inspection and monitoring standards including frequency of
inspection, manner of inspections, and criteria. Standards shall
relate to at least the following matters: heights of road-crossing
screens or ideal clearance levels, danger trees, evidence of
tree-conductor contact, species identification, conditions of
sensitive areas, notation of condition of specially or experimentally
treated areas;
(I)
Retention of records to coincide with maintenance cycle of the
company including right of way inspection dates, maintenance
schedules, and maintenance activities;
(J) Provisions for periodically
reviewing, evaluating, and revising the long-range plan, and the time
interval for such revisions;
(K) Provision to assure contractor
accountability in implementing the plan.
3.632 Exemption
If a utility believes that it should not be required
to have such a plan in place, or that only a brief summary is
required because its lines are located solely in urban or other clear
areas, it may file instead a request for exemption with the Board,
with a copy to the Department of Public Service.
3.633 Filing
Plans shall be filed with the Board and the
Department of Public Service.
3.634 Consistency
It shall be no objection to a plan that it includes
provisions to comply with the requirements of some other state or
federal agency.
3.640 ALTERNATIVES
3.641 Alternatives Provided
(A)
(1) When a landowner whose property
is traversed by a utility right of way, the maintenance of which is
governed by these regulations, requests of a company in writing that
it refrain from using herbicides in clearing the right of way, the
company shall initially offer to perform the work using stump
treatment or stem injection only. If the landowner accepts this level
of herbicide use, the company shall perform the maintenance work
using stump treatment or stem injection methods, free of charge to
the landowner. If the landowner refuses the use of any herbicide
whatsoever, the company shall be paid the rate determined in
subsection (B) below if the right of way is for transmission or
subtransmission line; but no payment shall be required if the right
of way is for distribution line.
(2) The landowner's written request
must be delivered to the company not less than 14 days before any
scheduled use of herbicides.
(3) The terms "stump treatment or
stem injection methods" shall, respectively, have the meanings
defined in the regulations of the Vermont Department of Agriculture,
that is, the placement of herbicide on the cut surface of a stump or
inside a wound made with a cutting tool.
(4) Payment required under this
subsection shall be made to the company not less than 7 days before
the scheduled use of herbicides.
(B) A landowner who elects not to
permit any herbicides under subsection (A) above shall pay a charge
of $ 30 toward the company's administrative costs. A separate charge
shall apply for each non-contiguous property with respect to which
the election is made; however, a farm or a non-corporate landowner
which is not a governmental entity shall not be required to pay more
than $ 120 to any one utility in any one year.
(C) The utility company shall
perform maintenance in the manner required under (A) or (B) above,
provided, however, that the company may require each landowner
requesting an alternative method to indicate the location and
boundaries of the portion of the right of way concerned. The company
may require the landowner or the landowner's agent to mark the
property in a distinctive fashion or to attend an on-site meeting
with designated maintenance personnel.
(D) For purposes of this Section
3.641, "landowner" shall include the owner of land which abuts a
distribution right of way located along a public highway.
(E) Each utility shall prepare and
send to the Board and the Department by June 15 of each year a
statement showing the number of persons who have made an initial
request under subsection (A) above, the number who have agreed to
stump treatment or stem injection methods, and the number who have
refused all use of herbicides.
The listing need only cover those rights of way which
are chemically treated during the year of submission.