If you live outside the City of Wilmington limits, you may have a Wilmington address but not be in city limits, such as Ogden, porters Neck, Murraysville.  Other areas such as Wrightsville, Kure, Carolina beaches, Wrightsboro, and  Castle Hayne , would find themselves affected by the benefit of this petition.

 As it stands, New Hanover County has in place a tree retention law,  but it is not enforced outside of city limits.  It is also dated, so any right-of-way which exists prior to these laws Duke Energy  claims to be grandfathered out of this law.  Duke Energy has been neglecting maintenance and responsibility of the power lines that they have current right-of-ways.  They should be annually inspecting and identifying any dangers and hazards on the lines they are responsible for, which would identify and include any trees approaching height hazzards.  They are not held accountable by anyone to uphold any standards including,  New Hanover County Land & Use, County Commissioners, Agriculture Commissions,  North Carolina Wildlife,  Utility Commissioners and New Hanover County Sheriff’s.  

This petition is to ask the New Hanover County to add an additional amendment to the existing law to include any pre-dated right-of-ways to be included into the current laws.  The importance of this is to maintain the integrity of the root systems that the buffer trees around your neighborhoods that provide for the consumption of water and carbon,  to provide shade and lower environmental temperatures and house local wildlife.  Each mature tree (like pines and oaks) will consume 650 gallons of water, filter contaminants from the soil and provide a root system twice as wide as the tree is long, which keep your homes and yards higher.  Under the tree prevention law, Duke Energy would still be able to remove danger trees,  maintain limbs but if they remove vital trees, they would be responsible for replacing the trees with equivalent trees.

 It would also be requested to commissioners to regulate the time of year that trees could be cut and removed.  From spring to fall multiple species of animals and birds utilize the trees for their nests.  Some birds, such as cardinals our state bird, utilize the same nest multiple times a season.  They are called clutches.  If a bird comes back to its clutch and the tree and nest have been destroyed they will not return again.  There are also small animals and birds in the nest when Duke Energy destroys the tree, hence killing the wildlife, usually crushing the juvenile animals to death.

This petition will also ask that Duke Energy not spray any form of herbicide or poison with 25 feet from a residential yard, park, school and church without prior approval, allowing homes and families to decide individually if they want to remain organic or avoid health risks.

 Lastly,  Duke Energy obtained right-of-ways to the  power-lines (most in the 60’s) many that include verbiage such as “cut, maintain and in rare occasions removal of trees 50 feet from center of power-line and if needed trees past the 50 feet”.  In many cases that “past 50 feet” is your yard,  and those trees are your personal property, and nobody should have the right to sell your property without your permission.  This petition is requesting updated right-of-ways that more adequately represent the growth of the area and remove such general and encroachment verbiage.  Giving property owners the right to their property back allowing the homeowner the right to negotiate terms of any tree removal with Duke Energy.  

I have had representatives from Duke Energy say things like “We’re Duke, we can do anything we want.”, “We don’t have to watch for any nests other than Eagles.”, “These trees don’t do anything for the animals or environment.”.  It’s time we utilize our combined voices to demand New Hanover County Commissioners to hold Duke Energy accountable for the flooding and damage they are doing.  Remember next time you see additional fees on your energy bill,  that the heat is caused by lack of trees providing shade and increasing your energy bill,  those weird fees that are paying for the tree removal and spraying.  Please sign this petition as there is power in numbers.