PG&E and the City of Lafayette signed a Tree Cutting Agreement to cut-down 272 trees, 216 of which are "protected" by city ordinance. In many cases, these are large heritage oak or redwood trees residing peacefully on public and private properties of Lafayette. This tree destruction would create the single-largest impact on Lafayette's environment in its history.

PG&E has misrepresented the safety benefit of removing trees, which would only truly serve in making future maintenance and surveying more convenient. Along the Lafayette Trail, there is clearly no access problem to perform leak and excavation surveys. First responders don't want immediate access, they want PG&E to improve their gas shut-off response time. No tree has ever caused a transmission pipeline incident, so tree root interference is overstated. PG&E have state and federal regulations to safety management their pipelines, and no law requires tree removal.

The citizens of Lafayette respectfully demand the following:

• PG&E should immediate reclassify all trees from "unacceptable" to "monitor in place", as PG&E cannot prove any tree is an immediate safety concern.
• PG&E should continue the work of hydro testing and inline inspecting our 70 year old pipeline infrastructure to look for areas of corrosion. These sites should be excavated and coating repaired.
• PG&E should work with the Gas Safety Task Force to implement other safety mitigation measures: install remote-controlled shut-off valves, inspect pipeline coatings above ground, classify all high wildfire zones as HCA (hich consequence area), etc.

Lafayette's environment may be impacted for generations. For more information, see our site at: http://www.savelafayettetrees.org/

More information on pipeline safety work in Lafayette: http://www.pgesafetyconcerns.com/