Herbicide
We continue to maintain our right-of-way obligations by targeted herbicide application. If you would like to opt out from herbicide application on property you own, please complete the form below. The opt out remains in effect for one year and must be renewed annually.
Areas Set for Herbicide in Summer 2023
BARC is committed to improving the quality of life in the communities it serves. Part of that mission is ensuring the cooperative provides safe, reliable, and affordable electricity to our electric member-consumers. When outages occur, you likely have seen lineworkers and field crews making repairs to restore power. BARC’s staff and contractors continually work to maintain power lines and Rights-of-Way (ROW) to assist in preventing prolonged outages on the cooperative’s electric system. In the situations when power outages occur, BARC is committed to restoring service as quickly as possible.
The greatest challenge your electric cooperative encounters as both the cause of outages and obstacle to make repairs is brush or woody plants within the Rights of Way (ROW). Tree and brush related outages account for a high percentage of the total outages experienced by BARC members, and typically these outages are longer in duration and account for over half of the total outage hours experienced by in any given year. Tree and brush related outages take longer to restore because trees cause much more damage to the electric system than a small animal or lightning strike. Fell trees tear down power lines and break power poles making it even more difficult to complete the repairs to restore service. Repairs on the electric system have additional costs from tree and brush related outages also, impacting the cooperative’s bottom line.
BARC is continuing an aggressive approach to ROW maintenance. The cooperative has contracted with Davey Resource Group (DRG) to manage all ROW efforts, including cutting and trimming and herbicide application. DRG also has a dedicated forester on staff who monitors all ROW areas on the BARC system and develops action plans to address vegetation growth before it becomes an issue.
This letter is to notify you that a BARC Electric contractor will be applying herbicide to BARC ROWs in your area over the summer months of June through August and possibly into the fall. This application is specifically utilized to target woody plants and is applied using backpack sprayers and ATV sprayers (with permission) with low volume applicators. The herbicide application process is not a wall to wall, kill everything application and its use is intended to reduce unwanted brush in the ROWs so that plants and grasses can grow to benefit the environment and reduce the number of power outages and their duration.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Sarah Hagan with DRG via email sarah.hagan@davey.com or by calling 800-846-2272.