The Great Winchester Street Tree Massacre

Dominion Virginia Power came through the neighborhood last week to conduct their once every 3-5 year tree massacre. Dominion is allowed, by right, to trim back trees that pose a threat to their overhead power lines. I have no issue with keeping trees trimmed in a manner that keeps uninterrupted electricity, phone and cable to the house.

What I find offensive is Dominion's careless and blatant mutilation. In the course of a couple of hours, the teams came through and hacked the living crap out of a number of trees; leaving us with the offensive and monstrous "V" shape on the interior. You know what I'm talking about. You have the main trunk of the tree and a couple of large limbs to either side, forming a deep, wide "V" where the lines pass through. There appears to be no care, logical or rational approach to the "pruning" by Dominion. Pruning...Sure, whatever you say Dominion. Come in, hack, expurgate, mutilate and destroy any aesthetically pleasing design to the tree and label it pruning.

I fired off an email to both the City and Dominion indicating my displeasure. I asked that someone come out and survey the work to see if it was done properly. The City sent their arborist and the "pruning" was given a thumbs up. It appears that not only do I have to endure the insult that the trees were properly pruned, I also have no choice but to accept the resulting visual disfigurement.

Why do they do this? It's simple really. Not only does Dominion not give a damn they don't want to be bothered with the trees in the neighborhood for another 5 years. It's all about profits. Why come through every couple of years and properly trim the trees and leave something beautiful to look at, when you can save a few bucks, cut up, deface and mangle them in one fell swoop and not have to worry about it for half a decade?

Dominion gets to beat their chests and exclaim they are doing their part to keep everyone on the grid, while residents are left with these mangled and bastardized eyesores of nature, courtesy of the planets most dangerous animal, the human biped.

In five years I think I'll just ask them to cut the damn thing down and put both the tree and myself out of our misery.