Bushies say energy bill would have addressed 2003 Blackout . . .

[BaliBabyDoc]

must be the hidden . . . tree trimming provision

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Shoddy tree-trimming around major power lines by Ohio utility FirstEnergy Corp. led to the failure of three key transmission lines and was the root cause of August's massive power outage, U.S. and Canadian blackout investigators said on Wednesday.

Industry experts say this is not the first time that trees have caused problems, pointing to widespread West Coast outages in August 1996 triggered by one offending tree that took out the entire grid.

 

[SViscusi]

Do these people not see the utter stupidity and short sightedness of this? Wouldn't it be more beneficial in the long term to make sure we have power grids that can't be taken down by a tree?

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
must be the hidden . . . tree trimming provision

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Shoddy tree-trimming around major power lines by Ohio utility FirstEnergy Corp. led to the failure of three key transmission lines and was the root cause of August's massive power outage, U.S. and Canadian blackout investigators said on Wednesday.

Industry experts say this is not the first time that trees have caused problems, pointing to widespread West Coast outages in August 1996 triggered by one offending tree that took out the entire grid.

That was the first of many failures.

 

[DealMonkey]

Trees ... nature's way of being a pain in the ass.