Cut, trim trees before storms

Friday, November 25, 2011

To the Editor:

PSNH and our town officials have the right to cut down trees alongside residential streets, which on deeds are listed as 50 feet wide, in addition to easements defined on deeds of five foot widths on private property that is facing the roads.

So instead of letting power lines run through an entanglement of tree branches which obviously cause power outages during snowstorms, why don’t the above officials coordinate a plan to cut down priority one situations that are obvious throughout Merrimack roads?

An example is at the corner of Naticook Road and Camp Sargent Road near the south end of Naticook Lake. It has a main branch power line running through tree branches, which supplies power to many houses north of that point.

Clear-cutting a 60 foot wide air space on every road is an impossible dream, but having a PSNH representative and town representative together drive through Merrimack and prioritize obvious failure points, then correct priority one situations first, is realistic.

Every outage puts our citizens at risk of injury or death, usually from generator fumes, and is especially hard on our senior citizens.

Other towns, like Hudson, across the Merrimack River, are known to do much better and have fewer outages. If Merrimack town officials don’t do a better job, some people will get the misapprehension that Merrimack’s standing as a bad place to live will increase, and home valuations will likely go down.

CHESTER SYMES

Merrimack