Earth and Space News: Integrated Vegetation Management of Plants in Utility Rights-of-Way

Summary: Randall H. Miller of PacifiCorp in Portland, Oregon, applies Integrated Vegetation Management of forbs, grasses, herbs and shrubs to rights-of-way.

Integrated vegetation management (IVM) identifies vegetation that is compatible with utility rights-of-way: utility right-of-way, Blue Mountain north slope, Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge, Monroe County, northeastern Pennsylvania; Sunday, Sep. 9, 2012, 15:55:37: Nicholas_T (Nicholas A. Tonelli), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Integrated vegetation management (IVM) acts as a "system of managing plant communities" that are incompatible with nearby utility rights-of-way, according to Integrated Vegetation Management in the June 2014 issue of Arborist News.

Randall H. Miller of PacifiCorp in Portland, Oregon, backs evaluating, selecting and using the IVM control methods that "best achieve management objectives at a particular site." Analysis, choice and implementation consider combined or single IVM control methods in terms of anticipated effectiveness, current land use, economics, environmental impact, security and site characteristics. For example, incompatible, non-managed vegetation sometimes damages utility facilities and does not promote accessibility, emergency service restoration, environmental and regulatory compliance, lines-of-sight, reliability, safety or security.

Management of incompatible vegetation and support for compatible vegetation entails the use of such IVM control methods as site-appropriate biological, chemical, cultural, manual or mechanical options.

The "management of vegetation by establishing and conserving compatible, stable plant communities using plant competition, animals, insects, or pathogens" fills IVM requirements for biological control methods.

Allelopathy gives certain cover-type, low-growing, tree-resistant grasses biological control over IVM-deemed incompatible vegetation through the release of chemicals that "suppress other plant species growing around them." Early successional, short-growing, stable, tree-resistant plant communities hold competitive advantages in cover-type conversion biological controls that sometimes have occasional, supplementary chemical, cultural, manual or mechanical inputs. Non-selectively clearing rights-of-way of undesirable trees to encourage long-dormant seed reservoirs of "compatible species to germinate" in open sunlight is deemed the "most desirable" biological control.

Integrated vegetation management justifies biological, ecological controls by birds, insects and mammals such as boxelder bugs, mourning doves and squirrels eating undesirable plant seeds and shoots.

Cultural control methods keep desirable plant communities inside, and undesirable vegetation outside, rights-of-way by kick-starting managed meadows, pastures and prairies from cultivated, fertilized, irrigated low-growing crops. They leave dense, gas-sensitive, low-growing native prairie forbs and grasses over right-of-way pipe zones and taller-growing counterparts over border zones without compromising pipe integrity and maintenance. Narrow paths directly over pipe zones periodically may be strip-mowed for pipeline maintenance and testing at "low economic and environmental costs" and without jeopardizing right-of-way wildlife.

Wire-border wire zones need grasses, herbs and shrubs under 3 feet (1 meter) and shrubs and trees under 25 feet (3 meters) in wire-border border zones. They operate as sections of utility transmission rights-of-way under wires and extending sideways to 60 percent of phase-to-phase spacing on the border sides of outside conductors.

Herbicides preferentially prevent "specific botanical biochemical" pathways from functioning and undesirable trees from re-sprouting or suckering in rights-of-way and prioritize minimal environmental, human and soil disturbance. Long-legged pants, long-sleeved shirts, shoes and socks qualify as common personal protective equipment for applying selectively broadleaved plant-selective individual stem treatments without damaging off-range, sensitive plants. Non-selectively applying herbicides that non-selectively repress broad-leaves and grasses results in threats of off-target drift during aerial treatments to compatible and incompatible vegetation during broadcast treatments. Tree growth regulators (LTGs) slow growth rates of "fast-growing species" most frequently in urban forests that resist cover-type conversions or mechanical removals and on distribution lines.

Master arborists, master gardeners, master naturalists and tree stewards tend toward biological, ecological controls for tackling ultimate Integrated Vegetation Management objectives: maintenance of desirable plant communities.

Integrated vegetation management (IVM) control methods aim for elimination of vegetation that vexes utility rights-of-way; control of kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata) in power line right-of-way: James H. Miller/USDA Forestry Service/Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to:
talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet;
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for superior on-campus and on-line resources.

Image credits:

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Miller, Randall H. June 2014. "Integrated Vegetation Management." Arborist News 23(3): 12-18.
Available @ http://viewer.epaperflip.com/Viewer.aspx?docid=eca77516-faa2-4516-a384-a33400b3c5dd#?page=26

Earth and Space News

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Integrated Vegetation Management of Plants in Utility Rights-of-Way

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