Wood left behind by crews working to clear power lines belongs to the owners of the property on which the limbed and cut trees grow, according to the Central Maine Power Company.
Gail Rice, a CMP spokesperson, said crews hired by the company to cut wood for line clearance service generally chip any limbs less than three inches in diameter. Any limbs greater than three inches belong to the owner of the property on which the limbed tree grew, she said.
The power company hires a number of contractors to limb and cut trees for line clearance, among them are Asplundh, Lucas Tree Experts and ABC Professional Tree Services.
Property owners who do not want the left over wood can contact CMP (1-800-750-4000) and make arrangements for it to be hauled off. Rice said people often keep the leftover wood, for their stoves or for neighbors who could use it.
An Edgecomb resident recently confronted another Lincoln County resident over some wood that had been cut and left by a contracting company hired by Central Maine Power.
Joan Taylor said she had been collecting wood left behind by an Asplundh tree limbing crew and discovered someone had taken some wood off her property.
As Taylor described what happened on the Wednesday before Christmas, a neighbor had called her and said a man in a truck had been asking around if they minded he take the wood left behind. Her house, she said, is located back from the road and she did not see the man or the truck.
“People should know the wood belongs to them and should be asked,” she said.
After speaking with a neighbor and some deductive reasoning, Taylor found out where the person lived and drove down the road to Boothbay.
She said she went to his house on Christmas day, knocked on the door and asked for the wood to be returned if he had taken any.
The neighbors exchanged some words, after which Taylor wrote down the resident’s license plate number and called the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputy Peter Kenyon responded to the call. According to LCSO Major Ken Mason, the elderly man who Taylor confronted had asked other neighbors if he could gather wood along the roadside in front of their houses. Mason said the man, not seeing Taylor’s house and not making the connection the wood belonged to a residence, collected her wood, as well.
Taylor said her neighbor told the man to ask her permission. According to Mason the man returned the wood.
“Most of the time it ends up rotting,” Mason said, adding he thought the situation escalated unnecessarily.
