A group of neighbors in unincorporated Boulder County allege that Xcel Energy has wrongfully — and rudely — chopped down their trees, but the company says it was all in the name of precaution.

On Friday morning, Steve Iaconis, who lives in the 7500 block of Panorama Drive, on a hill that overlooks Boulder and sits just east of the city’s southern border, returned from the grocery store to find an Xcel-contracted tree removal service hacking away at a branch of a tree that sits on the edge of his property, roughly 30 feet from a giant transmission line that runs through the neighborhood.

Iaconis moved into the home 18 months ago and said he has taken care of every bit of vegetation that could be considered in the way of Xcel’s easement, which, by law, the company can maintain how it sees fit.

“And still, on a quarterly basis, they come out, come up to my door, take notes, ask whether they can come and clear the property further,” he said. “There’s nothing left here, and yet they still come back.

“So, when I came home from the grocery store at 8:15 this morning, I’ve got three trucks pulled up in front, a guy on a lift cutting my tree,” Iaconis said. “The fact that they’re still coming back, it’s flat-out harassment at this point, when they’ve come enough times to get an answer of ‘no’, and they’ve already been allowed to cut. Enough is enough, already.”

His next-door neighbors are equally vexed. Jon Hinebauch, who lives on the other side of the transmission line, a stone’s throw from Iaconis, also had a rude awakening Friday. A pine tree he and his wife planted 40 years ago, shortly after moving into the home, was chopped down entirely.

Hinebauch’s gripe revolves less, however, around the loss of a beloved bit of flora. He claimed that he and company representatives have spoken regularly over the years and that he has been assured several times that the pine, which was about 35 feet from any power line, was not an issue. He and his wife even paid an arborist hundreds of dollars to trim the top of the tree, just in case.

On Thursday, an employee of Brighton’s Wright Tree Service showed up on Xcel’s behalf and told Hinebauch the pine would have to be cut down. Hinebauch protested, and the deed was delayed until Friday morning, when Xcel vegetation management supervisor Nick Fox drove out to the property to further explain.

“After my wife and I talked with them for 45 minutes,” Hinebauch said, “telling them everything we’ve done to mitigate the growth of the tree, they come back with a team of seven or eight people, and they cut down the tree. I felt totally violated. My wife was in tears.

“We’ve done everything they’ve asked us to do. I think it’s bad PR on their part to alienate people who’ve been their customers for 40-some years, and they to be so heavy-handed.”

Xcel’s disaster mitigation policy

Fox was not available Friday for comment on the specific incidents on Panorama Drive, but the company did issue a statement via email, explaining its motive.

“While we know that removal of trees and other vegetation is not always popular with our customers,” the statement read, “the alternative is the possibility of serious damage to Xcel Energy equipment, and of long-term outages over a very wide area, lasting days or weeks, with impacts to hundreds of thousands of consumers.

“While the threat of loss of service may seem remote to most customers, it is a very real possibility.”

Xcel spokesman Mark Stutz pointed to the infamous Northeast blackout of 2003, in which 10 million people in Canada and 45 million people across eight U.S. states lost power. A probe into that incident revealed that a generating plant in a suburb of Cleveland failed due to high electrical demand, putting extra pressure on high-voltage lines that ultimately went out of service when they sagged and came in contact with overgrown trees.

The domino effect thereafter would eventually shut down about 100 power plants.

“That’s a situation,” Stutz said, “that was caused by not managing the trees next to the facilities.”

Unpleasant interactions

Patti Hoag, who lives across the street from Iaconis and Hinebauch, returned from a business trip Jan. 15 to find her family’s catalpa tree — which she believed, and had been assured, was not an interference to the power lines above — completely gone, save for the stump.

In its statement Friday, Xcel said that vegetation management takes place on Panorama Drive every two years, and that Hoag and all affected parties had been notified individually at home Jan. 5, but Hoag says she was never warned.

“Two or three years ago, somebody came by, and I said, ‘Look, my trees are not impeding any lines,'” she said. “That was the only time I’d ever seen them, heard from them, talked to them, anything.”

Hoag was miffed that, when she pressed an Xcel representative on why the company hacked the catalpa, she was reminded that the company can do what it pleases on the easement.

“He said, ‘I could take your little linden tree if I wanted to,'” she said.

Xcel did not comment on the tone of that interaction, nor of the less-than-pleasant experiences Iasconis and Hinebauch claimed they had, but the company did make clear that company ambassadors are supposed to be practiced in avoiding conflict.

“Our contractors and employees are trained to respect the situation and act appropriately with landowners at all times,” Xcel said. “If they feel threatened, or if the conversation is no longer respectful, courteous or productive, they will step away.”

Alex Burness: 303-473-1389, burnessa@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/alex_burness