Allison Geyer Emmet Street's locust trees after ATC's tree trimming.

Emmet Street resident Kerry Martin didn’t think much of it when he received a notice about a month ago that crews from American Transmission Co. would be trimming the trees on his block.

“We get notices for tree trimming all the time — we have two power lines nearby,” says Martin, who noticed the crews when he left for work Thursday morning. But when he returned, he was shocked to see that the trees hadn’t just been trimmed — they were gone.

“This is obviously very devastating,” Martin says. “I left from a block that had a whole canopy of shade trees, and I came home and they were 100% gone.”

Martin and other concerned neighbors posted their frustration on a neighborhood email list, with many frustrated that the notice from ATC was misleading. Marla Eddy, the city forester, told Martin that citizens had been properly notified and had been offered the chance to comment on ATC’s tree-trimming plans at a public hearing before the trimming took place. But since the notice didn’t specify that the trees would actually be removed, nobody went.

“No one in our neighborhood would argue against your need to trim trees. As such, there didn't seem to be any reason for us to attend the meeting,” Martin wrote in an email to Eddy. “Had the notice told us that they would be removing more than 10 trees (every single tree on the block), you better believe that the room would have been full.”

Isthmus could not reach Eddy for comment.

× Expand The notice sent to residents.

Madison Parks Division spokeswoman Ann Shea said in an email that ATC had received approval for a forestry permit in December from the city’s Habitat Stewardship Subcommittee She says the notice that went out to neighbors “was a standard notice” and that ATC was within its legal rights to remove the trees.

“Per state statute, utility companies may identify and take action to eliminate the hazard to the power line and make reasonable effort to notify the owner (or in this case, not the landowners but the neighbors as a courtesy),” Shea wrote.

“If the city did not approve a permit, ATC would have still had the legal authority to trim the trees in a manner that would essentially leave 20-foot stumps,” Shea’s email continued. “This would result in the city bearing the cost to remove the remaining tree. The cost of removing, grubbing the stumps, and replacing the trees would ultimately cost the City and its citizens thousands of additional dollars.”

The original notice stated the tree trimming was needed in order to replace poles and conductors on the high-voltage power line. The transmission project is a 3.35-mile re-wiring of a 69,000-volt transmission lines, ATC spokesperson Alissa Braatz said in an email. Removing the trees was necessary, because electricity from the transmission line can "jump" from the line to the trees, potentially igniting a fire or causing a power outage.

ATC will plant lower-growth trees, such as Korean Sun Pear or Pink Flair Cherry, as replacements along Emmet Street. But for neighbors, the saplings will be a poor substitute for the mature trees they had loved for years. One neighbor is even planning to hold a funeral service.

“The big thing is just this feeling of betrayal,” Martin says. “We feel really misled.”

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include comments from ATC.