On the morning of July 7, Steven Kesten received a warning from a neighbor that a group of Pacific Gas and Electric-contracted tree workers were at the bottom of his driveway on Camino Margarita. His wife, Patricia Kesten, had approved the removal of three trees on their Nicasio property days before, so although they said they had been surprised by PG&E’s presence in the past, they weren’t this time. Out of caution, however, Mr. Kesten met with the workers, only to learn that they were preparing to remove not three trees, but 63.  

“I never approved 63 trees,” Ms. Kesten said. “My husband called the sheriff because the [contractor] was pretty adamant.”

The sheriff told workers from the company, AERI, to leave the property.

Ms. Kesten said she’s seen three subcontracted tree service companies along the road over the past year and a half, along with workers from multiple divisions of PG&E, conducting work akin to the overlapping power safety settings, enhanced vegetation management and undergrounding efforts taking place just below on Lucas Valley Road. She said it is unclear what each company does and why.

“I don’t have any clear understanding of who’s in charge, because there is not, to the best of my knowledge, a cohesive or coordinated point of information that we can go to and say, ‘Hey, so what’s the plan?’” Ms. Kesten said.

After the incident in July, the Kestens set up a meeting with Sam Talamantes, the pre-inspection manager at AERI, to dispute the removal of their trees and better understand the scope of the work. According to Ms. Kesten, Ms. Talamantes said in the meeting that she could not speak for other divisions or guarantee that others wouldn’t remove trees.

“We’re not opposed to what they’re doing necessarily, although I have to say the different divisions don’t seem to be cohesive or coordinated in their efforts,” Ms. Kesten said.

PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said it’s normal for the utility to have several different contractors, especially since they’ve ramped up vegetation management efforts.

“We’re seeing a lot of dead and dying trees this year, so there is a lot of tree work that needs to be done, more so than previous years,” Ms. Contreras said. “That might be why [homeowners are] seeing an increase in inspectors and tree work.”

PG&E conducts four types of vegetation management that could happen simultaneously: routine maintenance; work under the dead and dying tree mortality program, which happens twice a year; enhanced vegetation management, or E.V.M., work; and tree removal necessary for undergrounding. Ms. Contreras said they have a color-coding system under which different programs mark trees with a different color.

E.V.M., designed to prevent wildfires by removing dead, dying or hazardous trees that could fall on transmission lines, began on Camino Margarita in 2021. Marin and surrounding counties have seen significant debate over the program, which some say leads to the removal of trees that may not truly pose hazards. Some West Marin residents and natural resource managers have accused the utility of failing to consider the ecological importance of trees in riparian areas where they stabilize creek banks and provide habitat for endangered species like coho salmon.

On Camino Margarita, work came to a halt last month after several homeowners disputed the removal of their trees. But the utility has plans to bury 1.6 miles of line along the road, and Ms. Contreras said they are waiting to trim or remove trees to ensure there isn’t overlap between that effort and E.V.M. work. Some trees within areas where those projects overlap may still be removed, she said, depending on when the undergrounding starts.

“It takes several months to underground a mile and a half, as you can tell with the Lucas Valley Road project, and we’re in wildfire season,” Ms. Contreras said. “If we think a tree is an imminent hazard or if it is dead or dying, it will fail—it’s just a matter of when—so there might be some cases where, in the overlap of the undergrounding areas, we still might need to remove some trees.”

Residents along Camino Margarita take pride in the redwoods scattered along the road, some more than 400 years old. Some homeowners have observed federally threatened northern spotted owls, whose habitat includes redwood and bay laurel trees. In an email sent this summer, a PG&E biologist confirmed that the owls inhabited the area. Ms. Contreras said that PG&E would follow its bird management and habitat conservation plans, which are approved by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Across the street from the Kestens’ home, a cluster of seven gentle giants marks the entrance to the home of Tom James and Olga Schmidlin. Two of Mr. James’s redwoods, located three and a half feet away from a power pole that provides electricity solely to their home, are just shy of the four-foot clearance PG&E requires as a safe distance from lines. When Mr. James noticed the X’s on the trees, he removed the marks and set up a meeting with AERI. The company’s representative said that, due to their proximity to the pole, the trees had to be cut.

“They put in the pole too close to the redwood trees and now they tell me, therefore, they have to take down the redwood trees?” Mr. James said. “This doesn’t make sense.”

That day, Mr. James contacted PG&E and was told they’d investigate it, though they couldn’t guarantee that a different division wouldn’t cut them separately. Less than a week later, he received a phone call from an AERI representative who told him it didn’t matter what PG&E said: They were coming to remove the trees, with security in tow. Mr. James remained steadfast about keeping his redwoods.

“Rather than lose those old redwood trees which were here a long time before I was, I would rather have no power whatsoever,” he said. He added that PG&E already cut many trees in the neighborhood last fall as part of routine maintenance, leaving sections of forested roadway bare.

In June, Supervisor Dennis Rodoni sent a letter to PG&E to express frustration over the utility’s disjointed efforts on Lucas Valley Road that resulted in damage to newly laid roadway. After joining a neighborhood meeting to listen to residents’ concerns on July 11, he directed PG&E to halt E.V.M. work on Camino Margarita.

“There seems to be a lot of confusion about doing different things that meet the same goal,” Supervisor Rodoni said. “Because there has been a lack of communication, I felt that it was important that I request them to stop the work for now until we have a chance to understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.”

The supervisor said he is meeting with PG&E this week, and next month the utility will host an open forum for residents to ask questions.

Although many residents prefer that powerlines be buried, they’re worried about the impact that work could have on their steep and narrow road. Ms. Kesten and Mr. James said many of their neighbors share wells through water pipes that run beneath the pavement. And because Camino Margarita is a private road, they won’t enjoy the same monitoring and inspection a county road has during a large project. 

Residents emphasized that while they’re not naive to the threat of wildfire in Marin County, they need a clearer understanding of what’s going on.

“We do not want to burn down. We understand the problem,” Ms. Kesten said. “We just need to know: what’s the plan? How many divisions are there? Who’s sending out vegetation enhancement, and what does that mean exactly?”

 

This article was corrected on Aug. 3 to reflect that PG&E’s color coding system for marking trees is already in effect.