Keeping the lights on is often about so much more than maintaining the poles and powerlines themselves. It's about working with the unique landscape, community, and environment in each area.
Take the Los Ranchitos neighborhood tucked away in the forest off County Road 240 near Lemon Reservoir. Over the past five years, Los Ranchitos has experienced more vegetation-related power outages than any other neighborhood in our service territory: 25 outages caused by trees alone. Our last big winter brought additional challenges, with 15 outages resulting from snow unloading from trees and power lines, causing energized lines to contact neutral wires. To make matters worse, this area is also highly vulnerable to wildfires.
To address these issues, we launched a two-phase capital improvement project designed to significantly reduce outages and lower wildfire risk in the area.
Clearing a Path for Safety and Reliability
The first phase focused on clearing the electric right-of-way, removing 409 trees and trimming another 231 trees along 4.25 miles of line, roughly 10.3 acres of cleared space. This work ensures a 20-foot clearance zone (10 feet on either side of the line) to prevent vegetation from contacting power lines.
Los Ranchitos By the Numbers
- 4.25 miles of line cleared
- 10.3 acres of right-of-way opened (10 feet on each side of the line)
- 409 trees removed
- 231 trees trimmed
- 25 outages in 5 years due to vegetation
- 15 outages from "line slap" in the last major snow year
- $50,000 in grant funding
Reducing Snow-Related Outages
The second phase (currently underway) focuses on installing neutral standoff brackets on select poles throughout the subdivision. These brackets help keep energized lines and neutral wires separated when snow unloads, preventing the “line slaps” that have been the second leading cause of outages in the area.
Crucial Partnerships
Projects like this are only possible through cooperation and teamwork. We extend our thanks to Los Ranchitos members for their patience and support during right-of-way clearing, your cooperation helped crews complete the work safely and efficiently.
We also want to recognize the innovation of our GIS team and our GIS Services Specialist, Jackie, who developed a custom in-house vegetation management tool that streamlined planning and cut costs. This tool helps us track, prioritize, and manage vegetation work more effectively. According to estimates from our team, this innovation is expected to save the co-op approximately $150,000 over a three-year period.
Finally, this project was made possible in part through a $50,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources’ Strategic Wildfire Action Program (COSWAP), reinforcing the value of state and local partnerships in protecting our community.
Building on a Model of Success
The Los Ranchitos project represents more than just fixing a local problem, it's part of a broader effort to build resilience into our rural electrical system. As we continue to experience more extreme weather events, from fire risk in the summer to unpredictable winters, these infrastructure investments become even more critical.
This project not only improves safety and reliability for the Los Ranchitos neighborhood, but also showcases a model of community partnership and smart problem solving for the future.
Before and After
Compare a few images captured from above in April before work began and again in August after tree trimming work was completed.
