Trees are an important part of our community – helping beautify the neighborhoods we call home.

But did you know trees are the leading cause of power outages in the NSTAR service territory?

Every year, tree limbs, branches and roots come in contact with the more than 8,000 miles of distribution lines NSTAR maintains - damaging equipment and causing public safety hazards.

NSTAR’s Vegetation Management program is a thoughtful plan that balances the needs of our customers and communities. Our goal is to ensure safe, reliable electric service with minimal service interruptions while ensuring the proper growth of trees around power lines.

This program is run by certified NSTAR arborists and other professionals with vast experience in arboriculture. Trained contractors are also employed by NSTAR, some companies with decades of experience in New England.

NSTAR continuously monitors wires and equipment, and we periodically trim around the lines providing electric service to your neighborhood.

NSTAR also tracks performance of different parts of our infrastructure, making note and prioritizing tree trimming in areas that routinely experience outages due to trees.

When crews trim along a circuit, the scope of the trimming will be determined by the voltage of the distribution line and how frequent tree related outages occured.

Circuits with a higher voltage require larger clearances. And wires that have more frequent tree-related outages will also have larger clearances.

These clearances are based on national utility standards and standards set by government agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

NSTAR’s practices also meet the standards of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA), the American National Standard Institute (ANSI).

Please note, an online Tree Trimming Request Form is available if you'd like to notify NSTAR of a tree you believe may need trimming.