QUILCENE — The Jefferson County PUD agreed to pay a private property owner $62,500 in a settlement after its trenching killed an approximate 120-foot-tall fir tree and damaged others.
The settlement was signed Aug. 28. In addition, the PUD is responsible for clearing the fallen tree, removing the fiber optic cable, installed in the trench and fixing a damaged fence.
The trenching took place in August 2024, said property owner Eric Pratt, who lives in the Quilcene area.
“A month later, a huge fir tree fell down with a big slice right out of the side of it, about 3 or 4 feet away from the tree, Where all those structural roots failed,” Pratt said. “It was painfully obvious that this hasty decision, made by the PUD, and the work done by North Sky [Communications], led to the failure and the likely failure of several large conifers.”
The injured trees were all firs and cedars, Pratt said.
John Bornsworth, an arborist from Peninsula Environmental, later identified nine trees as probably injured. Bornsworth appraised the value of replacing the fallen tree at $14,440. He recommended monitoring the other at-risk trees annually for three years and appraised three significantly injured trees, which may require removal, at $35,330.
While the PUD settled with Pratt, North Sky Communications’ insurance paid $38,300 to the PUD for the damages, Broadband and Communication’s Director Will O’Donnell said. PUD insurance covered $27,500, he added.
The PUD is currently in the process of installing 200 miles of fiber optic cable — 100 miles underground — which will service 1,400 homes, passing by an additional 600 homes, which could access the infrastructure moving forward, O’Donnell said.
“Two hundred miles of fiber’s a lot of fiber going all over the place, down a lot of rural properties,” O’Donnell said.
The PUD has had hundreds of cases where trenching led to damages, everything from buried phone lines, to sprinklers, to a buried cable running to a greenhouse, that was only turned on in the winter, O’Donnell said.
“Customers have been very understanding,” he said. “Many of them were upset initially or upset when they find something months later, but the contractor, in every case, comes out immediately and repairs.”
In all other cases, contractors and their insurance have dealt with damages, O’Donnell said.
Pratt wanted to deal directly with the PUD, he added.
“We have hit tree roots before,” O’Donnell said. “Trees have come down. We’ve hit underground sprinkler lines, things like that.”
Pratt said he felt his concerns were dismissed. Leading up to the trenching, he reached out to the PUD on multiple occasions, expressing doubts about the PUD’s legal authority to use his property for the trenching.
The PUD holds utility easements on his deed, Pratt explained, but the easements specifically mention above-ground poles.
“There’s easements that give them the authority to have, as located and staked at the time of the easement, which is important, the ability to have, say, a single line of poles,” he said.
The easements do not mention buried lines, and it’s not clear that any location was staked for poles, Pratt said.
“They have to stick within the language of the easement,” Pratt said. “They can’t just install buried line if the easement says, ‘You have an overhead line.’”
Multiple easements crossing Pratt’s parcel cover utility ingress and egress, each with differing language, across the decades, O’Donnell said.
“We reviewed the easements internally and with legal counsel prior to construction,” O’Donnell wrote in an email.
PUD officials believed they were within their rights to trench in the location they did, based on their reading of the easements, O’Donnell said.
“Myself and multiple members of my team spoke with Mr. Pratt repeatedly about the project and the easements, but could not come to a common understanding,” he wrote.
O’Donnell said the PUD considered an alternative route through his property, suggested by Pratt, but ultimately decided to go with their originally planned route, because the alternative would have meant too much additional expense.
The cost of the cleanup and removal and the alternative route will come out of the fiber optic project’s fund.
“We’re looking at options for the fiber routing currently,” O’Donnell said. “We’re meeting with Pratt to talk to him about it [today].”
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
