The Metro Nashville Council on Tuesday passed a resolution urging the Nashville Electric Service (NES) to place a “moratorium” on its new tree trimming strategy, citing a series of concerns about cutting the city’s “tree canopy,” just months after Winter Storm Fern caused the largest outage in the history of the publicly owned utility, with about half of its 470,000 customers without power during the peak.
Introduced with the support of 15 members of the Metro Council, the resolution urges ” Nashville Electric Service and the Electric Power Board to implement a temporary moratorium on recently announced vegetation management changes.”
The resolution declares Nashville’s tree canopy a “utility.” According to the resolution, the canopy “improves ambient air quality, absorbs and filters stormwater, mitigates the heat island and greenhouse effects, provides habitat for wildlife, supports public health, provides economic benefits, and increases the quality of life for Nashville’s residents.”
After the storm, NES CEO Teresa Broyles-Aplin said the utility was “planning on moving forward with a more aggressive tree trimming approach,” and in the interim version of the third-party report recently commissioned by NES, analysts noted the company engaged in extensive tree trimming immediately after the storm.
Asked about the new practices it adopted after Winter Storm Fern, a spokesman for NES told The Tennessee Star on Wednesday that the company remains “committed to service reliability and customer transparency.”
The spokesman indicated to The Star that NES does not plan to make further changes this year.
“Our team of arborists will continue the current trim cycle, periodically review the reliability data around trimmed corridors, and work directly with any customers who have questions or concerns,” said the NES spokesman. “NES maintains standards consistent with the use of lateral pruning, a professional standard endorsed by the International Society of Arboriculture and the Arbor Day Foundation.”
NES also noted that its tree trimming regime was, “independently validated by PA Consulting, the team in charge of the Electric Power Board’s independent after-action review of Winter Storm Fern.”
The changes to its vegetation management practices adopted this year, and the push by the Metro Council to pause its changes, notably comes after the company in 2024 cut $7 million from its tree trimming spending, according to its annual report. It also came months after Broyles-Aplin appeared on NewsChannel 5 to explain the company’s stance on trimming.
“We care about the canopy. We have to live here too,” said Broyles-Aplin. “I don’t want us out destroying the canopy.”
Leaders in the Tennessee General Assembly initially expressed interest in changing the NES governance immediately after the storm, when calls erupted for Broyles-Aplin to resign, but later indicated that any decision regarding the publicly owned utility would come after Metro’s response to the storm.
NES in February announced $5.3 million in spending for Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to determine which trees needed attention.
Watch the full Metro Council meeting:
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Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Nashville Electric Service” by Nashville Electric Service.
If the canopy can be preserved while insuring less power outages during future such storms then thats great. Otherwise, crap on the canopy.
I posted about this right after the storm. I said that the same people who demanded tree trimming would be the same ones crying about the trees when they start trimming.
Los Angeles has 15 members on its council. Nasville has 40. Too many chiefs
First thing I agree with that Nashville Council has done. The level of removing trees for new development and overly trimming is ridiculous around here. Spend the money instead and put the overhead lines underground. Stop destroying the canopy which takes decades to hundreds of years to recover.
That is hilarious. I wondered how long it would take for homeowners with trees to close to power lines to protest when they started the trimming trees in their yard. You can’t have it both ways folks. If you want less outages you can’t have trees and limbs that could fall on the lines. Yes, the trees are beautiful but you just can’t have them near power lines. If their was a better way to solve this problem it would have been done years ago.
Waste of 5.3million dollars. Way to go.
What an amazing bunch of city leaders. trim the friggin trees and keep the power on.