Dominion Energy Does Not Comply with the A300 Standard for Pruning Trees

     After extensive research and multiple interviews, it is clear that Dominion Energy does not comply with the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) ASC (Accredited Standards Committee) A300 Standards for pruning trees. These standards are easy to understand and it takes about an hour to read them. If you work through the document and then get a look at the disgraceful state in which crews hired by Dominion Energy leave trees, you'll naturally come to the same conclusion.

    Dominion Energy employees and the company's official website steadfastly claim that they comply with the ANSI standards. Yet they do not. And in nearly all the interviews conducted, it was discovered that the energy giant's employees and subcontractors overseeing and doing this work had never actually read the A300. Instead, the tree cutting crews have consistently and repeatedly been directed to adhere to the company's in-house contract. Furthermore, it also appears as if the Dominion Energy employees and contractors have been instructed to repeat the falsehood that Dominion complies with the pruning standards as described in detail in the ANSI A300 when they clearly do something different. The company is knowingly and willfully being dishonest.

An example of how Dominion Energy
hacked one tree in Summerville, SC 

    In one conversation with a company Vice President (Transmission and Delivery), the interviewer was underwhelmed to hear this leader cavalierly excuse Dominion's misrepresentations and lack of integrity. Like the snarky captain in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, this VP expressed his view that the A300 Standards are just "guidelines," rather than something Dominion crews would or even should actually be mindful of. For this Dominion executive, compliance appeared to be something of a joke, important to folks at the company headquarters, but not to him and his coworkers.

    Multiple letters to the Dominion Energy Chair, President, and CEO Mr. Robert M. Blue were written and sent to Richmond, Virginia last year when this matter first came to light. However, after fifteen months that correspondence has been seemingly ignored. 

    Finally, assurances to correct the Dominion Energy website have also be disregarded. The online statement about Dominion Energy complying with the A300 adherence was to be removed, yet as of this
posting it has remained unchanged and blatantly false. See Dom. Energy Trees, Trimming, and Power Lines. The Dominion statement on this website exemplifies the power monopoly's dishonesty.

    Saying one thing yet doing another appears to be integral within Dominion Energy's corporate culture. If they can't be trusted with easily manageable matters, like adhering to a basic document written plainly, how are we expected to have confidence in them on bigger, more difficult challenges.