ECOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND TRANSMISSION 



LINE RIGHTS-OF-WAY-A DECADE OF 



INNOVATION, ADJUSTMENT AND STRAIN 



Jeffrey A. Davis 



Perhaps the greatest disgrace of man's tenure on Earth has been his treatment of 

 the planet's green mantle, the plant cover that sustains all animal life. Modern man is 

 not solely responsible. This improvidence dates back some 10,000 years to the 

 agricultural revolution when Homo sapiens began planting and herding organisms 

 successfully enough that food surpluses allowed the concentration of societal wealth, 

 lessened mortality rates, and improved natality. From that time on the chopping, 

 burning, plowing, overgrazing and now over-spraying have resulted in the denuda- 

 tion, erosion, siltation, and biotic impoverishment that are well known to any 

 conservation historian. 



The idea that landscapes might have a mosaical covering of artificial, semi-natural, 

 and natural plant communities manipulated according to a science of Vegetation 

 Management to produce a balanced production of food, forage, timber, pure water, 

 wildlife habitat, and environmental amenities is relatively new. Paradoxically, the 

 concept is a creation of modern Technologic Man, the villain in so many tales of woe. 



This article will discuss the idealistic concept of Vegetation Management as it 

 applies to one particular domain of land, the nation's immense network of gas and 

 electric transmission line rights-of-way (ROW) which require vegetation control to 

 insure their efficient operation. In this survey, we will also see how ROW concerns 

 broadened dramatically in the 1970s, producing gratifying successes and disillusion- 

 ing failures. 



First, we need to ask: do utility ROWs warrant our worry? Are the issues 

 significant enough to justify involvement by ecologists? Assuredly yes, if one 

 considers the amount of land now devoted to this purpose. Recent estimates' put the 

 figure at some 5 million acres for lines 1 1 5 Kv (kilovolts) and above; and some project 

 the addition of about 7 million more ROW acres by the year 2000.^ No one knows 

 how much greater these figures would be if subtransmission lines (34.5 to 69 Kv), and 

 gas pipelines were added in. Perhaps we are talking about a total land area five or six 

 times the size of Connecticut. 



A CONCEPT OF ROW MANAGEMENT 



This article accentuates mainly mission-oriented research — research carried out in 

 hopes of improving management. The satisfactions and delights of purely intellectual 



The Author: Jeffrey A. Davis is a Research Fellow at Aton Forest, a privately endowed ecosystem research 

 station in NW Connecticut where he aspires to develop a"Biocommunity Science" integrating concepts from 

 the fields of Wildlife and Vegetation Science. He has served four years ( 1965-1969) as a game biologist for the 

 Ohio Division of Wildlife, and two years ( 1970-1972) as wildlife biologist for the National Audubon Society 

 in Millbrook, N.Y., and served seven years as senior terrestrial ecologist for the NYS Public Service 

 Commission (Office of Environmental Planning) in Albany. 



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