Making Pipelines and Powerlines Good for the Environment

Bay Journal admits Power, pipeline corridors are becoming wildlife habitat

No one particularly likes electric transmission lines and gas pipelines marching through communities and fragmenting forests. But some believe these linear strips collectively offer the last best hope for fostering fast-disappearing pollinator insects and grassland birds.

Spurred on by a more environmentally attuned public, as well as stockholders and the promise of saving money, more utilities and pipeline companies are grooming the tens of thousands of miles of rights of way in Chesapeake Bay drainage states to benefit wildlife and increase biodiversity.

The conventional practice of maintaining ground under power lines and over pipelines as close-cropped grass, with weeds controlled by mowing and heavy doses of herbicides, is getting an overhaul.

Federal law has long required controlling vegetation under power lines, and regulations were tightened further in 2003, after a widespread power failure in the northeastern U.S. and Canada — at least partly caused, investigators said, by improperly managed tree growth in rights of way. Gas pipeline rights of way must also have low-growing vegetation to keep an open line of sight for spotting gas leaks.

The easiest — and initially cheapest — method of complying with those laws is to mow and apply herbicides.

But now, a more environmentally friendly approach known as integrated vegetation management, or IVM, is taking root.

First, invasive trees and plants are removed by pulling them up or spot-spraying with a small amount of environmentally safe herbicides. This allows native plants to increase their foothold or clears the way for seeding meadow or prairie plant communities.

For electric transmission lines, plants in the so-called wire-zone must be kept low to the ground to avoid interfering with the power lines. But outside of that zone, native tall grasses, shrubs and small trees can offer different habitat.

Together, these types of vegetation provide food for pollinators such as bees and butterflies, egg-laying sites for ground-nesting birds, safe cover for insects and small mammals, basking spots for snakes, habitat for reptiles and amphibians, and a home for rare plants.

What’s more, with climate change, scientists say long, unimpeded corridors of vegetation are important for plants and animals that can only survive by migrating to cooler conditions. The strips can also help rare plant communities from being genetically isolated. They also allow wildlife to travel between otherwise disconnected landscapes, even if they aren’t migrating north.

“There are 60 million acres of rights of way in the United States. All of it has to be maintained, and all of it is potential pollinator and wildlife habitat. That’s bigger than the national parks system,” said Rick Johnstone, president of IVM Partners, a Delaware-based nonprofit that works with utilities and others to adopt IVM practices.
 
There are 19,647 miles of transmission line rights of way in Pennsylvania, 11,727 miles in Virginia and 4,047 miles in Maryland, according to PJM Interconnection. There are thousands more miles of pipeline corridors in the three states that could be valuable wildlife habitat.

The initiative is still in its infancy. Rights of way under mowing and spraying protocols far exceed those that have been converted to managed wildlife habitat, but the idea is gathering steam.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., an Exelon subsidiary, has installed native habitat on 2,800 acres in its service territory so far in central Maryland. The goal is to convert 400 acres a year from mowing to IVM through 2025.

The Maryland sites include Patuxent National Research Refuge in Laurel, South River Greenway Partnership in Davidsonville, Liberty Reservoir in Baltimore County, Flag Ponds in Calvert County, American Chestnut Land Trust in Prince Frederick, Morgan Run Natural Environment Area, Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, Patapsco State Park, Gunpowder Falls State Park and the Torrey C. Brown Trail.

The Flag Ponds site must be on the powerline right-of-way that runs through our neigborhood, the huge powerlines that take the power from the 4 Gigawatt Calvert Cliffs Nuclear from a couple miles south of us up to Baltimore, where it feeds the city and then the grid. 

At one revamped corridor in Anne Arundel County, researchers discovered 10 species of bees that had never been recorded in the county before.

“This conversion also improves the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay by improving water holding and filtration capacities and reduces our carbon footprint by reducing the need to use fossil fuel-powered tractors in mechanical mowing,” said BGE spokeswoman Stephanie Ann Weaver.

In 2023, the Maryland General Assembly helped advance IVM by passing a law that exempts power companies from local weed-height ordinances.