Barberton, Ohio – The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio announced on Aug. 28 that trees and animal contact caused most of the electrical outages in and around Barberton over the past two years.

PUCO launched an investigation after a series of outages this spring disrupted both residents and businesses in the city. These outages prompted a letter from Barberton Mayor William Judge and the City Council urging the commission to identify the cause.

In a letter to FirstEnergy President Terrence Hinton, signed by PUCO’s Director of the Service Monitoring and Enforcement Department Donald Leming, the agency summarized its findings and urged FirstEnergy to increase the frequency of its tree-trimming efforts.

“Our investigation reveals that, during the past two years, on- and off-corridor trees caused roughly one-third of the outages impacting sub-circuits in and around Barberton,” Leming said in the letter. “Of the remaining outages, almost half were caused by animal and bird contact with facilities. The presence of nearby on- and off-corridor trees may have contributed to the presence of animals and birds near the facilities.”

Trees Blamed for Substation Outages

The PUCO investigation found that tree-trimming scheduled for completion this year at 11 sub-circuits had been postponed to the first quarter of next year.

“Of these sub-circuits, Camp Harding, Portage Lakes Robinson, Tusc (Barberton), Tusc Kellogg and Tusc Romig had significant numbers of outages over the past year as a result of on- and off-corridor trees,” the PUCO letter said.

The investigation also identified five other sub-circuits in and around the city where tree-trimming is not scheduled until 2027 or 2028.

“PUCO staff recommends implementing a program within the city of Barberton to identify and remove high-risk off-corridor trees associated with these five sub-circuits,” the letter stated.

The Beacon Journal reached out to FirstEnergy for comment on Aug. 29.

PUCO Awaits FirstEnergy Response

Matt Schilling, PUCO’s public affairs director, said on Aug. 28 that the agency has requested FirstEnergy’s response to its recommendations by Sept. 12.

“We’ll see where it goes from there,” he said. “We’ll have to evaluate that and determine what the next step is.”

PUCO is also asking FirstEnergy for a timeline to complete maintenance at the 11 sub-circuits, revise current maintenance plans, and address off-corridor trees.