William Crooks
Charles Davies stands beside the brush and stumps left behind after Hydro-Québec and Bell cleared trees under the power lines on his property in Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley

Local man says Hydro clean-up left his land unusable

By William Crooks

Local Journalism Initiative

A Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley resident says his land has been left in a state of disrepair following a vegetation management operation carried out last fall by Hydro-Québec and Bell. Charles Davies, who owns seven acres overlooking Lake Massawippi, claims that stumps and branches left behind after the utility companies cut trees near the power lines now prevent him from maintaining the property he’s looked after for five decades.

“I’ve been maintaining this for 50 years, mowing the grass and looking after it,” Davies told The Record. “It’s such a mess now that I won’t be able to maintain it. The stumps and branches are still there.”

Davies explained that in the past, large trees growing under the power lines had caused power failures due to falling branches. Hydro-Québec and Bell, in response, cut down the trees last fall but left most of the wood behind. A local sawmill, through an arrangement with Davies’s neighbour Henri Guérin, retrieved logs from Guérin’s property. According to Hydro-Québec spokesperson Sébastien Martineau on April 7, Guérin had also offered to have the sawmill remove logs from Davies’s land.

Martineau says Davies refused the offer. “He chose not to participate in the agreement to send his logs to the mill,” he said. Because of that, commercially valuable wood—defined by Hydro-Québec as anything over 10 centimetres in diameter—was left on Davies’s land, as is standard policy across Quebec. Davies himself said he never had a problem with the removal of the logs as planned. When The Record visited Davies’ property for a photo on April 4, the logs were gone.

For branches and smaller debris, Martineau said Hydro-Québec only provides removal services in residential neighbourhoods. “Everywhere else, the branches are left in piles on the property,” he explained. “It’s the landowner’s responsibility to remove them if they want.”

Davies says while some of the debris was partially shredded, the remaining brush and stumps make the terrain impossible to mow.

Martineau emphasized that Hydro-Québec’s decisions are shaped by cost and service priorities. “Collecting branches everywhere in Quebec would be very expensive, and we’d rather focus our resources on cutting and pruning to prevent outages,” he said. The same contractors are responsible for both clearing vegetation and removing debris, so prioritizing debris collection would reduce the number of trees the company can manage elsewhere, he explained.

He added that leaving branches on the ground benefits the ecosystem by enriching the soil, helping control erosion, and providing wildlife habitat.

Martineau followed up after his interview to clarify the broader context, noting that 11,500 km of power lines underwent vegetation management in 2024 alone. He also stressed that no other complaints had been received about the specific clean-up work in Davies’s area and expressed concern about being misrepresented.

“Some found we cut too much,” Martineau admitted. “But in this case, we haven’t had other complaints about how the debris was handled.”

Davies, however, remains unsure of what to do next. “There’s no way I’ll be able to maintain the grass,” he said. “It’s going to be a mess for years to come.”