The whine and buzz of chainsaws and wood chippers have been heard all summer throughout the Pine Grove Lakes neighborhood in Sloatsburg. Lewis Tree Service has been cutting trees back from power lines and clearing utility easements in the area, especially cutting trees along the woody Grove, a block square 1.5 acre area that serves as a commons and recreational spot for the neighborhood community.

The tree cutting work is part of an overall electrical service upgrade for Sloatsburg being done by Orange and Rockland, which provides gas and electricity services to residents throughout Rockland County, as well as delivers energy to some 300,000 customers in seven counties in New York, northern New Jersey and the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania.

As part of the service upgrade, O&R has announced that electrical service will be interrupted throughout the Pine Grove Lakes neighborhood Wednesday, August 15 — weather-permitting. The outage is schedule to begin Wednesday at approximately 9 a.m. and end at approximately 2 p.m. Electric service will be interrupted to about 300 customers. O&R has notified the customers by telephone of the scheduled outage.

The rain date for the work is Thursday, Aug. 16 at 9 a.m.

According to O&R spokesman Mike Donovan, Wednesday’s work is part of a larger $500,000 electric system reliability improvement project that began May 20 in Sloatsburg and is scheduled to end Sept. 30. The project features extensive tree-trimming, the replacement of 70 utility poles and the upgrade of approximately 8,000 feet of wire.

Thirau, an electrical services company and part of CVTech Group, will perform the new power upgrade work Wednesday. The electrical work throughout Pine Grove Lakes will continue afterward, with Thirau crew raising and upgrading individual transformers as they attach them to the new, higher power poles. Some of the work may involves crews requesting permission from area homeowners to work on the properties.

Individual homes and areas within Pine Grove Lakes may lose power during transformer and hardware transfers to the new poles.

Donovan said the O&R work should be completed by the end of September.

The tree cutting throughout the neighborhood by Lewis Tree has involved deep cutbacks along O&R utility easements, as well as cutting crews cutting back trees on private property. The cutbacks have caused some concern by residents.

Donovan said that O&R has a legal obligation under state PSC regulations to maintain its distribution and transmission rights-of-way.

“O&R is permitted to remove vegetation from its right-of-way to ensure the safe and reliable operation of the electric system,” Donovan said. “If private property tree removal is required, it is usually done in cooperation with the property owner.”

The Pine Grove Lakes Home Owners Association was advised of the area work and the planned cutbacks along utility easements, which haven’t been trimmed back in a number of years. O&R crews worked extensively in Pine Grove Lakes after last October’s Halloween snow storm, working on individual power lines damaged from fallen trees and branches in order to restore power to residents.

Donovan said interested residents could find an extensive discussion regarding utilities easement practices here at the O&R website under the Energy and Safty tab. The information details the process for both distribution and transmission vegetation maintenance, including illustrations of clearances required.

O&R has undergone an extensive analysis of electrical demand and use recently that has helped the company shape its overall maintenance/upgrade schedule, Donovan said, and the Sloatsburg work fits into that overall maintenance and upgrade schedule.