Santee Electric Cooperative Inc. members in the Georgetown, Hemingway and Carter's areas may have noticed a helicopter flying close to electric lines with a strange apparatus suspended near the tree line making a great deal of noise recently.

This helicopter has been performing mechanized trimming to the rights-of-way near SEC electric lines.

Following standard business practices, SEC uses a bid process to insure the contractor with the lowest price and best qualifications is used to maintain the rights-of-way along its 5,458 miles of line stretching across Florence, Clarendon, Georgetown and Williamsburg counties.

The tree trimming maintenance is done on a five year rotation as to keep any one area from growing out of control while others are being worked on.

This year, a large portion of the tree trimming went to Asplundh, a national company. A smaller portion of the tree trimming was awarded to a local company, Jimmy's Tree Service.

The mechanized trimming began on March 3 as a result of Asplundh subcontracting the service to another local company, Rotoblade, of Salters. Mechanized trimming can cut large areas of line more quickly and efficiently than traditional trimming. Typically, Asplundh is able to trim approximately 20-25 spans of primary lines a day. With the helicopter, they are averaging 80-100 spans of line a day. This more efficient method of trimming allows Asplundh to be more efficient which saves everyone involved money.