To fell or not to fell.

The Jefferson County Public Utility District is considering that question and the factors surrounding a 9.9-acre parcel of land on Beaver Valley Road northwest of Port Ludlow.

With the potential for some of the trees to topple on the PUD-owned property and cause a power outage — as well as prior theft events at the Port Ludlow substation — the utility authority’s board of commissioners is weighing the pros and cons of chopping down the trees and selling the timber for further revenue.

The big drawbacks to the chainsaw solution are the fluctuating prices for timber currently, possible complications with Jefferson County regarding rules and regulations around clear cutting, a chance the task could turn from net-positive to net-negative financially, and the potential for invasive plant species to take over the land parcel if the trees are cleared out.

While the board has unanimously approved a motion to apply for a forest practice application through the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, the commissioners added an amendment to reach out to the county before cutting anything down.

An official decision has yet to be made on whether or not the utility authority will follow through with the plan.

The site contains cedar, Douglas fir, alder, and maple trees.

“What we’re asking for here is a motion to move forward with a potential sell; the 9.9 acres of timber,” said Scott Bancroft, operations director for the PUD, during their mid-January meeting.

“Mainly what it’ll do at this point is put money into the budget that we don’t have now,” he added.

The decision to cut would not only provide revenue for the utility authority, but also address security concerns raised at an earlier date.

“While we were out doing some work there on that transformer that night, we noticed some potential security issues with that site,” Bancroft said.

The site has been subject to previous theft attempts in the past, and utility officials hope that removing the tree cover near Beaver Valley Road will make the land easier to monitor, according to the PUD.

“You don’t have so much cover if you remove some of those trees,” Bancroft said.

While the board agreed the timber sale could be an appreciated revenue boost, Commissioner Jeff Randall brought concerns of due diligence with permitting and checking with Jefferson County.

“Before we clear cut, I think — like any other property owner — we have to touch base with the county, because this is a developed site with a substation and they may have rules about how much vegetation you can clear around a substation,” Randall said. “I wouldn’t be comfortable supporting this without touching base with them.”

“I’ve been by [the site] a million times in my lifetime even, and I can see the need to definitely pull the jungle back a little bit around it at the minimum,” PUD Commissioner Dan Toepper said. “My concern, ultimately, comes back to ‘Is it going be a net revenue positive?’”

Utility district staff did not provide monetary figures for potential revenue from the timber due to the fluctuating costs and lack of availability from the utility’s usual contractor, though the price to obtain the forest practice application will be around $150, according to the PUD.

“We need to look at how much the timber revenues are, how much it could bring in, how much it’s going to cost to do it, and really kind of look at it a bit more,” Bancroft said. “That’s what this motion is for, is to move forward with spending some time looking into that.”

“It makes sense to get this in the works, because log prices do fluctuate fairly quickly,” Toepper said. “If the prices are good, we want to take advantage of that, and we can always stretch out until the log prices get better.”

Will O’Donnell of the PUD said there have been multiple attempts to steal copper from the Port Ludlow substation over the last 10 years, some successful, some not.

Thieves stole copper ground wire attached to poles within the past year, he said in an email to The Leader.