A washed-out trench near Toboggan Canyon cut off Otero County Electric Cooperative’s large equipment access to its main 69kV transmission line for years, forcing the cooperative to build a new road.
OCEC’s new Vegetation Management program also set the stage for a major fire-mitigation push now underway on the 69kV line that energizes thousands of mountain residents.
It’s the main transmission line powering members in Cloudcroft east through Timberon, Piñon and Mayhill. The line feeds 6,066 meters, nearly a third of OCEC's total active coverage.
The Reader rode along the access road in mid-August with OCEC Vegetation Management and Right-of-Way Supervisor Janscen Davis, who emphasized why the work in this particular location matters.
“It’s below the village, and so there’s a huge community risk if a fire were to get started from the line, from an ignition; it would spread uphill,” Davis said.
Davis said much of his work involves fostering partnerships between the coop, the Forest Service, the Village, property owners, and other local partners.
The stakes aren't hypothetical. Power lines have ignited some of the country's most destructive fires in recent years, including the 2025 Eaton Fire near Los Angeles, which killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 homes after electrical arcing on an idle Southern California Edison tower sparked dry brush.
It's the kind of scenario OCEC's clearance work is designed to prevent.
Entrenched Problem
Erosion below the Toboggan area has cut off crews' access to the line for years. Former Mayor Tim King repeatedly raised the issue at village meetings in 2025.
“We’ve been unable to access that line for years, since 2018,” Davis confirmed.
Growing development — more pavement and rooftops in the village — has increased runoff into aging drainage infrastructure built decades ago, worsening the erosion, Davis said.
“As this ripped through our access, it’s just, you know, we’ve had to adapt to find another way to get in here,” Davis said, standing at the edge of the washout, a steep drop-off where the utility road used to be.
To restore access, crews installed a new culvert and built an access road through the right-of-way — work Davis said will also give line crews, Forest Service personnel and vegetation crews reliable access going forward.
Managing Fire Risk
The access project ties directly into a larger vegetation management effort on the line. The work is expected to include:
Clearing hazard trees and vegetation within OCEC’s 60-foot right-of-way along roughly 2.5 miles of line.
A helicopter operation to remove trees from hard-to-access terrain — tentatively set to begin mid-September, weather and FAA clearance permitting.
A fire-retardant steel mesh, already installed on every pole along the line. “It’s a steel mesh with a rubberized spray on it that, if it does get hot, actually melts and creates a coverage and becomes retardant from the fire crawling up,” Davis said.
OCEC moved away from contracting vegetation management to an in-house program nearly two years ago, led by Davis and arborist Tim Marshall. Marshall and his crew continually work to keep right-of-ways surrounding the coop’s lines clear, remove problem trees, and work outages.
What’s Next
Because of the work, all trails leading into the Toboggan area — including access from the Trestle Trail and pedestrian bridge — will be closed for about a month. Check the USFS website for current closure status.
Crews have already begun cutting down trees, and Davis said the project is underway. The timeline for the helicopter phase remains weather-dependent, with mid-to-late September as the target window.
Trees aren’t being technically logged, which would imply sales of the wood. Davis says many of the trees being removed are too dead for commercial use anyway. Some of the large trees in hard-to-drive spots will be removed by helicopter. And the rest will be masticated, the vegetation chipped up, and left behind.
The Reader will continue to report on this developing story.
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