Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a process that balances the use of cultural, biological, and chemical procedures for reducing pest populations to tolerable levels. Rather than relying solely on chemicals (or eliminating chemicals completely), IPM seeks to produce a combination of pest control options that are compatible with the environment, economically feasible and socially tolerable. The control of vegetation, i.e., the contemporary management of vegetation, on electric utility line rights-of-way (ROW)¹ readily accommodates itself to an IPM process. This paper describes how the member systems of the New York Power Pool (NYPP) have been actually practicing an IPM strategy for about two decades. However, that strategy can be more appropriately referred to as an Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) strategy.

Reprinted from Williams, James R., John W. Goodrich-Mahoney, Jan R. Wisniewski and Joe Wisniewski (Editors) / The Sixth International Symposium on Environmental Concerns in Rights-of-Way Management, Copyright 1997, with permission from Elsevier Science.