Question
QUESTION: We have a 60'+ pine leaning at an angle that is starting to worry us. It is leaning towards the road and if it falls it will knock out the electric wires on the poles across the street.
Our electric company will come out and top the tree low enough so that it will clear the wires across the street when or if it falls. If I want, they will take it down completely free of charge.

It will look quite odd if we loose about 30 to 35 feet of the tree, not to mention it may die.

Your thoughts on what to do?

Thx


ANSWER: Topping a pine this large will kill it so you might as well cut it down if you do anything. Tree can live many years and some their life leaning. A leaning tree may or may not be a substantial hazard.

Natural lean
Not the greatest term, but here we mean trees that have been leaning for much of their life. You can see sweep (curvature) of the stem, or maybe even a crook, where the tree corrected the lean. The upper stem is vertical, not leaning. There is no evidence of recent change, such as soil/root plate movement, cracking or stress bending of the stem. Sometimes natural leans can increase slowly over time as the weight of the stem increases.
2. Unnatural lean
Here we mean a lean that is due to a relatively recent change in the orientation of the stem. You may see evidence of soil/root disturbance indicating that the root system has shifted in the soil. You may see cracking in the stem as it gives way. There may even be bending of the stem going on, usually associated with decay. The upper stem in an unnatural lean is mostly not vertical, but leaning. Trees with an unnatural lean have already begun to fail and are extremely hazardous.

The general rule is about 15-20 degrees of lean could make the tree a hazard. But I would bet IF the power company thought the tree was a hazard to the lines they would cut it. I would leave it be since it will not hit any structure.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you..But the tree would have to fall onto a secondary road before hitting the electrical lines.  There in my opinion would be the danger of someone in a car getting hurt if the tree fell on its own.
The electric company had no intentions of cutting the tree. It was my concern with the leaning that caused me to contact the electric company.
The lean looks like more than a 20% lean BUT it looks like on the top the stem is going straight. But at 60 feet and having any deep root system and am worried that this winter snow or ice storm could cause problems. This lean has only occurred in the last 2 years.

Answer
I would just keep an eye on it--check it next spring and see if the winter weather did have any effect on the lean. if it starts to lean more and you see the roots starting to pull out of the ground away from the lean then I would consider taking it down.  But since it will only fall into a street and not hit a building I would remove it as a last resort. Sounds like the tree has compensated for the lean in growing back straight. I think you will get many many more years of this tree.