Arborists, SDG&E Join to Spruce Up Girl Scout Headquarters for Arbor Day.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 30, 1999--

The Professional Tree Care Association of San Diego (PTCA) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) are celebrating national Arbor Day by sprucing up Girl Scout headquarters in Balboa Park. The workers will be joined by members of Brownie Troop 3496, who will plant ash trees at the site.

"Trees are a vital component of the city's infrastructure. Sustaining a healthy urban forest includes properly pruning and caring for existing trees and planting new ones," said Paul Rider, president of the Professional Tree Care Association, which organized the event. "This pruning and planting on national Arbor Day helps to focus our attention on what we need to do to sustain a vital urban forest." The city of San Diego's urban forester, Drew Potocki, supports these activities on an ongoing basis.

San Diego Gas & Electric, which supplied about 75 trees for planting in Clairemont Mesa this morning, also donated the ash trees being planted at the Girl Scout headquarters by 8-year-old Brownies.

"Trees give us beauty, oxygen and shade -- and they also help us conserve energy -- when they are planted in the right place," said Steve Allman, director of Construction Services for SDG&E. "We're donating and helping plant these trees because a beautiful community is important to us all."

SDG&E maintains an ongoing tree-trimming and tree-replacement program to ensure that power lines are undisturbed by foliage growth.

The plantings commemorate Arbor Day, first held in Nebraska in 1872. Today, Arbor Day is celebrated nationwide, most commonly on the last Friday in April.

A dozen member firms of the Professional Tree Care Association are supplying about 35 workers and eight vehicles to trim the pine, melaleuca and eucalyptus trees at the Girl Scout offices in Balboa Park. The services are worth an estimated $12,000. The firms include Arbor Care, Artistic Pruning, Atlas Environmental Services, Aztec Landscape, Homestead Tree Service, Mariposa Tree Service, Pacific Tree Service, Tierra del Verde, Tree Barber Enterprises, Tree of Life Tree Service, Western Tree Service and United Tree Service.

Begun in 1985, the Professional Tree Care Association is made up of commercial arborists, horticulturists, vendors of tree-care products and services, professional and municipal affiliations, as well as individuals interested in trees. The group's mission is to improve the community's quality of life by making the San Diego urban forest safer and more beautiful through education and proper tree care.

SDG&E is a public utility that provides service to 3 million consumers through 1.2 million electric meters and 720,000 natural gas meters in San Diego and southern Orange counties. SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE), a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego.