Adirondack Council Seeks More Cell Tower Co-locations
by Editorial Staff
The letter below is from the Adirondack Council calling on the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) to change how it deals with applications for multiple cell towers on the same property. The Council is seeking to have APA amend their tower policy to encourage more co-location, which they say will limit environmental impacts from cell towers.
According to an APA announcement in the fall of 2008, since 1973, nearly 100 new and amended cellular carrier permits have been approved, including about 15 new free standing towers and about 25 tower and/or antenna replacements. About 50 towers have been co-located on free standing existing towers and other structures in that time.
Dear Mr. [George V.] Outcalt:
On behalf of the Adirondack Council, the Park’s largest advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring the ecological integrity and wild character of the Adirondack Park, I wish to provide comments on the above-referenced project. As with similar projects in the past, the Adirondack Council is concerned with the lack of co-location of telecommunication towers in the Park, particularly those parcels which have multiple applications for towers.
I will not repeat the point we have already made to you and the Commissioners in our correspondence on the co-location issue from earlier this year, dated July 7, September 9 and September 10. All of these previous letters clearly state the need for better enforcement of the Agency’s “towers policy” to seek co-location opportunities. For P2009-173, a Verizon tower for the same property was permitted on January 15, 2008. We urge the staff, and APA Commissioners, to carefully examine the need for a second new, stand-alone tower on the same site less than two years after permitting the first one. Companies should be encouraged or mandated to seek co-location when a nearby tower is available. Even a slightly taller tower will have less environmental impact, that having to construct a second tower. Depending on locations, a second tower may require additional tree cutting, road building and utilities to be installed.
As this is the third time in six months that non co-location of equipment within a short distance has been an issue and the other two times the projects have been approved, we suggest that the Agency seriously consider revising how it reviews and permits cell towers. One suggestion that the Council has made before, is to require that the applicant show its attempts to co-locate on existing structures within a reasonable distance of its site and explain in detail why no option other than a new tower is feasible. The second alternative is to add additional height on all new towers permitted by the Agency and strictly enforce the permit condition for co-location, so that any application in the immediate area of another would be directed to work with the other telecommunications company to co-locate on an existing structure. You could also take a hybrid approach and adopt portions of both of these ideas. This can be accomplished by re-examining the “towers policy” and fixing some of the obvious flaws that are apparent now that the policy has been practically applied for over seven years.
It appears that telecommunications companies, for the most part, are not sharing space on each others’ towers, as was expected. Instead, they are moving onto the same property and putting up separate towers within a short distance of each other. We do not believe this complies with the “towers policy” or the Governor’s office / environmental groups / Verizon Wireless “Statement of Principles” for Northway towers from 2007.
We want to thank you for the actions you have taken so far to reduce the intrusion of towers in the Park. However, we believe more proactive steps need to be taken to further reduce the environmental impact of towers in the Adirondack Park to ensure they do not have an undue adverse impact.
Sincerely,
Scott M. Lorey
Legislative Director
5 Comments:
Co-location seems like a good idea. But let's make the towers tall enough to be effective. Then we also won't need as many.
I do not know if it is accurate but I heard that the APA had requested that the new tower in Paul Smith's be reduced from 125 to 65 feet. Apparently that tower only services a half mile wide swath. Now they will want more towers in the area to fill the gaps. I am not a big fan of tall "stuff" but things like cell towers and eventually many more large wind turbines are coming to the ADKS. Let's learn to deal with it.
Just because "things like cell towers and eventually many more large wind turbines are coming to the ADKS."
Doesn't mean we have to "learn to deal with it."
Have you no sense of the history of environmental protection the Adirondacks represents?
What we should be doing is leading the technological innovation that will make towers unnecessary.
Or I guess we could take your route and abandoned the New York State constitutional protection of the Adirondacks, turn it into someplace akin to New Jersey, and when people on the east coast want to get some sense of wilderness, too bad for them.
How about you learn to deal with the will of the people of New York State - set out in the "forever wild" clause from the 19th century!
Having spent my whole life in the ADKS (as have many generations of my family before me) I happen to have a keen sense of the "history of environmental protection in the Adirondacks". However I also have developed a keen sense for the necessary balance we try to strike between the people and the “environment” here in the mountains. The forever wild clause of the NYS constitution applies to Forest Preserve land within the ADKS. It does not apply to private land within the blue line. The types of projects listed above of course take place on private land and not on public land. So by advocating for projects that help the people (and the environment in the case of alternative energy) I am not abandoning any “constitutional protections” afforded to the people of the state under article 14. Quite the contrary, I am suggesting that projects on private land be done in a way that minimizes any threats (in this case “visual”) to the surrounding forest preserve lands. Like the writer above I would like to see innovations that make towers unnecessary. But unfortunately sometimes I find myself stuck in the “here and now” where these things are perhaps decades away. And since I don’t want someone to have to wait in the ditch ten years to make a phone call we have to try and work with what we have now. Comments above are usually made by folks sitting at their computer with a broadband connection and a cell phone on the desk with a good signal. I would advocate that we afford the people of the Adirondacks that same “luxury”, and we try and do it in a way that has a minimal impact of the environment. If the “Adirondack Experiment”, as it is often called, is to be successful then we have to remember that there are people here as well as other wild things.
A few misconceptions in the post above need to be addressed.
I am writing this post from my home which is located well inside the blue line, off the grid and beyond normal cell service. But I generate my own power with solar and store it in batteries. My broadband internet connection is via a satellite dish and I do have cell service because I installed a repeater on the roof, right next to the satellite radio antenna.
Technology works in the ADKs if you want it to. If not, you can alway blame the APA.
I hope you got the necessary permits from the APA for all that "new development". Technically the solar panels and the antennas (dish and antenna) require a permit. Most people do not get the necessary permits in these cases. A repeater only works if you have a cell tower somewhere nearby. A guy in a car, or on foot, does not have the luxury of all the "stuff" you have at your house that keeps you connected. You have made my point for me.
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