Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

[BerkeleyBorderGuard]

From WJZ-TV in Baltimore, MD:

ul 7, 2004 3:01 pm US/Eastern
Frederick County, MD (WJZ) The Federal Communications Commission has
given the go-ahead for some controversial construction in Frederick.

State officials want to start construction of a public
telecommunications tower on South Mountain. However, critics of the
plan say it would ruin the historic landscape.

The FCC says the 180 foot tower proposed for a peak called Lamb's
Knoll could be completed in a matter of weeks.

But opponents say they're not giving up and may file an appeal.

The tower on the Frederick-Washington County line would be built by
the cell phone company T-Mobile and would be owned by the state.

State officials say it would improve emergency communications in
Western Maryland.

The tower would be visible from the Appalachian Trail and the Antietam
Civil War battlefield.

[Wild Rover]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

This is what pi$$es me off...not you Matt, but the newspaper...

the Tower may be VISABLE from Antietam, but it sits on South Mountain!


I get tired of SM being overlooked by the people who only focus on Antietam...that is why there is a power line running through Fox's Gap...so you wouldn't see it from Antietam!!!

Lamb's Knoll is about 1.4 miles south of the heaviest fighting at Fox's Gap...I will say that cell service absolutely stinks in the area, my parents live there and not a phone works for about a 8 mile stretch of Rt 67...they have to do something, but don't plant it on SM!


If not for SM, thre would have been no Antietam...so which is more important?


Which determined the fate of the campaign?

I have to go blast a newspaper now...

Pards,

[Dignann]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

One possible approach to this is to contact the Md. State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). Since the FCC is involved, and they are a federal agency, this proposal is subject to Section 106 of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act. What that means is that the FCC has to take into consideration the effect this tower may have on historic resources, such as the Antietam Battlefield and South Mountain Battlefield. Section 106 strongly encourages public participation in the process and the SHPO has the authority to oversee federal actions with regard to this regulation.

Give the SHPO a call and voice your concern:

Tania Tully, Preservation Officer, at (410) 514-7636
Andrew Lewis, Preservation Officer, at (410) 514-7630

Eric

[Wild Rover]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

There was a meeting of such a few months ago regarding the tower.

Apparently it is still going forward.

I think the question is this- If it is not built there, where can it be built? As a resident of the area it is badly needed.

Somewhere on that range we need a cell tower, but not in the middle of South Mountain Battlefield....I could not care less if it was "seen" from SM or Antietam....speaking for the residents in that area, we have to live there and need the same support, but we need to be careful due to the historical importance of the area.

The item that makes us most upset is when we feel our home is being made into a playground for others, and we are forgotten. Our roads are horrible, it took years to get cable TV, cell service is almost non existant, and if we want to eat at a decent resturant we have to drive 1/2 hour to get to one, because out siders feel that having businesses in Sharpsburg takes away the historical "look" of the town, and every resturant in recent history has been so hamstrung (not allowed to have signs out and so on) that they have closed.

I am a preservationist, probably more a conservationist, but we cannot forget that people live in these historic areas, and that they need the chance to live thier modern lives with the same advantages others have.

I do not want Sharpsburg/Boonsboro to turn into Frederick, lord knows, but driving 40 minutes to get baby formula at midnight or breaking down on a road without cell service at 2am needs to be considered too.

Not on the Battlefield, but visable is fine by me.

I might make some mad by that statement, but coming from a life long resident that is how 70% of us feel, the other 30% couldn't care where you build it....they couldn't care if you stuck it in the middle of Bloody Lane....years of frustration at outsiders telling residents what they can do with thier land has created that.

Also we need to focus on whether it is for them (boys of 61) we are preserving our sacred soil, or for us...seems to me the view shed issue is about us.

That is something to consider when dealing with these type issues.

Pards,

[dusty27]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

Chris, tough call for sure. Hopefully, cell towers are a temporary thing until technology comes up with something else to replace them.

I have to agree that viewsheds are lower on my list of bad things when actual land is being lost.

I disagree with you when you say land preservation is for us only. I think it is important to the study of the war and the people who fought it that we are able to visit the places that they fought. It gives us a better understanding of what they went through.

Other battlefields are having similar problems; cell phone service in the McDowell area can't be all that good, right? But who wants a tower on Bull Pasture Mountain?

Hey, if it was easy, what would I talk about?????

[Wild Rover]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

Dusty,
I meant to say the preservation of "viewsheds" is possibly more for us than them.

I agree the importance of preserving the battlefields, but it gets out of hand IMHO, when we start talking about 3 mile views.

McD does need better cell coverage, with that wonderful road and all.

Life moves on and people need to live, but also we need to be caretakers of our land, historical or not.

I love my home, our history and the people, and it is a fine line to walk some days.

Pards,

[1stMaine]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

Comrade Chris,

I am well attuned to the situation you describe. My father's house is on the list of National Historic places, and the town I live in is awash with historic homes and properties which are considerably restricted in what can be done with them. My town is also a tourist destination, and I know full well what it's like to be disregarded by the local businesses and government until it's tax time.
However, I would disagree strongly with the notion that cell phone service is something that everyone needs. I am adamantly against the existence of cell phones, and were it in my power to ban them, I would. Just because society can PRODUCE something, doesn't mean we NEED it. Folks can come up with a multitude of excuses for "emergency" use, but in the end, it's only about convenience. A fellow can hardly go anywhere anymore without having some hedonistic shmuck whip out a cell phone and start talking about all manner of things. The Post Office, the Grocery Store, the Resturaunt, the Mall. Folks seem to think that we are interested in their drivel and blather, but that's only those who bother to THINK. Most tune out the world, and could care less about anyone else around them. Cell phones are simply another nail in society's coffin, inthat they continue the seclusion of the individual from society, while also making that person a slave to the employer who can now reach them at anytime, thus blurring the line between work and family. Instead of striking up a conversation with a stranger in line with them, folks retreat into their own circle of friends via the cell phone. We are losing interpersonal relationships here, and that is never a good thing.
No sir, Cell phones are NOT something that society needs. But that's just my 2-cents. I give a pass to cable TV and the Internet, etc, because those lines can be buried and out of sight. They are not as intrusive upon society as the stark and skeletal cell tower, jutting up from the living earth like the arm of some subterannean techno-beast. Technology is supposed to HELP society, not RUN society, and what cell phones have done is to change society to adapt to what the cell phone can do, rather than what we NEED from it.
But I digress. I'm not a modern Luddite by any means, nor am I against progress, change, or development. I want to preserve the important things, and I want to ensure that technology is a tool we can use with minimal intrusion, not a crutch that sprawls at the whim of it's owners and creators.
Chris, I fully understand your feelings, and the frustration that comes from being so close to a historic area, especially one of such national importance. I would do anything I could to help make someone's life better (in fact, I DO do a lot of that through volunteer work up here) but I cannot give in yet to the thought of a cell tower near South Mountain. To me, it's just prostituting an important place so that some outside corporation can continue to rake in the dough.
Respects,

[Matthew.Rector]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

This is a longer article concerning the cell tower.

Pfeiffer, Angela. "FCC approves communications tower on South Mountain," The Gazette 8 July 2004. Gazette.Net
http://www.gazette.net/200428/brunsw.../225490-1.html (accessed [8 July 2004])

FCC approves communications tower on South Mountain

by Angela Pfeiffer
Staff Writer

July 8, 2004

The Federal Communications Commission has granted the state of Maryland's request to build a 180-foot communications tower for public safety on Lamb's Knoll, one of the highest points on South Mountain.

In its July 2 opinion, the FCC wrote that the tower would have no adverse effect on nearby properties that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

The commission ordered the state to perform an environmental assessment for the proposed tower in 2002, after the Harpers Ferry Conservancy petitioned the commission for such an order.

The Harpers Ferry Conservancy is concerned about the tower's effect on the surrounding viewshed the area from which Lamb's Knoll is visible including the South Mountain State Battlefield and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

On Friday, the FCC dismissed the conservancy's request to deny the state's environmental assessment, which concluded that the tower would not effect nearby historic properties.

The tower is part of a $100 million state project to build a public safety communications network of 220 towers, which would act like a phone line to connect antennas for all tenants on each tower to their networks.

The 180-foot structure and 15-foot antenna will replace a 90-foot forest fire lookout tower that was moved to Lamb's Knoll in 1934 and that has been deemed unsafe.

Attached to the lookout tower are antennas for several Washington County agencies, the National Park Service, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Maryland State Police and the state's emergency system, the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems.

No Frederick County agencies are current or future tenants on the Lamb' s Knoll tower.

State and public safety officials contend the statewide upgrade, of which the Lamb's Knoll tower is a part, is necessary because of increasing signal interference, mostly from cell phone users.

In a May 18 letter to the FCC, Ed Ryan, director of wireless communications for the state Department of Budget Management, wrote of a "catastrophic failure" to the state's public safety microwave communication system on May 16, on the microwave link between Gambrill Mountain near Frederick and Fairview Mountain in Washington County.

It was 34 hours before the link was restored, but in the meantime rescue and park police helicopters were cut off from the state radio system, ambulances west of Frederick county were unable to contact hospitals, and hospitals west of Frederick County were unable to consult with other hospitals in the state, Ryan said.

"The public interest requires that the Commission make every possible effort to avoid these foreseeable, likely disruptions to vital public safety communications and operations, and the resulting risks to human life and health that such a failure would generate," Ryan wrote.

Jeffrey Steinberg, an FCC deputy chief, wrote in the agency's opinion that the tower will not be much taller than the existing tower, and it is also near an 80-foot concrete silo used for federal communications, a 125-foot directional antenna, and a 108-foot microwave tower, all located at Lamb's Knoll.

"The proposed tower will add only 60 feet in height to the tower that currently exists at the same location, and it will be adjacent to other existing towers and the federal facility," Weinberg wrote.

The state will also remove the fire lookout tower and the microwave tower, the FCC wrote. The state has committed to landscape and screen the area and has submitted photos showing the tower would not be visible from the Appalachian Trail.

Although the FCC agreed with the conservancy that the South Mountain State Battlefield is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, the tower would not change the site's historic properties, the agency said.

"The record, however, does not present any evidence that the tower would significantly diminish the Battlefield's association with historical events or its ability to convey that association," Weinberg wrote.

Finally, Weinberg wrote, because the agency found that the tower would not create adverse effects, it is not required to evaluate alternatives suggested by Harpers Ferry Conservancy, although the agency debunked those alternatives in its opinion.

Paul Rosa, the conservancy's executive director, has been fighting the tower for two years. Rosa said the decision was disappointing but "not unanticipated."

Rosa said the conservancy and other interested groups had not yet settled on a next step. "We're exploring all our options," he told The Gazette on Wednesday. "...I have to consult with other parties. Are we going to appeal the order, is what it comes down to."

Rosa said the FCC failed to properly evaluate the tower's impact on historic resources. The fire lookout tower, which will be demolished to make way for the new tower, should have been considered as a historic resource, as should have the federal silo, Rosa said.

"We have fundamental disagreements on what those resources are and how to evaluate them," he told The Gazette.

The National Park Service had given the FCC written comments expressing concern about the effect of the proposed tower on the Appalachian Trail. But the park service withdrew its comments on June 30 after it secured an agreement that the state would replace vegetation removed during tower construction, place green plastic coating on the fence around the tower, paint all shelters, plant vegetation to screen the ground around the tower, and consider helping the Appalachian Trail Conference to move part of the trail.

Rosa expressed disappointment with the park service's change of opinion.

"We consider this a day of shame for the National Park Service and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. They, by law, are the stewards of these public lands. We question whether they're faithfully charging their duties."

Rosa said the decision "was likely to serious long-term breakdowns in relationships between the National Park Service and public interest organizations" such as his.

[Wild Rover]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

Tim,
Have to respectivly disagree that cell phones are a convience. I could not do my job without one.
As a National Sales Director I find myself constantly on the road, and being able to make windshield time profitable makes the difference in my bottom line...without such tools I cannot survive in today's business climate. What used to take months is now done in days if not hours, and when it comes to the make or break moment in a contract, seconds seal a deal. And that can mean thousands of dollars to me personally, and more to my company.

Headcounts are down, but productivity is up, so the personin the trenches needs every time saving tool availible to win.

Be nice if it were not so, but it is.

But more directly to the point, people in Frederick have great cell service, people in Hagerstown have it pretty decent too. Are people in the Sharpsburg area any less worthy?

But not ON a battlefield, and it is sad it was approved for Lamb's Knoll. Elk Ridge would have been a better place.

Progress is happening, and it will, we cannot stop that. But we must decide which battles to fight, and committ critical mass to them. Fighting everything just delutes the effort.

You either wide the wave of change or get sunk by it.

Pards,

[1stMaine]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

Comrade Chris,

I fully understand your interests, and your position on cell phones. I guess what I am taking is a longe-range view, one that is more oriented towards society and technology interaction in the long run.
Hopefully, technology will develop something better than the cell phone, one which requires no towers, nor any other visible transmission devices. Like I said, I'm not anti-technology. Heck, I spend enough time online:)
I look forward to seeing you in the field soon, and trust that that time will not be too far off.
respects,

[Wild Rover]

Re: Battle Over Telecommunications Tower in Frederick

Tim,
The same here. Anything to improve productivity makes me happy..now my reps on the other hand :)

See you soon!

Pards,