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APA HEARING ON FRANKENPINE
CELL TOWER RESUMES TUESDAY AS FOURTH LANDOWNER OFFERS ALTERNATIVE
SITE NOT CONSIDERED BY NEXTEL AND SPRINT
For more information:
John F. Sheehan, Communications Director
518-432-1770 (w)
518-441-1340 (cell)
Released, Monday, March 7, 2005
ALBANY, NY – The Adirondack
Park Agency’s courtroom-style public hearing will conclude
tomorrow on a proposal to build a fake-tree cell tower on a slope
above Lake George, as lawyers for Nextel Partners and Sprint
Independent Wireless One are slated to appear before state regulators
to explain what impact the pending merger between Sprint and
NEXTEL will have on their affiliates’ need to build the
proposed tower.
The Adirondack Council, which
refers to the proposed tower as a “Frankenpine” has
already shown that the applicants failed to consider four viable
alternatives and will present new evidence that one of the four
provides better coverage than the proposed fake tree tower. The
Council will also argue that there is no need to build a tower
tall enough for two companies when Sprint and NEXTEL will be
the same company within a few months.
“We talked to a few of the
neighbors when the hearings first began. We have now found four
nearby private properties where cell phone transmission equipment
can be co-located on existing buildings, rather than erecting
a new tower above the tallest trees in an unbroken mountain forest,”
said Adirondack Council Executive Director Brian L. Houseal.
“We presented signed letters and affidavits from those landowners
showing they were perfectly willing to host the equipment, but
had not been approached by the NEXTEL or Sprint affiliates who
are proposing the tower”.
“During the hearing, both
companies have argued that the proposed tower location was the
only viable alternative,” Houseal said. “When we informed
the Adirondack Park Agency they were wrong, the applicants sent
their radio frequency coverage experts to the sites to check
them out. They must have walked to the wrong side of the mountain
or into a cave or something, because the readings we found were
far better than what the companies had claimed. We will present
that evidence Tuesday as well.”
The sites include Top of the
World Golf Course, Dunhams Bay Sea Ray, Dunhams Bay Marina and
Green Harbor Associates.
“Top of the World is about
the best of the four,” Houseal said. “Our readings
indicate that it would provide far better coverage in the Lake
George Basin than the site proposed for the Frankenpine tower.
Better yet, it would not alter the southern Lake George landscape
one bit. All of the equipment can be concealed on an existing
building on the golf course.”
Earlier in the hearings, the
Council and other opponents of the tower discovered that Nextel
Partners had already installed new cell phone equipment in the
Bolton Landing area at the Sagamore Golf Course. Bolton is the
area that the companies said the new tower would serve (from
across the lake). The Council’s discovery called into question
whether Nextel Partners was trying to hide the fact that it was
already serving customers, in an area where it claimed it needed
a tower due to lack of coverage.
The hearing is slated to resume
at 10 a.m. on March 8 in Room 224 of the Department of Environmental
Conservation Headquarters in downtown Albany.
“NEXTEL and Sprint have
cheaper, invisible alternatives that provide equal or better
coverage than their proposed Frankenpine,” Houseal said.
“But they are still insisting on building the first Frankenpine
in the Adirondack Park. It’s a lousy idea to use fake trees,
both for the site and the Park as a whole.
“The vast majority of Park
residents and visitors are in settled areas where there are plenty
of existing buildings on which equipment can be placed to provide
modern telecommunications,” Houseal explained. “The
alternative is a series of backwoods and mountaintop eyesores
we will regret for the next 30 to 50 years. Why destroy the beauty
of a 113-year-old wilderness park so two out-of-state companies
can reap a few years of profit?”
The Adirondack Council’s
mission is to ensure the ecological integrity and wild character
of the Adirondack Park. Founded in 1975, the Council is a privately
funded not-for-profit organization with 18,000 members. The Council
carries out its missions through research, education, advocacy
and legal action.
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