Subject: [NEXTEL-1] A towering threat in the Adirondacks

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 22:06:46 -0400

A towering threat in the Adirondacks

First published: Tuesday, May 4, 2004

Radio towers across the peaks of the Catskills and Adirondacks are not a
pretty thought.

In fact, they are downright unacceptable, and that bears shouting in the bluntest manner possible. Even if the excuse is to facilitate a more complete statewide emergency response system than the one we currently have.
The need to worry about all this came out of the blue late Friday, courtesy of the Pataki administration and a classic piece of nontransparent governance.
The Office of Technology announced that the winning bidder for a statewide emergency communication system is a company called M/A-Com. The reported
price tag for a system to be built over the next five years is about $1 billion. The administration, though, refuses to acknowledge exactly what the price is, citing some bogus argument that revealing price hampers ongoing negotiations.

Just a week ago, the governor was delighted to herald the acquisition of more than a quarter-million acres of Adirondack easements and property before
negotiations were complete with landowner International Paper, and even to fix a dollar value. The inconsistency is startling. Still, it is not the mysterious price tag of the most expensive technology contract ever let by the state that has the environmental community and others on fire.

It is that nightmarish vision of those radio towers compromising the "forever wild" Adirondack Forest Preserve.
Now, admittedly, at this point we know every little about the details of the contract. Which in itself is alarming and naturally fosters the worst suspicions.
Why is the public the last to know?

We can't say for sure that towers are going up willy-nilly. But according to a story in The New York Times over the weekend, we can reasonably expect some towers where we don't want any.
Radio towers contemplated for the forest preserve got the desired reaction out of the Adirondack Council, bless them.

"This is an instant lawsuit for us," promised Adirondack Council spokesman John Sheehan in the Times, if the state puts towers where they shouldn't be.
John Stouffer of Sierra Club wonders why "in an age when you can use a satellite phone anywhere in the world, the state would even be considering the need for towers all over the Adirondack and Catskill parks." This would mean putting roads in areas that are now roadless. And, he notes, "satellite technology is getting better and cheaper all the time." Sheehan says the council has two major fears associated with the emergency communications plan being concocted.  On private property, does this mean the state will try to circumvent existing exacting rules and regulations for towers? And on public lands, will there simply be an effort to trash the language and spirit of the state constitution?
During World War II, the federal government built a railroad spur -- it still exists -- through the forest preserve in violation of the state constitution in the name of national security. That was to gain access to mines near Newcomb that produced titanium for fighter aircraft.
The concern I've heard expressed is that the state will attempt some comparable scheme to build those radio towers.

While the notion of radio towers plaguing us is agitating, Neil Woodworth, counsel for the Adirondack Mountain Club, cautions it is far too early to say exactly what the state is up to, or if an attempt will be made to violate existing stringent regulations. Woodworth did say that every time the courts have had a chance to rule on challenges to the forever wild clause of the state constitution, there has been a strict affirmation of it.
Some paranoid bureaucrat's idea of what constitutes a national security need is not good enough reason to break that string. So I say let's get the lawyers awake, and stay alert.

Contact Fred LeBrun at 454-5453.

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=244799&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=&newsdate=5/4/2004

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