Mountain radio tower review meets with opposition

By Linda Bell
Correspondent

See related story.

The county has already put one $370,000 egg in a basket in its effort to improve public safety radio communications throughout Poudre Canyon.

The U.S. Forest Service is now sitting on that basket, and it will be a minimum of seven to nine months before Larimer County knows if its golden egg will be allowed to hatch and at what price, or if environmental concerns will nix the site altogether.

About 70 local residents, mostly opposed to the tower, filled the gym at the Girl Scout Magic Sky Ranch in early November to hear what Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests representatives had to say about the county's application to build a controversial tower near the 11,000 foot summit of Middle Bald Mountain west of Red Feather Lakes.

It was also the first time county officials saw a draft of proposed actions and alternatives based on preliminary assessments carried out over the summer to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.

Carol Kruse, project director for the proposal, said resources considered under NEPA are visual, recreational, cultural, vegetation, wildlife, fish, soils, hydrology and both air and sound quality. Kruse explained that the Forest Service has three decisions to make based on quantifiable technical data gathered to comply with NEPA.

First, she said, the Forest Service must determine if the Middle Bald site is a suitable communications site. Then, if suitable, if use should be limited to government only or if the site should be made available to other potential users. Finally, the Forest Service has to decide whether to authorize the site for use by the county through a "special use" allocation of the land. Arapaho-Roosevelt forest supervisor, Glenn Casamassa, will make the final decision.

Kruse said no other private or public entities have active proposals to use the tower site. If the site is designated as government-only, any further development would have to go through the same process as the county to gain access to the site, including a public review, another NEPA assessment and Forest Service approval to expand the use.

With so much money at stake, a number of questioners implied this might not be the best use of taxpayers' dollars. Some suggested the county might have swayed the final outcome, especially because the county hired Mangi Environmental Group of McLean, Va., to do the NEPA assessment through a third party contract instead of the Forest Service making a direct hire.

Kruse said Forest Service representatives were part of the process from the beginning, both in contracting with Mangi and local contractor Blue Mountain Environmental Consulting. The Forest Service has no funds to contract such an assessment on its own, she said, and the site is only being considered at the request of the county sheriff's office to enhance public safety in the canyon and surrounding areas.

The initiative is part of a larger project to convert emergency services communications to an upgraded 800 MHz system that could potentially connect the sheriff's office with local fire districts, Fort Collins police, Colorado State Patrol and Poudre Fire Authority.

The draft proposal includes a 40- to 60-foot nonreflective, unlighted lattice tower with an attached parabolic dish cemented or anchored in bedrock, a rectangular 160-square-foot building to blend with the site, and a backup diesel generator and storage tank. The site would have to be maintained monthly throughout the year.

Assuming the main power source is electricity from the grid, the Forest Service draft proposed action is that the powerline be buried in the center of Deadman Road, then continue on forest roads 300 and 517, finally crossing an alpine meadow to the site, a distance of about 11 miles. There is no estimate of the cost to bury lines to the site, but the county estimated a cost of $70,000 to erect access poles cross-country.

In comments following the meeting, Kruse said the Forest Service is cognizant of the public money spent on this project already and that the county department of information technology has exhausted all other possibilities for achieving its communication goals. On the other hand, she said, this is just what the NEPA regulations were designed to do in terms of quantifying the significance of social components and environmental concerns to take emotion out of the process.

Because the area being considered is not in a roadless area, Kruse said, it is less likely a full environmental impact statement will be required after the environmental assessment is completed, but it is not out of the question as part of the NEPA directives on "significance."

A number of people questioned the viability of the tower to do what it is supposed to do. Dave Rowe with the county's IT department said the tower will be in a "radio shadow" caused by South Bald Mountain and what locals refer to as "not South Bald" Mountain. These two summits were his first choices for tower sites but denied because they are in Forest Service inventoried roadless areas. He said the tower will not achieve line-of-sight communications with Rustic or Kinikinik, but it could potentially reach about 80 percent of the canyon with some signal strength compared with 20 percent coverage now.

Vivian Gilbert asked if there were any plans to put security fences around the tower since two trails, North Lone Pine and Killpecker, both end up on the summit.

Kruse said there were no plans for security around the site.

Bill Gilbert asked if the diesel tank was bullet proof and leak proof.

Kruse said these are the types of comment the Forest Service and Mangi want during this public comment phase of the process. She encouraged people to put their words into e-mails and on comment forms.

The official comment form and a complete Forest Service list of facility alternatives are available on the Internet at www.fs.fed.us/r2/arnf/projects/ea-projects/clrd/commsite/index.shtml.

Printed copies of some documents are available by calling Carol Kruse at 295-6663.

The Red Feather Lakes Community Library also has the visuals from the Forest Service's draft alternatives available for review.