County reviewing Middle Bald radio tower plan

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

Work on Larimer County's application to build a radio communications tower on the 11,000-foot summit of Middle Bald Mountain is at a standstill while county commissioners decide whether to move forward, switch mountains or abandon the proposal.

The most preferred site--South Bald Mountain--falls within the boundary of an inventoried roadless area, making it off limits for road building and timber cutting. But that has not deterred Commissioner Glenn Gibson from talking about pursuing the South Bald option.

Because Middle Bald Mountain is in a national forest, the U.S. Forest Service is charged with doing the environmental assessment and eventually deciding whether to let the county build there. The county, however, has to pay the bill for both the Forest Service and private consultants to do the necessary studies.

"There's no work being done right now, in an effort not to spend their money foolishly," said Carol Kruse, the Forest Service's project director for the proposal.

The county has authorized about $305,000 to date for this application alone, and the consultant, Mangi Environmental Group of McLean, Va., wants another $44,500 to complete its work.

The three county commissioners are scheduled to meet again on March 17 at 10 a.m. to get more data from their information technology staff before deciding on the next step.

At a Feb. 11 meeting, commissioners called in a variety of people working with public safety departments for testimonials about the quality of radio communications in the mountains of Larimer County. The upper Poudre Canyon remains a problem, especially west from the Narrows, despite a number of improvements made with the county's radio towers in the last several years.

Ever since the Forest Service announced in late 2006 that it was ready to review the county's application, northern county residents have been debating whether the cost and environmental damage at the Middle Bald location are justified by the degree of improvement in radio coverage.

Kruse said if the impact analysis proceeds, the Forest Service wants a better on-the-ground study to determine what areas a Middle Bald tower could reach. Money is already budgeted for such a study, she added.

Construction costs also remain elusive. Middle Bald is located about five miles southwest of Red Feather Lakes, but power lines might have to traverse about 15 miles to reach the proposed tower site. Maps published for a November 2007 public meeting show various alternatives for bringing power to the site, including overhead or buried lines, or a combination.

Poudre Valley REA would be the power supplier. Jim Byrne, manager for engineering services, told the North Forty News that it could cost $40 or more a foot ($211,200 a mile) to install underground power lines in that area.

"That's some pretty rough terrain," he said.

In comparison, Byrne said, building overhead lines could cost about $70,000 a mile. He added that neither the Forest Service nor the consultant have asked him for cost estimates.

At the February meeting, Gibson argued for resubmitting the application to put a communications tower on South Bald Mountain, which was the preferred site in a 2001 study. County staff already tried that in 2003, but the Forest Service rejected the application because South Bald is located in an inventoried roadless area.

Ellen Hodges, district ranger for the Canyon Lakes Ranger District, said an application for a roadless area would be a very complex process.

"Our advice to the county is that experience says the outcome is not successful and it's very expensive," Hodges said.

She also noted that a favorable decision from the Forest Service would likely go into litigation.

"Why should we have to fight the federal government for public safety?" Gibson countered.

The county is continuing to work on communication upgrades while the Middle Bald application proceeds. In 2006, it built a microwave relay tower on Pole Mountain east of Laramie, Wyo., to pass transmissions received from the existing Buckhorn tower to a new Bull Mountain site, which then reaches officers in the Laramie River valley.

The county also upgraded communications equipment on Deadman tower, which operates with solar-powered batteries, to make it more reliable. A new site at Bear Gulch is expected to go on the air in June to cover the Cherokee Park area.

Radio systems administrator Dave Rowe said, however, that these changes have done nothing to improve coverage in Poudre Canyon or the Red Feather/Crystal Lakes area. A tower on Middle Bald Mountain could cover up and down Poudre Canyon, except where signals are blocked by South Bald, he said.

If a tower is built on Middle Bald, the county could possibly use outdoor bidirectional amplifiers or talk group extenders to fill in some gaps in Poudre Canyon, Rowe added.

If the commissioners tell the Forest Service to proceed with the impact analysis, a document could be released for public review in September or October, with a decision in March or April of 2009.

In the interim, the Forest Service also has to decide whether a full environmental impact statement is needed, Kruse said. "We're still waiting to see what the impact analysis shows us," she said.

An EIS would add about two to three months to the process, Kruse said.

"If we get a go-ahead from the commissioners, I'm going to be working really, really hard to get this done," she said.