[Scan-DC] South Mountain Tower

[Alan Henney]

Tensions rise over proposed tower
Emergency network will ruin landscape, say W. Maryland residents
By Stephanie Desmon
Sun Staff

August 6, 2002
BOONSBORO - On a clear day, the tree-lined ridge of South Mountain, which
separates Washington and Frederick counties, can be seen from miles around -
from the fields where soldiers battled on the way to the bloody fighting at
Antietam, from the Appalachian Trail that attracts millions of visitors a
year, from the town of Burkittsville that looks much as it did in the 19th
century.
Unlike the more pristine foothills nearby, South Mountain carries a tower
town of sorts - a fire lookout tower from the 1930s, a cluttered microwave
tower, a T-shaped tower belonging to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Now, a proposal by two state agencies would add a 180-foot emergency
communications tower with an extra 15-foot antenna to South Mountain at
Lamb's Knoll, 1,750 feet in the sky, a tower twice the size of the next
tallest structure up there.
To some, the tower is a vital link in a network connecting paramedics
statewide to emergency room doctors in Baltimore.
To others, it is just another kind of visual pollution - along with the
billboards and power lines and high-density housing - that continues to pose
a threat to the historical experience they've worked so diligently to
protect.
"The most prominent feature on the landscape will be something that was put
up yesterday," said Paul Gilligan, chairman of the Mid-Maryland Land Trust
Association.
The $100,000 tower is needed by the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical
Services Systems (MIEMSS), which is replacing its lower-frequency analog
system with a higher-frequency digital system - the latter needing more
towers because the new signal travels a shorter distance.
The Lamb's Knoll site is an important spot on the signal's trip out to
Western Maryland, said MIEMSS spokesman Thomas H. Miller. The tower would
house other public safety antennas and would have space to lease to wireless

telephone companies.
The tower has received preliminary approval from several agencies but is
under internal review by the Department of Natural Resources, which would be
its owner because it would sit on the agency's property.
But late last week, Gov. Parris N. Glendening, coming down on the side of
preserving the view, wrote a letter to two of his Cabinet secretaries,
including the head of DNR, asking them to come up with alternatives to the
South Mountain site. His letter comes on the heels of one from the Federal
Communications Commission last month that told the state not to proceed with
tower construction until further environmental studies are conducted.
The fuss over the tower began last month when Paul M. Rosa of the Harpers
Ferry Conservancy stumbled upon plans for it on the Internet and set in
motion a letter-writing campaign to stop it - or at least to allow public
input into what the structure would look like.
The Maryland Historical Trust is one of the agencies that has signed off on
the tower. If South Mountain were pristine, it would be an issue, said
Michael K. Day, chief of the office of preservation services at the trust.
But the damage has been done, and another tower wouldn't cause much more, he
said.
"We're very hard-pressed to say an addition of one more feature will
dramatically change the effect or the damage done," he said. "The site has
basically already been compromised.
"You've got to take into account the visitor's experience," Day said. "The
visitor likes to be able to look out across the landscape and see it the way
it was when the historical event took place."
But, he added, "it's an unrealistic expectation."
Gilligan said he doesn't understand why some state agencies would set aside
more than $20 million for a Frederick County Rural Legacy land preservation
project there, and then others would come along and pay to scar the view of
the sky.
"What makes it strange is why would you do that ... after you put a ton of
money into the process?" asked Gilligan, who is a former mayor of
Burkittsville. "When you're standing in one of the best-preserved areas, and
an agency turns around and breaks up the integrity of the area, it's rather
hypocritical."
Folks in Pleasant Valley have long fought the intrusion of even the 20th
century. They talk about the power company that wanted to put a transformer
station on the side of a ridge on a wide-open slice of property - until it
was scared off by all the fuss. And a high-density housing development being
proposed for nearby Knoxville is about to receive this group's ire.
"It's beautiful out here, and we want to keep it that way," said resident
Amanda Roach, a mother of two.
Rosa, the most vocal opponent of the tower proposal, said he thinks a
compromise can be reached to make the tower less obtrusive.
He drove a visitor out to Harpers Ferry, W. Va., not far from the mountain,
to show off a cellular phone tower barely visible among the trees. The
company, he said, wanted to put a 260-foot tower just off the road in an
open valley. Instead, the tower is 55 feet tall, shaped like a football goal
post, and sits among the trees at the national park there. "To someone who
didn't know it was there, you would not observe it," Rosa said. "And the
phones work."
But camouflaging a tower - making it look like a tree, for example - would
be too expensive, Miller said. Scores of towers will be needed to fill out
the emergency communications system; $100 million is set aside for the
upgrading project over 10 years statewide. "I don't have unlimited funds,"
Miller said.
The tower, he insists, would not stick out - it would be much smaller in
diameter than the current one. Besides, he hopes to get permission to knock
down the fire tower, which also houses public safety antennas, when the new
one makes it obsolete. Miller said he worries it is too old and could
crumble. There is some debate, though, about whether the Depression-era fire
tower is itself historic.
"We ran into this Harpers Ferry Conservancy that doesn't like anything being
on the top of those mountains," he said. "They'd prefer all those towers be
taken down. But this is 2002. We're in a technological age.
"I think they're trying to delay things and make it difficult and make us go
away," he said. And so far, it's working: "Right now, we're dead in the
water."
Copyright � 2002, The Baltimore Sun <http://www.sunspot.net>


Comments: Herald Mail article on Lambs Knoll/Hagerstown Towers from the
Opinion Section
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Friday August 2, 2002

Joint use could end squabble over tower

by BOB MAGINNIS

A proposal to place a large communications tower atop South Mountain has put
the forces of public safety and historic preservation into conflict. But a
compromise might preserve the historic view from the Antietam Battlefield
while ensuring that the needs of the agencies like the 911 communications
systems are met.

The proposed 180-foot structure, which would have a 15-foot antenna on top
of it, would be placed in an area of South Mountain known as Lamb's Knoll,
between Crampton's Gap and Fox's Gap.

It would replace a 90-foot fire tower built 65 year ago, a structure which
an official of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services said is
not in good condition.

It would serve MIEMS, the 911 communications systems in Washington and
Frederick counties and the National Park Service.

Opposing the idea are preservationists who say that the tower would
adversely affect the view from the Antietam and South Mountain battlefields.

Is there a suitable compromise? Perhaps.

Paul Rosa, executive director of the Harper's Ferry Conservancy, said it
might be possible to make the tower look like a tree.

The idea isn't as far-out as it might sound. For example, Cost of Wisconsin,
Inc., has been crafting large trees, vines and simulated rock cliffs for
more than 40 years to create more authentic-looking habitats for zoos.

But even a 180-foot "tree" would require aircraft-warning lights, defeating
any work done to conceal its true purpose.

A more promising possibility might be to get agencies to use a 330-foot
communications tower proposed in June near the Maryland State Police
barracks in Hagerstown.

Could that tower, which would service state police and the Department of
Natural Resources, also serve the agencies seeking the South Mountain tower?
If all agencies can jointly use of a single tower away from the battlefield,
then history and the needs of emergency agencies could be served at one
site.

Copyright The Herald-Mail Co.