Letters to the Editor
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‘Calling Al Gore’
The article by John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute misplaces blame on environmentalists for the lack of cell-phone coverage on the Adirondack Northway [Oped, “Calling Al Gore,” March 21, 2007].
The Adirondack Council worked with the state police and the Adirondack Park Agency in 2002 and 2003 to gain quick approval for a 33 pole cell and police-radio network. The state’s design consultants confirmed that it would provide seamless coverage over the entire area where cell coverage is spotty that is, Exits 26 to 35.
It was the cell companies that backed out of the plan. Over the past four years, not one of them has submitted an alternative for review. As of March 21, they still had not. The Republican state senator from Queensbury, Betty Little, has done nothing but lay the blame on the Adirondack Council and the Adirondack Park Agency, the latter of which is the state’s land-use regulatory agency in the park. She and Mr. Berlau failed to mention that the Adirondack Park Agency has never denied a cell-tower permit request.
The facts are simple economics. This lonely stretch of the Northway is too far from a major community to be profitable for the cell-phone companies. They carefully weighed our safety against their profit. Our safety lost.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported on March 19 that Verizon alone spent $2.2 million on lobbying to influence state government last year. Is it any wonder the senator wants to give the company public land and remove all regulations that protect the park’s scenery?
Stop blaming environmentalists for opposing the cell companies’ plans. We can’t fight something that doesn’t exist. And we don’t oppose cell coverage on the Northway.
JOHN SHEEHAN
Communications director
The Adirondack Council
Albany, N.Y.
Mr. Berlau responds:
In my article, I laid out for readers the Adirondack Council’s “compromise” that Mr. Sheehan speaks of. I also explained why building mini-towers wouldn’t work in providing cell-phone coverage on the Northway, or prevent the tragedies to stranded drivers such as the Langners. The cellular companies told Senator Betty Little that even with a state subsidy, they could not build cell towers that were a mere 38 feet high, because these would not provide adequate coverage to motorists. To be effective, cell towers need to be around 100 feet tall.
But even after the deaths of Alfred Langner and Stewart Crookes, building cell towers of this height remains a dealbreaker for groups such as the Adirondack Council. The council has protested even when companies have tried to make tremendous accommodations to make cell towers fit in more with natural surroundings. Mr. Sheehan’s group is still putting its own preferred aesthetics ahead of human lives.
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