Mavs00
09-14-2005, 10:11 PM
An interesting listserve item.
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This was in the Sept. 12th news on the WBNZ-Saranac Lake website; FYI:
ADK COUNCIL SUES APA OVER CELL TOWER
An environmental group and several Lake George-area residents Friday filed a lawsuit against the state Adirondack Park Agency in an attempt to block the construction of a 104-foot-tall cell phone tower disguised as a white pine tree.
The Adirondack Council filed the suit in state Supreme Court in Washington County. Several residents of the hamlet of Pilot Knob, in the town of Fort Ann where the tower would be built, joined in the suit. "We believe we can prove that the Adirondack Park Agency applied a flawed policy regarding communications towers in the Adirondack Park, while ignoring other sections of state law it should have applied when making its decision," Adirondack Council Executive Director Brian Houseal said.
The tower by Nextel would serve the sparsely populated tourism region of Lake George, where cell-phone service is spotty or lacking and results in what fire and rescue officials claim is a hindrance to emergency response. The tower would be about 30 feet higher than most of the other pines on Buck Mountain, but the state agency decided the tower will blend into the forested slope.
The Adirondack Council has long opposed the plan, calling the tower "frankenpine" and saying it would be a blight on a landscape that has been the subject of some of America's greatest artists, including Georgia O'Keeffe.
The council also has criticized the proposal and public officials who would set what it said would be a precedent of ugly towers throughout the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park. The park agency approved a conditional tower permit in July, concluding after a prolonged review that it would be "substantially invisible."
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This was in the Sept. 12th news on the WBNZ-Saranac Lake website; FYI:
ADK COUNCIL SUES APA OVER CELL TOWER
An environmental group and several Lake George-area residents Friday filed a lawsuit against the state Adirondack Park Agency in an attempt to block the construction of a 104-foot-tall cell phone tower disguised as a white pine tree.
The Adirondack Council filed the suit in state Supreme Court in Washington County. Several residents of the hamlet of Pilot Knob, in the town of Fort Ann where the tower would be built, joined in the suit. "We believe we can prove that the Adirondack Park Agency applied a flawed policy regarding communications towers in the Adirondack Park, while ignoring other sections of state law it should have applied when making its decision," Adirondack Council Executive Director Brian Houseal said.
The tower by Nextel would serve the sparsely populated tourism region of Lake George, where cell-phone service is spotty or lacking and results in what fire and rescue officials claim is a hindrance to emergency response. The tower would be about 30 feet higher than most of the other pines on Buck Mountain, but the state agency decided the tower will blend into the forested slope.
The Adirondack Council has long opposed the plan, calling the tower "frankenpine" and saying it would be a blight on a landscape that has been the subject of some of America's greatest artists, including Georgia O'Keeffe.
The council also has criticized the proposal and public officials who would set what it said would be a precedent of ugly towers throughout the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park. The park agency approved a conditional tower permit in July, concluding after a prolonged review that it would be "substantially invisible."