Four years ago, state officials approved a plan for cell phone service along the Adirondack Northway that never materialized, but two recent deaths have added urgency to solutions already on the drawing board and proposals for temporary cell towers on parked trucks.
The long-standing issue has landed in Gov. Eliot Spitzer's office, where top staff have been discussing it, said spokesman Marc Violette.
"These discussions are taking place aimed at assessing the potential for improving cell service while also keeping in mind the special nature of the environment through which the Northway passes," he said.
At issue is a nearly 50-mile dark zone along the four-lane highway through New York's northern mountains -- the main road from Albany to Montreal. Cell phone service cuts out around Exit 26 near Pottersville and resumes around Exit 35 as drivers leave the Adirondack Park below Plattsburgh.
The entire mountainous and sparsely populated 6-million acre park has only limited land-based cell phone service.
"I think there is consensus there should be cell coverage on that area of the Northway," said state Sen. Betty Little, some of whose constituents would get new wireless phone access as well. "You're going to have to put up taller towers."
In a letter to Spitzer last week, Little called for immediately putting temporary mobile cellular units at three rest areas on Interstate 87, suspending the Adirondack Park Agency's restrictions on tower height within the highway corridor, and either finding a cell company or using $10 million in state emergency funding to build permanent towers.
The Republican from Glens Falls cited "this outrageous threat to public safety" as the reason to act fast.
On Jan. 25, when temperatures fell below zero, Alfred Langner, 63, of Brooklyn, died of hypothermia in his car after it went off I-87 in North Hudson, about 90 miles north of Albany. He and his injured wife waited more than 24 hours for help when her cell phone couldn't get service.
About 20 miles farther north, a 60-year-old Canadian trucker died of a heart attack in a snowstorm Feb. 14 after his tractor-trailer went off the highway. His wife also was unable to phone for help and flagged down a passing motorist.
"It might not be complete, but it's better than what's there," Little said of bringing in three mobile towers immediately. "I'm not trying to change policy within the park," she added. "I'm just trying to change the height restriction on the Northway."
The tower policy of the APA, the state agency that regulates development in the Adirondacks, calls for avoiding mountaintops, putting new services on existing structures like water tanks or old towers and making them "substantially invisible." Structures above 40 feet require APA review.
Since 2000, the agency has approved 50 telecommunication tower projects, including a handful of new freestanding structures. There were 78 previously. New in 2005 was the 104-foot simulated white pine at Pilot Knob on the east side of Lake George, a Nextel Partners installation some environmentalists called "Frankenpine."
With a small tower now in Westport by Exit 31 and others in Schroon Lake that provide spotty coverage between Exits 26 and 28, the dark zones are getting smaller, APA spokesman Keith McKeever said.
"This agency has approved every telecommunications application that's ever been submitted," McKeever said. "Most have been modified to comply to local and state law within the park, but they've all been approved."
Environmentalists have consistently opposed high towers in the scenic mountains. "Obviously we believe that within 10 or 15 years at the outside all of these towers will be obsolete, that the only tamperproof communication available to us right now is satellite, and that properly developed it would solve a large number of the park's communications problems," said John Sheehan, spokesman for the Adirondack Council.
Sheehan said his organization might not object to some mobile cell towers for the remainder of this winter, when the immediate danger from exposure is greatest, as long as they are temporary and come with assurances of a better permanent solution. The plan approved by the APA four years ago -- a series of 33 cell towers connected by fiber optic cable, each tower 38 feet high -- remains the best option, he said.
That project was proposed by the state Department of Transportation, state police and Crown Communication, the company that has a 20-year contract to assist with wireless telecommunication structures on state-owned land.
However, the cell service provider that originally planned to join dropped out, and no other cell companies were attracted, said Jacqueline Phillips Murray, attorney for Crown. There are a half-dozen big and some smaller licensed cell service providers in New York, she said.
"Apparently they felt from a standpoint of numbers of customers it wouldn't necessarily be sustainable," said state police spokesman Lt. Glenn Miner. Meanwhile, troopers in December restored the old emergency callboxes that stand every two miles along 32 miles of the Northway stretch.
State agency officials began discussing revisions to the stalled cell project last summer. One possibility is fewer but taller towers. In late 2005, Little also proposed 100-foot tall mobile towers at the three rest areas.
Verizon, which has six cell service sites in the Adirondack Park, is drafting a plan to continue Northway corridor coverage from Schroon Lake up to Keeseville, spokesman John O'Malley said. Tower heights would depend on locations. He said the 38-foot towers in the APA-approved plan would be "ineffective."
AP
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