National Park Service, UDC invited to weigh in on cell towers along Upper Delaware River

The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) has formed a subcommittee to explore the compatibility and possibility of allowing cellular phone towers in the 73.4 mile Upper Delaware River Corridor, where in many areas there is a lack of coverage.

The inability of using a cell phone has been raised as more than an inconvenience, but rather a public safety issue in times of emergency.

Following the discussion at the June UDC session, the matter went to Project Review Committee and returned to the full Council July 7. Aaron Robinson, UDC vice-chairman and Shohola Township, Pike County's representative on the UDC board, agreed to chair the newly formed Telecommunications Facilities Position Paper Subcommittee.

Any UDC member or National Park Service staff is welcome to participate. Robinson emphasized his intention to manage it as a productive, working committee. The first meeting was set for August 4 at 6 p.m. at the UDC office.

A preliminary step will be for UDC staff to gather the relevant ordinances and plans addressing cell towers, from the Pa. townships and NY towns in the corridor that are members of the Council.

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“One goal from this research project is to produce a position paper for the UDC and NPS that provides an interpretation of whether communication towers could be compatible within the Upper Delaware River corridor’s mostly private-lands acreage at all, or potentially under what conditions and designated segments," Laurie Ramie, UDC Exective Director, said.

The issue of emergency communications, voiced many times in the 34-year history of the UDC, was raised again in May while researching proposed revisions of the Town of Tusten's zoning ordinance.

Tusten's proposal to list communication towers and antennae as a "Special Use" within the town's Recreational River zoning district sparked a renewed discussion among the UDC that perhaps the current prohibition needs to be revisited.

Although previously interpreted as incompatible with the River Management Plan (RMP) Land & Water Use Guidelines adopted in 1986 as being a restricted "Major Commercial Development," Council members noted that the RMP was adopted before cell towers existed, and defining the towers this way may to protect "scenic vistas" falls counter with the Plan's mandate "to prevent river recreational accidents and minimize hazards" as well as "provide better emergency communication and better river information."

Up for questioning was how the National Park Service (NPS), Upper Delaware Scenic & Recreational River would react.

At the June UDC meeting, Cody Hendrix, Community Land Use Planner for the NPS on the Upper Delaware, stated that the Park Service does allow cell towers in the parks. Larry Richardson, Town of Cochecton replied that if this is a change to the NPS policy, the NPS needs to explain this to the Project Review committee. He said the UDC discussed this at length in the past and the Park Service was clear that the towers weren't allowed in the river valley.

At the June 28 Project Review session, Hendrix and Jessica Weinman, NPS Chief of Facilities Management, shared parts of a NPS reference manual outlining standards on the placement of new telecommunications services to avoid direct conflict with the department or agency’s mission.

Weinman stressed that the manual refers to federally-owned park land, which is unlike the unique circumstance of the Upper Delaware where almost all of the corridor remains privately-owned.

Karen Engelhardt, UDC Resource & Land Use Specialist, noted that the manual does not flatly reject cell towers but it is clear that the intention of the NPS is to develop planning documents for how to manage them. Weinman agreed, and advised that the Park Service and UDC should work on a joint position paper to address this.

A position paper would provide justification for when cell towers may be appropriate in certain areas. They discussed at committee whether a "Major Amendment" to the RMP would need to be approved, with requires all the member municipalities to agree on the guidelines such as how many towers would be allowed, and where. They also looked at if a "Letter of Interpretation" was appropriate on how to define cell towers as a commercial use.

Jim Greier, UDC - Town of Fremont, said this was a matter of public safety, noting that when the RMP was written, landlines were everywhere.

There were two members of the public at the Project Review meeting, however, expressing their view that cell towers should not be permitted in the Upper Delaware corridor.

Robert Berg, an attorney from Scarsdale, NY who said he is a fly fisherman and conservationist, emphasized that the Upper Delaware is a "national treasure" designated as a Wild and Scenic River, and as such must be protected from cell towers. He said they are incompatible to the River Management Plan, and as an attorney over the past few years he has developed a specialty in challenging wireless telecommunications facilities throughout the nation.

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Berg cited unspecified environmental studies probing the risks of these towers and electromagnetic radiation on flora and fauna, and also referred to the visual impact of a tower intruding in the sky. A major environmental impact study would be needed, he said, not a simple process given the involvement of the NPS, the UDC and local municipalities.

Further, it was Berg's stated view that gaps in cell phone coverage typically is not a significant problem, adding, "there are alternative ways of dealing with it than sticking a tower in your scenic river corridor."

His daughter Zoe Berg, is a law student and avid angler who is currently working for an environmental health nonprofit called the Environmental Health Trust. They help municipalities and state legislatures, and also correspond with federal officials about how to enact policies that adequately protect public health and the environment.

She referred to a letter she said the U.S. Department of the Interior sent in 2014 to the FCC about environmental studies showing harm done by radiation from communication towers on nesting birds.

Zoe Berg offered to pass on information about the environmental studies and said she and her father can offer proposals to accepting wireless telecommunications in the scenic corridor.

Town of Hancock representative Fred Peckham said at Project Review that cell service providers are not interested in this area because there aren’t enough subscribers. Richardson countered that the UDC's only job is to come up with reasonable guidelines.

It was Town of Delaware alternate representative Harold Roder's stated view that the NPS "stonewalled" the idea of cell towers in the river corridor a few years ago. Virginia Dudko, UDC- Town of Deerpark, replied that this (the present) is a different time.

The UDC has been through this process before, developing a position paper with the NPS on the compatibility of solar farms, another innovation not anticipated by the RMP writers in the 1980s.

This article originally appeared on Tri-County Independent: National Park Service, UDC to weigh in on Delaware River cell towers