news story / By Heidi Walters

Tower glower

Fickle Hill residents resent the sudden erection of a cell tower in their ‘hood

(Sept. 13, 2007)  It started with the cement trucks, trundling day and night up Fickle Hill Road and, five or so miles in, turning onto a dirt road. Or maybe it actually started earlier than the cement trucks — maybe the first real indication, if anyone could have guessed it, that a new cellular communications tower was going to soar, in a heartbeat, into the viewscape of this rural ridge-flanking neighborhood was the timber harvest that preceded it. Or maybe that’s just a coincidence.

Well, whatever — the 160-foot tower is up now. From a few spots on Fickle Hill Road, and from many places down along Humboldt Bay, you can glimpse its gleaming, spindly metal essence, topped by a boxy lattice. For such a modern device, it looks decidedly Wellsian — dated-futuristic, War-of-the-Worlds awkward, not at all like the future, in fact. Not even, noted one observer, disguised to look like a scraggy old redwood, like it could have been.

View of the new cell tower from a nearby property. Photo by Heidi Walters

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Some Fickle Hill Road residents aren’t happy about it.

“That baby went up in a week’s time,” said Carol Schillinger, whose rustic grand home now has a scenic view of the new tower on its partially logged knoll. “I tell you, I’ve never seen anything get built that fast in Humboldt County.”

Even if they’d had more time, their agitation would have been for naught, for this particular tower anyway. The new cell tower, built by Edge Wireless, is on land the communications company leased from Green Diamond Resources/Simpson Timber. The land falls under Humboldt County’s Timberland Production Zoning (TPZ) regulations: on TPZ and Agriculture Exclusive (AE) lands, permitted uses include the “erection, construction, alteration, or maintenance of gas, electric, water or communication transmission facilities.” That’s been the rule since the 1980s, said Humboldt County Senior Planner Alyson Hunter. On TPZ land, all the cell tower proponent needs from the county is a building permit — the request for which does not require public notification. Other than that, the Federal Aviation Administration regulates cell tower heights to ensure they’re not flight hazards, and the Public Utilities Commission and Federal Communications Commission issue their respective licenses.

“We do have a draft wireless communications ordinance,” Hunter said. “About four years ago, we had a little public outcry over a cell tower [proposed for] the Arcata Bottoms that everybody was all worked up about.” Cell tower workshops were held, and staff drafted an ordinance. The purpose of the ordinance, according to wording in the draft, was to “promote the orderly and appropriate development of wireless telecommunications facilities within the County in a manner that will protect and promote public health and safety, prevent visual blight, preserve the County’s rural character and protect scenic, natural and cultural resources.”

But the Board of Supervisors decided to hold off on finalizing the ordinance, instead working it into the ongoing General Plan Update process. Hunter said the ordinance is a good idea. “It is time to address new technology,” she said. “I think that back in the dark ages, when our General Plan was done, they might have been thinking of telephone wires.” But even if the ordinance does come to pass, it might not affect TPZ lands, said Hunter. “It’s unlikely [the ordinance] is going to require a discretionary permit for TPZ land cell towers. The draft was more focused on urban areas and visual impacts there.”

County supervising planner Steve Werner offered another explanation: “In the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, counties are allowed to regulate” siting of cell towers, Werner said. “But … counties have a narrowed ability to impose restrictions. In short, the courts have sided with industry.”

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