[TowerTalk] It's that damn tower. Not the birds!

[E. S.]

Last year we received a letter from the American Bird Conservancy at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, asking for permission to enter our properties to catalog dead birds.  

We are a fairly high profile local telecommunications site owner with 15 tower sites within a few hours ride from the Cornell campus.  To be honest we frequently find dead birds around our sites.  Off hand I cannot say we see more from one tower than another but I was at one of our shorter towers, 100', last week and did just happen to see 4 or 5 dead birds near the tower while I was putting down vegetation killer.  Our towers range in height from 100' to 420' with some unlighted, some with red incandescent lighting with red/white banding, some with 24 hour white stobing, and some with dual red white strobing and no painting. I never gave it a thought until the letter from Cornell. To me it's not the birds but the result of this mentally.

I tend to think the problem is more prevalent in high (bird) traffic areas, like here in UpState New York in the Finger Lakes region but that's just a guess.  We own a 180' self supporting cellular tower with a 20' face located in the middle of a heavily populated residential area adjacent to a golf course and I don't recall ever seeing a dead bird at that site. That site is not a high elevation site and well below the ridge line.

All this said the county where Cornell is located is having a difficult time siting tower sites for their new communications system in part due to this problem, perceived or real.

We are in early stages of permitting a new 1100' tower about 45 minutes from Cornell. I am betting this issue will be raised, along with a battery of other concerns, in an attempt to foil approval.

We are in litigation over one of our sites or another every month of every year. I have learned the hard way it's not what I think that matters, it is what the public thinks that counts. Our legal counsel has become well educated in what we do but the law is the law.    

With that thought in mind, all hams, and I've been one for almost 35 years now, need to remember that a tower is a tower is a tower.  To a layman my 100' commercial tower that is a money making venture looks very similar to the 100' tower in my back with that monobander on it.  All are ugly, birds or no birds.

Gordon
N6IN/2
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