ANNAPOLIS – The Board of Public Works Wednesday approved a plan to build a cell tower near the historic Antietam National Battlefield in Western Maryland, angering conservationists and historians.
The board approved VoiceStream Wireless’ plan to transfer the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems to a new frequency and build two towers in Western Maryland.
One tower will be built near Hagerstown and the second is slated for construction at Lambs Knoll, near the Antietam battlefield, the site of the bloodiest Civil War battle, in which 23,000 people died.
“This is the beginning of making Western Maryland business friendly, as we hope to make the rest of the state,” said Greg Massoni, spokesman for Gov. Robert Ehrlich.
Under the plan, VoiceStream would pay $400,000 to move MIEMSS to a different frequency and $650,000 to build the two towers.
“This doesn’t cost the taxpayer a penny,” said Thomas H. Miller, MIEMSS communications director. “It was really a great deal.”
But historic preservation groups in the area opposed the construction of the Lambs Knoll tower, spurring the Federal Communications Commission to file a stop-work order for that tower.
“The public has been completely dropped out of the loop here,” said Paul Rosa, executive director of the Harper’s Ferry Conservancy. The group requested the stop-work order from the FCC to review the environmental impact, after they discovered the state plans at the “11th hour,” he said.
“This is an industrial intrusion that doesn’t belong there,” he said.
Alternatives were presented to the state, but officials were unresponsive, Rosa said.
“The political will is lacking,” he said. “The only way the public will find out about it is when they wake up and there’s a tower there.”
Whether the tower, which will replace an existing fire tower, is on historic land is still being debated.
Whether the tower, which will replace an existing fire tower, is on historic land is still being debated.
Department of Budget and Management spokesman Ellis Kitchen said the site is only near the historic South Mountain Battlefield, but Rosa said it is “dead in the center” of the battlefield, which is also near Antietam.
“My main worry was one thing: `Would it would detract from Antietam?'” said Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, who sits on the Board of Public Works with Ehrlich and Treasurer Nancy Kopp. “They reduced the size (of the tower) – practically in half – they said it wouldn’t effect it.”
The revised height not only assuaged Schaefer, but should also negate the FCC’s stop-work order, Miller said.
The Lambs Knoll tower would rise to 180 feet, effectively keeping it out of the FCC’s jurisdiction, which goes into effect at 200 feet, he said.
Keeping the tower under 200 feet doesn’t help the historic area, however, said area Civil War historian Dennis E. Frye.
“It makes absolutely no sense to have a space needle thrusting its ugly structure in the middle of this very sensitive landscape,” Frye said. “This is just an insult to Civil War history.”
-30 – CNS-4-16-03