Can you hear me now?
Verizon Wireless wants an affirmative answer to that question if you're in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, and says it needs a cellphone tower possibly 80 feet tall in Kings Canyon to get it.
A short notice that ran in the Federal Register on April 1 says Verizon wants to locate the tower on Park Ridge near Grant Grove in Kings Canyon.
According to the notice, "Park Ridge is an established telecommunications site for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Current structures on Park Ridge include: two concrete block structures containing NPS and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) communications equipment with power generators; a 20-foot fire lookout tower; two 40-foot lattice towers with NPS and USFS telecommunications equipment; and a 30-foot tower on the NPS communications building supporting a passive reflector used for land-line service operated by Verizon California."
Of course, if Verizon receives approval to locate the tower there, and does indeed install one 80 feet tall, it would dwarf all those other facilities. Beyond that, though, is the question of whether there's a need or a desire for greater cellphone coverage in the two parks?
That, of course, is an aesthetic question as much a philosophical and even practical one. Ever since the world became "wired" it seems you can't leave home and get away from the rest of the world. Should you have cellphone coverage while hiking down a trail in a national park? Should you have to endure someone else yapping away on their phone in a national park setting?
Of course, it's nice to be reachable in an emergency or for business purposes. And where there's cellphone coverage, there's also some form of wireless Internet available as well.
But is this a safety issue, a commercial one, or one to better society in general? If it's a safety issue, how did society manage to survive all these years without cellphone coverage in the parks? And how would greater cell coverage in the parks better society?
Questions aside, it's now up to the staff at the two parks to evaluate the request under the "National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Historic Preservation Act, The Telecommunications Act of 1996, and National Park Service requirements, policy and regulations. Once completed the NEPA analysis including the effects, if any, on cultural resources will be available for public review."
You can send any comments you'd like the parks to consider to: Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, Planning and Compliance Office, 47050 Generals Highway, Three Rivers, California 93271. Or you can email them to seki_planning@nps.gov.
Support Essential Coverage of Essential Places
Comments
Wow, Frank C. I don't think the length of time someone has posted anywhere really matters.
Can't anyone live anymore without being "connected"? If you can't enjoy the nature and solitude, perhaps you should just stay away.
Been there, done that. I've seen it from all sides. Having it there when the conversations were unwanted and not having it there when it would have been very useful and unobtrusive.
A couple of years ago I was backpacking in Yosemite. A Boy Scout group was next door and I woke up in the morning because one of the kids was talking on his cell phone with his folks. Granted I did call a friend from the top of Half Dome and Clouds Rest, but I placed myself far away from other people when I made those calls.
Now I do remember being in Grant Village a few days later and needing to meet someone there. Of course no cell phone coverage. If I didn't make the contact it would have been rather difficult to figure out what happened. Later I found myself at Stony Creek Lodge trying to make a reservation over their pay phone. That had to be the scratchiest land line phone I've ever used. I would have loved to have been able to use my cell phone.
i'm headed back to grant grove in two weeks for work, and would be really disapointed if i have to listen to cell phones all summer. if you need your phone that bad, stay home and out of nature.
generally speaking, I agree that the current location is already a bit ugly with stuff. I dont like the 80 foot height - seems to be double anything else on the same site. But more importantly, why is it necessary to run this tower with propane during an era when we understand that burning fossil fuels generates CO2 emissions which cause global warming? Lots of companies are running remote facilities with photovoltaics. Is the problem here that the tower requires so much power than the land mass needed for photovoltaics is also large?
If that is the case, I would prefer no tower - not because of the aesthetics, but because of the polluting power source.
cell phones and towers are toxic, and dangerous, every time you do whatever you want, you are poisoning the earth and others. Yes it is legal, because unfortunatly corporations including the cell phone wireless industry run the country and decide the policies, but if you read between the lines you will soon find that electromagnetic radiation is creating illness and death and has effects that accumulate over time.
Anon, do you know something that that the rest of us do not? Can you cite any scientific evidence that electromagnetic radiation associated with power lines, cell phone towers, or whatever is harmful to people? I'm genuinely curious. For about 25 years now I've been looking for a study that provides empirical evidence that this hypothesis holds water. So far, nothing.
I work in the wireless industry as a "site acquisition agent" (finding places to put antennas - tall buildings, water tanks, electric transmission lines, existing towers, etc.) and have mixed feelings. The industry, as far as I've seen over the last 10 yrs I've been in it, makes building a new tower the last option due to the cost and negative PR. I prefer to have "wild" places be just that. At the same time, the safety concerns sound valid. Tough call. I hope I get to this park soon though, it looks gorgeous.....