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‘You just keep thinkin’, Butch. That’s what you’re good at.’— Sundance Kid to Butch Cassidy (from the movie of nearly the same name)I’ve got another million dollar idea! A Canadian cuisine restaurant! The food would be very similar to American, just more expensive — or maybe less, depending on the current exchange rate. OK, this is an over simplification. After all, there is back bacon and Molson beer. Actually, there would be quite a few things to give it that special ambience, and I think I would choose the ’70s as a theme.A large part of this would be a result of décor and employee training. Your host/hostess would greet you with, “How’zit goin’, eh?” Here comes your waiter on hockey skates. Did I mention that the floor would be an ice rink? All the help would wear color-coded toques (those knit caps). They would need them. The temperature would be displayed on a huge thermometer and would be kept at minus 10 degrees Celsius. Any American who could translate this to Fahrenheit would get a free dessert. I am pretty sure we would not be giving out many of these.Even before entering, your experience would begin. Snow-making machines would keep the parking lot in a perpetual state of whiteout. Search and rescue dogs would escort you to the front door, if you’re lucky. The waiting area would be set up to look like a customs checkpoint so that the long delays would feel natural. Aromatherapy machines would provide the odor of wet wool. There could be a drug-sniffing dog to play with. We would have specialized dining rooms, too, like the French Canadian section, which would be separate, of course, where the waiters would pretend not to understand English.There would be a single table in the back of the main dining area with a TV/VCR player for the Canadian Football League fans — both of them. We would show tapes of the best games — both of them.Another separate room, that you would have to know the password to get into, would be the old Underground Railroad Room from slave days, converted for draft refugees. When it came time for the check, it would be in Canadian currency so that you wouldn’t have a clue what you were actually being charged. You would do what Americans always do when in another country; hand the waiter a fistful of money and trust him to take the right amount. I believe this is what the restaurant business refers to as a profit center.Don’t get me wrong. I am just poking fun here. Some of my best friends are Canadians. Funny, though, I haven’t heard from any since running this idea past them. Bill Abrams resides in Pine Plains, a little town he likes to consider just a wee bit south of the Canadian border.
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.