A company seeking to build a network of telecommunications towers in Vermont has filed suit against the state’s public utility commissioners, accusing them of dragging their feet on a pair of contested applications.
The towers that Industrial Tower and Wireless proposes to erect in Ira and Enosburgh would provide commercial two-way radio service and could serve as hubs for other wireless signals. Some neighbors contend the steel-lattice structures would be eyesores. The Enosburgh tower would stand 140 feet, and Ira’s, 170 feet; antennas atop both would extend another 13 feet.
Industrial Tower and Wireless, which filed its applications for the towers last summer, claims the Public Utility Commission has exceeded the legal timeline to issue a decision. In civil complaints in U.S. District Court in Burlington, one filed in December and one on Monday, the company asks a federal judge to order state regulators to approve the projects. The Massachusetts firm owns and operates more than 100 towers in New England and Florida, according to its website. It has already been granted permission to build towers in Fairfax and Eden.
The proposed towers would be built on private, wooded hillsides and would protrude above the treelines. In filings with the commission, some neighbors of the Ira project describe the tower as incompatible with the two-mile stretch of Route 133 from which it would be visible. In one document, they describe the area variously as “idyllic,” “bucolic,” “harmonious,” “unspoiled,” “undisturbed” and “pristine.”
“Every resident and taxpayer of Ira who uses the town office for deed research, paying taxes, registering dogs, etc. would be exposed to the tall metal lattice tower topped with whip antennas,” the neighbors’ filing states.
The Department of Public Service commissioned an outside study of the Ira tower and concluded in December that it would adversely affect the area’s aesthetics, though not to an offensive degree.
It also said the company had not taken reasonable steps to reduce the disruption, and urged the PUC to approve the project on the condition that the tower be painted to help it blend in with the surrounding forest.
In the Enosburgh application, a commission staffer recently recommended approval. Hearing officer Gregg Faber wrote that the neighbors’ objections were “unpersuasive.”
The ability to locate other wireless infrastructure at the proposed tower site could “forestall the need to build additional facilities in this area, which may in turn lead to lesser aesthetic impacts in this vicinity in the future,” he wrote.
Federal rules give state regulators 150 days to act on applications for telecom towers, though the deadline is frequently extended. Vermont’s trio of commissioners, who were sued individually, had not filed responses to the company’s complaints as of Wednesday afternoon.
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