 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 12, 2005
COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM GAINS COMMITTEE APPROVAL FOR START IN 2006
The Public Safety Committee of the Tompkins County Legislature today gave its unanimous approval to several actions that move the long-awaited countywide emergency communications system closer to a construction start in 2006. The County has negotiated a $13.2 million contract with Motorola, Inc. to provide the electronics and radio technology for the Public Safety Communications System. The total cost of the system – including tower construction, end-user equipment, paging and mobile data systems, and consultants’ fees – will approach $17.5 million, County Administrator Steve Whicher said today.
The system will link all of the County’s emergency responders with each other and the County’s central dispatch center in a far more flexible and far-reaching manner than is currently possible. The ten-tower system will incorporate six existing tower sites where structures may be shared, reused, or rebuilt. Only four towers need to be constructed on never-before-used sites, and none of the new towers will be over 200 feet tall or will require lighting.
The Motorola contract includes $11.2 million for the radio system and just under $2 million for system-compatible radios used by first responders. Each police force, fire department, ambulance company, etc. will need to have new radio equipment. The County will provide base stations and vehicle-mounted radios to the end-users. How the cost of portable (handheld) radios will be assigned has not been determined.
A separate bidding process will be used for construction of the system infrastructure, which includes new or rebuilt towers and other site work such as equipment shelters, access drives, fencing, and utilities. The cost for the towers and all needed site work is estimated at between $2 million and $2.5 million. Motorola is free to join the competitive bid process for this portion of the project. The bid documents will go out at the end of December, pending final project approvals by the full County Legislature.
The anticipated timetable for the project shows a site work contractor chosen by the end of January 2006, site work completed by July, Motorola’s installation of equipment completed by September, acceptance testing in October, and final acceptance and countywide use of the system by December 2006. County Attorney Jonathan Wood said the County will hold back 10 percent of the contract cost until after final acceptance of the Motorola system. Testing of the promised radio coverage will be done in a series of 4,000 grids, each a quarter-mile on a side, throughout the county. An acceptable voice signal must be guaranteed in 95 percent of the grids, which encompass virtually all passable streets and roadways.
Also part of the total $17.5 million project is a separate system for voice paging, to be built by United Radio, based in Auburn NY, for a cost under $300,000. It has already been agreed that end-users, not the County, will purchase their own pagers. A mobile data system that will allow police officers to use car-mounted computers to access records will be added to the system once it is completed. The mobile data portion of the project is estimated to cost around $1 million.
A Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the project was released on October 18, 2005. Public comment on the DEIS was accepted at a hearing and via written comments submitted during a 30-day public comment period, which ended November 18. Joan Jurkowich, Deputy Planning Commissioner, reported that, in addition to oral comments at the hearing, eleven written comments were submitted. Four comments came from residents who live or own property near a proposed tower site, four were from municipal officials and three were submitted by County officials, including a representative of the Environmental Management Council. In accordance with State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) regulations, the comments have been addressed and will become part of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). Any necessary mitigations are described in the FEIS.
Jurkowich stated that, as a result of concerns over the location of a new tower in north Danby, the County will move the site about 400 to 450 feet. The repositioning will not affect performance of the system and will place the tower further from a nearby residence, mitigating both the visual and noise impacts. The last step in the environmental impact process is preparation of a Findings Statement that summarizes the FEIS and the mitigations. Jurkowich said the Findings Statement is being completed and will be available for review in a few days.
The $17.5 million project is the largest capital project the County has ever undertaken. The County has been planning for the project for some time, however, and has budgeted funds to pay the bills. Whicher explained that $1.2 million dedicated to the project remains in the 2005 County budget, and another $1 million was included in the 2006 budget. $1 million in member item funding awaits use, and the County has requested $2 million more in member items. The County will need to borrow the remaining money through municipal bonding, but the cost of borrowing – about $1.5 million in interest payments – has already been included in the property tax levy.
Annual maintenance costs for the new system will be in the $300,000 to $500,000 range, said Whicher. About $100,000 is typically budgeted for annual maintenance now, and the County earns $100,000 in co-location fees charged to other entities such as cell phone companies who rent antenna space on the County’s towers. Future co-location revenues and possible long-term revenues from the State, which will probably share the County’s infrastructure for its own communications system, may help offset the increased annual costs, said Whicher.
On December 20, the full County Legislature will be asked to approve
the FEIS and adopt the Findings Statement. Then it will be asked to authorize
the signing of contracts with Motorola and United Radio, and to approve
sending out the bid documents for the tower and site work.
A balloon test for visual impact of a proposed public safety communications
tower is scheduled to take place August 17 in the Town of Caroline. EDR,
Inc, an environmental review firm subcontracting with Tompkins County,
is making a study of the potential visual impact of new towers that may
be built as part of the proposed countywide Public Safety Communications
System.
The firm will be working at a proposed site for a new communications tower in Caroline. They plan to fly a 15-foot-long blimp-shaped orange or yellow balloon at the site, starting at around 7:30 in the morning. The balloon will be flown to the approximate height of the proposed tower. Field workers will then take photos from various spots within a five-mile radius. Later, renderings of towers will be inserted into digital photos to show what an actual tower would look like in that location. The balloon is expected to be aloft for three to four hours.
A similar test took place in southern Newfield on Monday afternoon. EDR plans to conduct balloon tests at three more sites of proposed new towers – two in Danby and one in Enfield near the Ulysses town line – over the next several days.
Tompkins County’s proposed rebuild of the microwave radio network used by first responders throughout the county would have ten transmission sites, or towers, only four of which would be completely new. The other six proposed sites would either reuse or share existing structures, or involve rebuilding on the site of an existing tower.
Tompkins County has started the environmental review process for the long-awaited upgrade to its Public Safety Communications System – the countywide emergency radio communications network used for fire, police, and emergency medical personnel. As part of the planning, design, and review process for the proposed system, the County will prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
ENSR International – an environmental assessment consulting firm with offices in Syracuse, Albany, and Rochester – will study aspects of the system and transmission sites that could affect the surrounding environment and community character. ENSR staff will evaluate the potential impacts of the system’s infrastructure and technology on the environment and, if necessary, will recommend mitigation measures. This fall, the results of the study will be published as the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and will be made available for public comment. The team overseeing the project plans to have the final environmental statement ready for approval by the County Legislature before the end of this year.
The proposed design for the communications system includes reuse or replacement of existing towers at six sites and new structures at four sites. The ten towers in the proposed system will improve emergency response radio coverage in the county from about 65 percent to about 95 percent of the land mass. The current system is more than 30 years old and has multiple deficiencies that hamper the effectiveness of emergency response. The EIS process will cover nine of the sites; a new tower on the Ithaca College campus on South Hill has been reviewed separately and will be the first to be built.
Study of the potential visual impact of the proposed system’s towers will start as early as next week. To determine the visual impact of the new towers, proposed for sites in Danby, Caroline, and Enfield, a contractor will fly tethered balloons to the proposed heights of the top of each tower. None of the proposed towers will be higher than 200 feet, and none will require lighting or guy wires.
The balloons are about 15 feet across and are bright orange. Once they are sent aloft at a particular site, observers travel to various spots within an approximately five-mile radius and take photographs. They will then insert renderings into the digital photos to show what an actual tower would look like in that location.
Clear weather with little wind is preferred for the balloon tests. The consultants plan to start watching the weather next Monday, August 8, for calm days with high visibility, and fly the balloons sometime that week or the next. Typically, each balloon stays aloft for about half a day. The County will notify the media and officials in each of the affected municipalities of when the balloons are expected to go up.
Other field work to be conducted as part of the DEIS process includes a noise assessment which will include taking sound level measurements with a handheld sound level meter, a wetland delineation, and an ecological survey of areas that may have new or replacement towers. The field surveys will be conducted by personnel from ENSR, an environmental consulting firm leading the DEIS process for this project.