By SHARON KILPATRICK

By SHARON KILPATRICK

Rappahannock New* Staff Writer

The county may lose the right to have any say at all over the location and height of cellular telephone towers under legislation now in Congress.

Both houses have passed bills overhauling telecommunications law. The bills affect everything from cable television companies to which companies can offer local and long-distance telephone service. A conference committee will iron out differences between H R. 1555 and S. 652. In

their present f(|m both bills allow the Federal Comminications Commission to preempt local zoning authority over the placement, construction, operation or modification of cellular towers.

The National Association of Counties (NACO) sent out a legislative alert to county officials urging counties to contact Rep. Thomas Bliley (R-7th District), who as chairman of the House Commerce Committee will lead House conferees during consideration of the bill, and urge him to suppport language giving local govememnts poWer to regulate location of the towers as long as they do not act to outlaw them directly or “do not unneccessarily delay” their construction.

According to the record of debate on the bills the cellular telephone industry plans to increase the number of such towers in the nation from about 18,000 currently to 100,000 by 2000.

Rep. Bliley supported inclusion of the FCC preemption in the bill, but in a subsequent “colloquy” during floor debate indicated he would be willing to push for a change in the final form qf the bill that would limit that preemption.

Currently both Cellular One and ShenTel are leasing space oh Adelphia Cablevision's tower in Chester Gap for cellular phone use. However, that still leaves much of the county out of the radio range of a tower.

County Administrator John McCarthy said neither company is currently interested in negotiating with the county while they wait to see what sort of final legislation emerges from the US. Congress

In July 1994 Cellular One came to the county with a plan to build a 250-foot tower behind the jail in Washington to serve its customers and to share the use of the tower with the Sheriffs Office which could use it to dispatch deputies and fire and rescue squads. Sheriff John Henry Woodward said he badly needed a higher tower because there are more and more areas of the county his current radio equipment cannot reach.

There was opposition to this proposal because of its location. The county accepted the volunteer services of William Biby, an engineer and telecommunications planner with property in the county, who provided the county with maps showing the probable area of coverage with different locations for a tower.

The Rappahannock Farmers' Co-op tentatively offered land behind its building if it could also use the tower to dispatch its trucks, and the Board of Supervisors accepted this proposal. However, representatives of Cellular One said the mountain behind the Co-op would prevent its signal from reaching the entire courts arc the rex: tower near Front Royal. Mr. Bib> disagrees arc -cc*..rg came of the proposal as Celular One negotiated * tr Aie pr.a

Mr. McCarthy said under the curer: or- -re. communications bill a cellular telephone cc~rur • ,o_c -egotiate an agreement with anv willing arc r-rer arc re county would have no say