Our View

Our View

Tower options

Thinking ‘outside the box’for answers

to cellular phone tower question

Ongoing efforts to figure out what to do about

cellular communications towers in

Rappahannock County have taken our officials into uncharted waters.

There are still a few oldtimers around who recall the days when electric power was brought to their homes and farms, courtesy of government programs designed to bring modem conveniences - and a better way of life — to everyone, whether the electric company would make money on each customer or not. And the lines of power poles, wires and substations required to create the grids were tolerated, if not welcomed.

And now, cellular communication towers are coming, and most people are unhappy with what they will do to the landscape. They’re right to be concerned.

There is an old saying about the future, that “the answers may lie beyond our reach, but not beyond our grasp.” That is how we need to approach the challenge of cell towers in Rappahannock.

Yes, the cell phone companies have two real advantages — extremely deep pockets and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 — but as more communities struggle with these same issues, the answers will come.

Next door in Fauquier County, two new ways of dealing with the “visual pollution” caused by cell towers are being looked at.

The placement of towers in structures resembling silos has been suggested, and the concept of limiting height to 80 feet for all new tower applications is being considered.

The jury is still out on the silos, which look kind of silly if they’re too tall. But we think limiting towers to tree-top level has a lot of merit. That would mean more towers, of course, but that will probably happen in the future, anyway. The cell phone companies can afford to do it this way. Let’s ask them about it.