JOHNSTOWN — AT&T Upstate NY has all the approvals it needs for a 190-foot wireless telecommunications tower it’s building at the Fulton County landfill, a county official said.
“It should be a good benefit to the western part of our county,” county Emergency Management Office Director Steven Santa Maria said Wednesday.
Santa Maria said the tower project went through the Johnstown Town Board at its last meeting and it was approved. A public hearing was held Sept. 10.
“It’s up to AT&T to get going on their project,” he said.
He said the company has been working with town officials and Fulton County Department of Solid Waste Director David Rhodes on the project.
Rhodes couldn’t be reached Wednesday for comment.
The Fulton County Board of Supervisors last November approved allowing a private firm — in this case AT&T Upstate NY — to build a cell tower on county property. That company’s plan is to build a tower on the Woolrich Road side of the Fulton County landfill located along Mud Road in the town of Johnstown.
AT & T Upstate NY is installing a 190-foot tall. self-support lattice telecommunications tower on the landfill property. AT&T is leasing a 100-foot by 100-foot area from the county and will install its equipment inside a 70-foot by 70-foot fenced-in compound. The county will provide AT&T with a 30-foot wide easement extending through the landfill property and accessing Route 67.
The tower is slated to be approximately 1,500 feet to 2,000 feet off of Mud Road, officials said.
Rhodes said last fall that AT&T approached his county department with a desire to improve cell tower capability in the western portion of Fulton County, as well as boost public safety communications in general. He said the utility may pay the county a lease amount of $1,000 per month.
AT&T officials say the landfill tower site will be a “First Net” project, a federal project that assists first responders. Officials said the Mud Road site will provide better radio communications for the landfill operation, better emergency communications for the county as a whole, and it will eventually be used by other wireless providers as a co-location site.
Michael Anich covers Johnstown and Fulton County news. He can be reached at [email protected]
