From the New York Times
The Adirondack Park Agency, a powerful group charged with protecting New York's six million-acre state park, decided last week that a cellphone tower could be constructed near Lake George. The tower, a 104-foot fake pine tree, will be "substantially invisible," the agency's statement promised. If this tower looks like others in the cellphone tree arboretum, one suspects it will be about as substantially invisible as a smiley face tucked into one of the famous Georgia O'Keeffe paintings of the very landscape in question.
Across the country these days, there is an expanding battle between those who want the wilderness to stay as wild as possible and those who want cellphones to work even when they're camping. At present, the technology has not made it possible to communicate from deep in the forests or out in the desert without also having a 100- to 200-foot tower somewhere nearby. So, some telephone companies have been offering these electric trees and plants that are supposed to look more natural. There is a cellphone magnolia, a cactus that looks as if it could poke a hole in the moon and now the mock white pine at Lake George, or, as opponents have aptly named it, the Frankenpine.
Already there are about 70 cell towers in the park. Some are set along the highways or attached to taller structures that are already in place, like steeples or apartment buildings. But environmentalists have begun to worry that too many stand-alone towers are being built without regard to other possibilities.
As Brian Houseal, executive director of the Adirondack Council, an environmental group, makes clear, applicants to build towers "often simply ignored viable, less visible options to avoid the expense of investigating them." Presumably, it is easier to start from scratch than to get a bank building or a church to make room for cellphone gizmos.
The new Frankenpine of Lake George still merits thorough reviews by the state's Department of Environmental Conservation and the Lake George Park Commission. Both should make certain that this tower doesn't damage the environment or the aesthetics of one of America's most treasured state parks.
