Plans for two AT&T cell towers rile neighbors

East Haddam - A plan by AT&T to erect two cell phone towers on property in the Eightmile River watershed, which won federal Wild & Scenic River designation in 2008, is pending with the Connecticut Siting Council.

AT&T has secured options to lease two parcels of 10,000 square feet each from Andrew Tarpill of Ed Williams Road and the East Haddam Fish & Game Club of Haywardville Road for the towers, which would be about 160 feet and 180 feet high, respectively. Adam Cormier, spokesman for AT&T, said each tower would provide coverage for a radius of approximately 3 miles and are needed to improve service.

"East Haddam is pretty hilly, and the variation in terrain affects the performance of the network," he said.

Last week the siting council conducted a public hearing on the proposal. Seven neighbors of the Ed Williams Road site, among them Russ Bochain and Susan Mik, attended the hearing to raise objections to the plan. Bochain said he was first approached by AT&T about locating one of the towers on his 40-acre property, but the plan was scrapped after representatives of the Eightmile River Wild & Scenic Coordinating Committee said it would interfere with an open vista visible from one of the main hiking trails in Devil's Hopyard State Park, which is next to Ed Williams Road. The Eightmile watershed includes parts of Salem and Lyme as well as East Haddam.

"I can live with the fact that there will not be a tower on my property," he said, "but don't turn around and move it 3,000 feet. It's still in the watershed. It just smells like dead fish to me."

Mik, who owns Fox Hollow Farm with her mother, Patricia Mik, said the tower will be easily visible from her horse stables. Two of her customers plan to stop boarding horses there because of the tower, she said, out of concern that the hum and radiation from the tower would have a bad effect on the animals. She said there is good cell service in the area, and the towers are unnecessary, and that she is considering legal action.

Both Mik and Bochain also object to the proximity of the towers to the Nature Conservancy's 1,200-acre Burnham Brook Preserve. Conservancy officials could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Cormier, of AT&T, said an environmental impact study has been done of both sites and of two alternative ones. There would have been more negative impacts on the other sites, he said. The company worked with the town and environmental groups to find the best sites, he said.

The town Planning and Zoning Commission, in a Feb. 3 letter to the siting council, noted that the area "is of special concern" because of the Eightmile watershed, sensitive wetlands, steep slopes and ledge and large tracts of open space - Burnham Brook, the 800-acre state park; the 2,200-acre fish and game club property and parcels owned by the East Haddam Land Trust.

The town, Nature Conservancy and land trust "consider this watershed as a priority section of the town to preserve and protect and have aggressively pursued open space acquisitions," the letter said.

It continued: "Any placement of the facility that would impact the scenic value of Devil's Hopyard State Park would be considered a loss of scenic value and economic impact to the town."

The letter said the town believes the Ed Williams Road site "offers the least amount of impact" than previously considered sites.

Anthony Irving, chairman of the Eightmile Committee, said the group is pleased AT&T has found a site outside the Devil's Hopyard vista, as it requested.

"Obviously, the alternative location may be more detrimental to some of the neighbors," he said. "But we felt it was not our position to block anything. In terms of banning all towers in the watershed, we don't want them, but we felt we had no standing" to make that argument to the Siting Council.

The council will receive comment on the proposal through April 5. Comments can be sent to: Connecticut Siting Council; 10 Franklin Square; New Britain, CT 06051 or: siting.council@ct.gov.

j.benson@theday.com