Bushwood tower to handle emergency calls delayed

Upgrades to communications in two areas are expected

Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by REID SILVERMAN The county has four emergency communication towers such as this one in Leonardtown, but there are still coverage gaps. The state is putting up four more, including one in Bushwood, to offer more coverage. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

New towers were expected to be erected in St. Mary's by the end of this year to assist state and local government in emergency communications.

That won't happen on schedule, but funding is in place to place one of the towers in Bushwood.

A Maryland State Highway Administration project calls for four new towers in addition to the four now used by emergency responders. There are dead zones in the county system, and two of the state towers may fill in those gaps — in Dameron and in Bushwood.

John A. Nelson, chief of the 7th District Volunteer Fire Department, said the communication gaps that appeared with the 800 MHz emergency system are still in the same places, "especially in the Longview Beach and Mill Point communities," and in the Maddox area. "The tower will hopefully alleviate those problems," he said.

The Bushwood tower is to go up at the board of education's Mary McLeod Bethune Educational Center, and will probably be the first of the four new towers to be erected, said David Zylak, director of the public safety.

"We are moving forward slowly," Zylak said. "We're progressing." The board of education has signed the lease for the Bethune tower and it needs signatures from the county commissioners and other state officials.

The state is to pay no more than $650,000 for this tower, and the county got a federal grant to offset the rest of the cost. Each new tower costs about $1 million, Zylak said. There is no state aid for the tower planned at the Valley Lee trash transfer station yet, he said.

Then will come the cost of adding county communication systems to the tower, at county government expense. "That's another story," he said. The county's budget book states: "The system coverage has always been lacking in certain areas of the county, particularly those areas along the Potomac and Patuxent rivers where the land topography drops to the water's edge."

Neighbors' signatures are also needed in the potential fall zones of the towers in Bushwood and Valley Lee. The 330-foot towers "are engineered to collapse on themselves," Zylak said.

The county's four communications towers in Mechanicsville, Leonardtown, California and Dameron, built in 2002, are designed to withstand Category 2 hurricane-strength winds, which range between 96 and 110 mph. The county's 800 MHz communications system cost $11 million, paid over five years.

School Superintendent Michael Martirano wrote to County Administrator John Savich on Oct. 28 asking about the liability to Bethune school property and structures should the tower fall. Any damage would be covered by the school board's insurance pool, Savich said last week.

While Zylak said none of the new towers will be up this calendar year, Savich said, "everything that continues to move forward this year is good," because the funding stays in place.

The other state towers are at the state highway garage in Loveville and at a state salt dome off Route 235 in Dameron. Those two spots won't add any benefit to county emergency communications, though, consultants said. The tower at the Bethune center will also increase Internet speeds, make connections for Dynard Elementary School and provide a backup service to Chopticon High School.

jbabcock@somdnews.com

Staff writer Jesse Yeatman contributed to this report.