Work starts on new communications tower site in county
HARTINGTON – Work has started on the site of Cedar County's new emergency communications tower, which will replace the one that was blown down nearly a year ago.
Kevin Garvin, the county's director of emergency management and 911 communications coordinator, provided an update on the project to the board of commissioners on April 25.
He noted the installation of the tower's foundation by Mid-America Drilling Corp. of Oakland, Iowa, has been completed, but other work remains to be done, including the construction of the tower itself and its support building.
Sabre Industries Inc. of Sioux City, Iowa, is manufacturing the new tower and Tower Systems of Watertown, S.D., will construct it.
'There was some work that needed done between now and when the tower gets delivered – things such as a level spot to park the crane, obstacles such as the existing fence on parts of the property needing removed, etc.,' Garvin said in a follow-up interview.
The new tower will be located about two miles north of Hartington, on a one-acre piece of property with a ground elevation estimated at nearly 1,530 feet above sea level.
'There was a discussion about removing the fence that exists now to accommodate the crane and what type of fence we may want to replace it with,' Garvin said. 'Do we want to go with barbed wire or chain linked or a combination of both?'
The old tower site – located in a cattle pasture just north of Hartington and about a mile from the new tower site – is owned by Jeff and Mary Leise of Hartington, not the county.
'It was leased property,' Garvin said. 'The legal review of the lease that was written in the ’90s determined that once the tower fell down, the lease was rendered invalid.'
He said nothing has been decided yet on what will happen to the support building located at the old tower site.
'The first priority is to get the new site constructed and then we will see what our options are for the old building,' Garvin said. 'A conversation with the county attorney and the property owner must take place to determine what our options are,' Garvin said, noting two of the questions that need to be answered are, 'What can we do legally and what does the property owner want?'
The commissioners inquired about the status of the support building for the new tower site.
'I advised them the engineer didn’t have the plans done yet, that they were overdue and that I’ve had a phone conversation with the engineer hired to do the plans and reminded the engineer of the agreed-upon schedule,' Garvin said.
The process to replace the old tower started nearly a year ago in May 2022, after a derecho – a storm with straight-line winds of 80-90 mph sustained for around five minutes or more – caused it to fall over.
The blown-down tower sat on a single pin on a concrete pad near Hartington and was held up by several guy-wires – tensioned cables – on three different sides.
The 300-foot-tall tower – which had been standing since the mid-1970s – fell down because one of the guy-wires failed during the storm.
The new tower will be a 400-foot-tall, self-supporting – no guy-wires – structure that will be made from galvanized steel.
The tower project is behind the original schedule that was anticipated when the county ordered the tower in February.
'We are pushing to get things done sooner rather than later, but in reality, it could be anytime between June and August before the project is complete,' Garvin said. 'The timeline is very fluid and subject to change.'
