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Telecom tower applicants address peer-review comments, bond and decommissioning terms
Summary
Counsel for King's Sky Towers/Blue Sky presented revisions, geotechnical findings and an estimate for a removal bond; board discussed waivers, monitoring wells, stormwater test pits and whether a carrier absence should trigger decommissioning within 2 or 10 years.
Counsel Ernie Wall and the project team returned to the Planning Board to present updates to a proposed telecom tower application for Blue Sky/King's Sky Towers. The applicant said peer-review comments from Graves had been acknowledged (22 comments), that geotechnical borings did not encounter groundwater until roughly 10 feet below grade in April borings, and that the team had prepared an operations & maintenance plan and an estimate for a removal/decommissioning bond.
"We recently submitted... an estimate with regards to what it would cost to take this out," counsel Ernie Wall said, describing a proposed removal bond and O&M plan that the applicant has circulated to staff. The board and peer reviewers discussed several waiver requests, fence and gate details and the need for a monitoring well in the stormwater basin for maintenance.
Board members and the applicant debated how long a tower could remain without an active carrier before the removal bond was triggered. Comments in the hearing ranged from recommending a one- to two-year trigger up to an argument that ten years would be a more reasonable threshold given the investment in a tower structure. The applicant agreed to provide additional details and timeline language for decommissioning conditions to be considered by the board.
