Stop the new Pisgah Tower! What People Are Saying

OPPOSES building new tower on Mt. Pisgah

I am writing this letter to protest the building of a new tower on Mt. Pisgah. In my opinion the present tower should have never been built, and research would show that many people in this area and in the country felt the same way. When I was growing up on Monte Vista Road, Mt. Pisgah was the view from my front yard.

I can still remember riding up to Mt Pisgah and walking to the top and down with my family before the tower was built. It was a beautiful quiet place where you could see forever. No smog or pollution to speak of back then. I was 12 years old when the tower came. I can unfortunately also remember my first trip back up the mountain after the tower was built and how ugly it was and still is. It is an eyesore that should never have been built.

We have an opportunity now to return this mountain to what it should be and give our visitors and ourselves a wonderful experience. Please, WLOS and the Forest Service, rethink what you are about to do. Don't make the same mistakes again. Surely in this amazin age of technology you can find somewhere else for your tower.

Elizabeth Heedy Curwen, Brevard

Think through the Mount Pisgah plan

It has come to my attention that the antenna tower on the summit of Mount Pisgah is being replaced with a new one. A study was done and comments were solicited. Public input was sought. When I was asked for my comments, I immediately responded that this was our chance to relocate the tower to a less scenic spot. I was told relocation was simply not an option.

I cannot help but ask why not? In this day and age of modern technology, why can we not use this opportunity to clean up the vistas and improve the scenic beauty of our area? The tower should be relocated if at all possible. To remove it and then rebuild a larger, taller tower, without doing a thorough investigation of relocation options is truly a mistake. A tragic mistake.

I am of the opinion that the tower should be relocated and the summit of Mt. Pisgah rehabilitated to a more undisturbed state.

Bruce O'Connell, Candler
O'Connell is managing director of the Pisgah Inn

Want Pisgah tower removed

It has recently come to our attention that some of our citizens are embarked upong a project that will seriously damage one of our most beautiful scenic s ites.

In 1954 the Forest Service allowed the station WLOS to build a tower on Mount Pisgah. This eyesore has been endured for 47 years. The Forest Service receives only $625 per month for the site and WLOS reaps profit from the contract. money, however, is not the concern. Preserving and protecting our beautiful land is.

The Forest Service in May of this year decided to allow WLOS to construct a new television transmission tower. The new tower will be higher and an even more intrusive scar on this panoramic landscape. The current lease will expire in 2005 so if right thinking prevails we can lost the current tower and a new one can be constructed on a far less sensitive site.

The National Environmental Policy Act require full public disclosure and involvement concerning the construction of this tower and requires the Forest Service to consider alternative locations.

Please join in helping to reverse this decision. Write to John F Ramey, Supervisor, National Forest Service of NC, and Daniel Brown, Superintendent, National Park Service.

Judy and Ben Watson, Asheville

WLOS tower should be moved

It has been brougth to our attention that WLOS plans on placing a new television tower on top of Mount Pisgah. We think serious consideration should be given to an alternate site. Mount Pisgah is a beautiful natural site on the Blue Ridge Parkway and should be left alone for everyoe to enjoy.

Carol and Jack Mullen

Station strongly urged to stand down

There is only one sure-fire way to get WLOS to do something about their unsightly tower atop Mount Pisgah: Encourage as many people as possible to boycott their advertisers' businesses until they remove it.

Jeff Callahan, Flat Rock

Why are we spoiling our own backyard?

While visiting beautiful Wales for the month of August, this third-generation Asheville native is reminded of the mountains of Western North Carolina. However, the huge difference is that the vistas are not spoiled by cell or TV towers on the summits! Also, their highways, like most civilized countries, have no billboards to spoil the surroundings.

Do they know something we don't? No, it is simply that they do not let the love of money and the bureaucrats interfere with their love and respect for their beautiful mountains and countryside. The people speak and they are heard. Maybe we cannot stop our billboards, but it is not too late to be heard about the decision of the Forest Service to permit erecting a new tower on Mount Pisgah as well as adding a new building.

Appeals have been made to overturn this ruling. The input of additional support for these appeals can be made by individuals by writing to the Forest Service, PO Box 2750, 28802. To get the fulll impact of what is proposed, go to the website, pisgahtower.org.

For once, the people need to be heard. It is time to return the majestic mountain to its original beauty.

Chase Ambler, Asheville

A continuation of an eyesore

WLOS TV has its principal antenna on Mount Pisgah, the highest mountain in this area. This tower rises 271 feet above the top of the mountain and sticks out like a sore thumb. Now the Forest Service has authorized WLOS to build another tower, 274 feet high, to accommodate HDTV. The present contract expires in 2005, for which WLOS pays the pitiful sum of $625 per month, but the rest of the contract conditions are kept secret by the Forest Service. The WNC Alliance and severl other organizations are protesting the old and the new tower, but there is no reaction from the Service. Even the Blue Risge Parkeway Authority has protested the new tower and want the old one removed. no public hearing was ever held. The Service violates the National Environmental Policy Act to disclose all details. Other TV stations of the area are all operating antennas from lower mountaintops. But the Forest Service, that has the reputation of always favoring business interests, gives a damn about the public. Besides, we the taxpayers subsidize the timber producers and now even a for-profit TV station. Please view the Website at pisgahtower.org (without the hyphen as shown in an Aug 18 letter).

Peter Reiser, Arden

Double standards being applied

It might be funny were it not so ridiculous that so many of our environmentally-conscious folk who are so against those cell towers are the very same ones who construct these eyesores all over the mountain and at the highest elevation they can achieve. Thank God for all the US Forest property we have in this end of the state. I can't imagine (well, maybe I can) what this country would look like otherwise. No wonder so many developers and potential customers are clamoring for the government to start selling this valuable resource. These self-righteous ingrates come here for "the view" and then destroy the very thing they so admire. If they are so adamantly against these towers (which can be camouflaged) why don't they try doing the same for their houses? To me, a cell tower is much more practical than a glass-sided vanity box. You remind me of Sylvester the Cat who is trying to say he has not seen Tweety Bird while a yellow feather is hanging form his mouth.

Fred Jackson, Hayesville

Mr. John F. Ramey August 4, 2001
Forest Supervisor
National Forests in North Carolina
P.O. Box 2750
Asheville, NC 28802

Dear Mr. Ramey:

There was an editorial in the Asheville Citizen, June 6, 1932, after the
death on my grandfather, Dr. Chase P. Ambler. It spoke of his leadership here in Asheville of the Appalachian National Park Association, ".. [which] did the work that resulted in the passage of the Weeks Bill of 1911, creating the Pisgah Forest Reservation...."

In September of 1961, the 8,100-acre tract of national forest land - first
tract purchased under the provisions of the Weeks Law - was dedicated in ceremonies at Curtis Creek outside of Old Fort to the memory of Dr. Chase Ambler. The above editorial and a picture of the monument at Curtis Creek can be seen at http://www.rattlesnakelodge.com/clippings.htm

From the above editorial, "It can be maintained with all confidence that
but for the Appalachian National Park Association the beauty of the verdure of the mountains of Western North Carolina would long ago have been ravaged, there would have been no Pisgah Forest Reservation, there would have been no Smoky Mountains National Park. And but for Dr. Ambler, the Appalachian National Park Association would never have come into being when it did, in time to save much of the priceless heritage of the past centuries; would never have been the intelligent, purposeful, untiring, persistent, persuasive, convincing and effective organization that it proved itself to be."

I wish he were alive today, and had that kind of an organization. I doubt they would think very highly of your approval of the proposed WLOS tower on Pisgah, and your statement of "No Significant Impact." The Blue Ridge Parkway thinks otherwise, having said the tower was a "necessary evil" which "greatly impact[s] sensitive habitats and the scenic quality of a premier recreational destination of the Blue Ridge Parkway."

To most people it is unthinkable that the Forest Service and WLOS have not explored any alternative sites. I urge you to simply obey the law by informing the public and getting them involved.

I am leaving on vacation for two months, but I hope some organization, an "intelligent, purposeful, untiring, persistent, persuasive, convincing and effective organization" will be born to join other environmental organizations which oppose the proposed new tower.

Sincerely yours,

Chase Ambler

Small-Town TV Stations Face Difficulty Meeting FCC's Digital Deadline

By a Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter

NEW YORK - While two-thirds of the nation's comercial=television stations are ready to convert to a digital signal necessary for high-definition television, small-town stations are having trouble meeting the May 2002 deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission.

Most of the TV stations in the nation's biggest cities already are in compliance with the FCC's digital-conversion timetable, according to a survey released by the National Association of Broadcasters, the TV industry's chief lobbying arm. According to the NAB, almost 82% of stations in the top 50 markets said they are in compliance with the FCC's requirements for conversion. The top 30 markets had to have digital signals on the air in 1999.

The bulk of the stations that will have problems meeting the FCC's deadline are in smaller markets, the survey said. Only 49% of TV stations in markets below the top 100 said they expect to have digital signals on the air by May, alth9ought the NAB said most expect to be up and runing sometime next year. Others will seek an extension from the FCC.

That said, there are fewer than one million homes in the US with high-definition sets. The NAB wants the government to take steps to boost that number, and has asked Congress to mandate that digital television tuners be built into analog TV sets to pull in digital programming. The NAB also has been lobbying to force the cable industry to carry digital signals from broadcasters on their cable systems.