Legal Maybe, Unethical for Sure: Hanshaw Road Cell Tower Project

Note: In October 2013 I was contacted by XXXX and asked to take down this post. I have removed all instances of their name.

The XXXX cell tower project on Hanshaw Road behind Ludgate’s Farms Store just keeps whittling away at the surrounding landscape.
I spoke to Mike Ludgate today, and he told me a sleazy tale.

Seems that XXXX needed to take down some of Ludgate’s full-grown trees for an electric power right of way (see photo, taken today) as a followup, not-mentioned-earlier, environmentally-negative impact of this project.

Did they contact Mike, who runs the family business at this location?
No. They found his mom’s phone number and called her.
(Yes, she is the landowner.)

They told her that they “had to have” a right of way agreement signed by her in order to cut down the trees. She said that she could not come to their office, because she had just had surgery and was on medications that prevented her from driving.

“Oh no problem, ma’am,” they replied, and they were over there in a flash, and obtained her signature. Mike found out about this action two weeks later.

Now they have taken out full-grown trees on his property to accomodate higher power poles, leaving one tree-depth as a screen for his property from the road.

Earlier, I was feeling resigned about the fact that they apparently put up the incorrect, non-“green” type of tower at this site, as a technician informed Mike casually last month as the tower was completed.

Now, I want to know: What is the tower they were supposed to put up?
What will it take to require them to take the incorrect one down, and put up the correct one?

I also want to know what additional impacts are planned for this site, that are already resulting in excessive destruction of wildlife habitat and degradation of the wildlife corridor between the Fall Creek Unique Natural Area and the Sapsucker Woods Unique Natural Area.

Is XXXX behaving in an underhanded and punitive manner toward Mike Ludgate and this neighborhood, for having tried to stop this bad project in this vulnerable, neighborhood location?

As Friends of Hanshaw said in their comments on this project, this “upgrade” will benefit only Ithaca residents.
It is already having negative effects on Dryden residents.

Late Spring is Relinquished to Early Summer: The Moving Hand

I learned from the Floating Classroom folks that it isn’t summer in Cayuga Lake until the blue-green algae move to the forefront. Likewise on land, for me the season shifts from late spring to early summer with a taste of the first wild strawberries.

This morning I ate three, as I walked back along the top of the Fall Creek Gorge on the Cayuga Trail after dropping my car off for an oil change in Varna. The berries were not fully ripe, and thus a bit tart, but their wild red berry flavor loosed a flood of 45 year old memories of picking them by the small bucketful in fields filled with grasses and flowers and young white pines, now converted into a lawn, parking lot and business building. Also of the astonishing luxury of mashing a handful of ripe wild strawberries just enough to release the juice, and spreading them on white bread for a quick treat.

As this slow, cool spring has progressed, I have been watching the many areas in my yard and in nearby long-grass pastures for the small white strawberry blossoms that shine out briefly in the grass and then fade, replaced by ripening small berries. I am ready to seek a real harvest this year, moving beyond the tantalizing few berries to the many, so that maybe at least once this season I will get “enough.”

Meanwhile, promise of harvests to come are seen in the wild grapevines flourishing along field edges and in shady and sunny roadside tangles, and in numerous other fruits and edibles that are flourishing as the seasons relentlessly carry us forward.

From March onward to now in mid-June, I have had several felicitous encounters with wild foods as they emerged after the winter, and enjoyed the company of those who manage and harvest them. However I have foolishly but understandably (seeing as how I am working full-time or more) not allowed myself the time to write about each one fully.

Thus a series of regrettably brief summaries will follow, in order that I at least record some part of my enjoyment and explorations from this just-past spring. Topics covered will be (though perhaps not in this order): Nancy’s grape juice, maple syrup and ramps, new plantings for future harvests (raspberry bushes, apple trees and hops), making dandelion wine (“Front Yard” label), violets and nasturtiums, one small peach tree planted by the Cayuga Indians to begin to reverse a 200-plus year old genocide; and the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute’s sustainable harvest workshops, from which I brought back a small log inoculated with shiitake mushroom spores.

Then I will be able to write about the wonderful early June evening that I and Deb Grantham spent monitoring bats via a Bat Detector on the roof of my car, driving in the full moon’s light across high wild places around Ithaca. Bats are in very bad trouble due to White Nose Syndrome, and this was a small step we could take, helping with a statewide bat census.

And meanwhile we must feel fully confident that it is the right thing to do, to firmly say no to bullying cell tower companies, bullying land developers, and bullying rapacious shale blasting and drilling energy companies and their shady ex-government overlords. It is time to turn that tide back toward what we are for: love of the land, water and air; time to again be unashamedly pro-environment, and to get our excellent environmental laws working once again.

Cell Tower: Nature Needs Protection Not Degradation

Dryden Town Board
93 East Main Street
Dryden NY 13053

June 8, 2009

Dear Supervisor Sumner and Dryden Town Board members:

I am writing to thank you for the opportunity to express the concerns of the folks who live in the Hanshaw-Sapsucker area regarding the Verizon cell tower that has been proposed to be built on the Uhls’ property near the Ludgate Farms store. It has been an honor to take part in this process over the past several months and I thank you all for your polite and patient time and attention.

I and others remain convinced that this is the wrong place for a cell tower, and that the Dryden Town Board is within its legal rights to say No to this tower proposal, or to sideline it until after a county-level review process is established.

The bases for a refusal or postponement remain the same: that Dryden would not benefit in any appreciable way from this tower, and yet a Dryden neighborhood would have to bear the impacts, among them lowered property values of nearby homes; and also that a residential neighborhood with Unique Natural areas on both sides is not appropriate for a cell tower, according to your own town zoning criteria.

Below, I address our concerns about the gradual degradation that would soon begin to eat away at this area were a cell tower to be built at this location. I have struggled for weeks on how best to explain this concern to you, and at one point planned to develop a mini-environmental impact statement complete with every type of technical and legal bell and whistle. In the end I decided to simply draw for you a word picture of what we think would inevitably take place as a result of a cell tower being built in this area.

To cut to the chase, we think that a proposal would soon arise to have the area re-zoned for commercial use, with resulting lights, noise, additional traffic and further physical degradation of this quiet residential and valuable natural area.

At present, the wooded property owned by the Uhls serves as a buffer, link, corridor and habitat for wildlife to use between the Fall Creek Unique Natural Area and the Sapsucker Woods Unique Natural Area. Well-used wildlife trails match up across Hanshaw Road. Also, although not mentioned or evaluated in any report, a stream significant enough to merit a culvert under Hanshaw Road runs from the Uhls’ property toward Fall Creek.

It has been argued by some that this area is already degraded by residential development (see tax map attachment) and that thus a cell tower will not do any further damage beyond its immediate footprint. However, we argue that this is exactly the reason why no more development, such as a cell tower, should be added to this vulnerable area.

While cell towers are most appropriately located in already-developed commercial-industrial areas, it is also common that cell towers placed in a wooded natural area soon attract commercial and industrial development around them. Why? Because the very presence of a cell tower signifies that the area is of lower value and is open for development. A cell tower degrades by its very presence.

Do you really want to actively contribute to the decay of this area by saying Yes to a cell tower here? Do you really want to significantly and measurably lower the natural and human values of this area by saying Yes to a cell tower here?

With the half-finished roadway that lies just east of the Ludgate property and the intense residential developer pressure along both the Ithaca and Dryden sides of Sapsucker Woods Road, a cell tower built on the Uhl’s property would be the tipping point to degrade this area into a commercial zoned stretch with a gas station and small shops.

If that happened, the green link – already tenuous – between the two Unique Natural Areas would be irretrievably broken and destroyed. The water quality of the stream flowing off the Uhl’s property to Fall Creek would be degraded. Both the Dryden and Ithaca sides of Sapsucker Woods would be under attack from development. The green buffer so important to the Hanshaw-Sapsucker area would be riddled with holes that would grow rapidly, and the green continuity of the Sapsucker-Fall Creek area would be permanently severed.

Degradation is a slow but inevitable process, once it is set in motion. A cell tower here would be a mortal blow to this vulnerable boundary area. Saying No to a cell tower here means saying Yes to the possibility of a sustainable future for this area, instead of a future of degradation, decay and loss. Please say No to a cell tower in this location.

Sincerely yours,
Hilary Lambert
Nancy Morgan
Stephen Wagner
And other supporters of Friends of Hanshaw-Sapsucker

Winter Cress - Refreshing Late Winter Wild Food

Winter cress is easy to prepare, and provides a refreshing green flavor in the year's colder months. It is mild, amiable, unthreatening, and very good for you.

I took a simple approach to cooking the small bunch that I imported from Kentucky to New York (see previous entry for an account of the massive carbon-eating travels of two small plants): Boil briefly to remove bitterness. Cut it up a bit and saute in (olive) oil with salt and pepper. For about two minutes. Serve as a side dish or in a stir-fry. Add in garlic as desired.


In other words, it's a widely-available-for-the-picking midwinter substitute for spinach and other greens. Euell Gibbons ("Stalking the Wild Asparagus," McKay, 1973) says there are two main forms of this mustard family member. They look just about the same and between them can be found in low wet areas and in fallow fields. Gather the leaves in winter or in very early spring -- later on the leaves are bitter.

One warning: as with all wild food gathering, be careful of environmental problems with the gathering site. For example, I found winter cress in abundance down by Cayuga Lake in early spring, thriving under heavy foot traffic -- on a dog walk trail, next to an industrial site. Leave those alone, as with any plants growing in or near still or flowing water that might be polluted. No, that does not rule out every plant....not quite.

Not Quite Local: Well-Traveled Winter Cress

Being a committed locavore easily becomes confusing. In our complex world one can lose the True Way and get entangled in debates over harrowing questions such as the ethics and ecosystem wisdom of removing the plant and its roots, or of calculating the carbon footprint of transporting local plants long distances; or of re-planting at a distance from a plant’s original location.

I have a story from March that combines all three of these pesky puzzlers.
Nowadays I live in the family house near Ithaca NY. We are moving into spring by building raised beds for vegetables; we transplanted 50 raspberry bushes to the front and back yard; we have signed up for a summer Community Farm Alliance weekly basket of local produce; I started a gallon of dandelion wine yesterday! (More is coming on these topics and others.)

In late March, I drove 823 miles west and south to my cabin in Green County, Kentucky. I needed to catch up with friends, and was worried about the cabin, the home I was working on when the economic imperative of these rough times called me to move back to New York State. This one-room cabin with loft was built with the advice and encouragement of my friend Deb and the math skills and skilled brute strength of my friend Sam. Surrounding the cabin are 25 acres of recovering pasture, woodland and steep bluffs that descend to the Little Barren River.

At the end of the 823 miles, accompanied by two deeply dissatisfied cats, it was a relief to find the cabin as I had left it in early December – in fact, the windows were still open and the dishes were unwashed from last fall, because my car engine had imploded on the way there, just before I had to depart Kentucky for New York State.

I cleaned up, swept out two months of wintertime dead bugs, slept soundly in the deep country silence, and donated books to the Hart County school libraries with my friends from the Bacon Creek Watershed Council. I even locked myself out and had to climb in a secret way, with my cats watching in amazement.

With a pot of chili on the wood stove, I invited friends to visit. Duke drove over from Corbin with his dog Ernie Fletcher (named after an unloved Kentucky governor), and Julian showed up with Will. These two are Kentucky naturalists of the extreme pro-native plants ilk. They argue that a plant should be as local as you can possibly manage – not merely from “the Southeast” or from Kentucky, but if possible from the same Kentucky county, or even closer, to the land it will be planted on. The DNA tracking tools are not available to do this with any accuracy, but when they say native, they mean it.

The Kentucky land that hosts my cabin is far from pristine. Home to Native Americans for centuries before the 19th century Europeans tore it up big-time, the area is now calming back down into wildness, but in two visits Julian has not found anything wonderfully native except for the tall, dense creekside thickets of beautiful Kentucky cane.

However, Julian is no plant snob, and he emerged from the woods with his hands full of a pretty little green plant – roots and all. “Winter cress! Fresh winter cress!” he called as he approached. “Delicious cooked as a winter green! Boil it twice to get rid of the bitterness,” he advised as he gave the plants to me.

To make an 823-mile long story short, the winter cress ended up traveling back to New York State with me, in a cooler atop locally-produced Kentucky ice. What carbon footprint formula is subtle and nuanced enough to calculate the energy cost of digging up a local food, then transporting it that far – and then, after consuming its green parts, re-planting the roots in New York State soil?

I am not up to these subtleties, but next I’ll tell you how to cook winter cress, with thanks to the classic advice and common sense found in Euell Gibbons’ Stalking the Wild Asparagus (1973 reprint).

Cell Tower Siting Should be at the County Level

May 4, 2009

Dear Editor:

We write to encourage readers to tell their elected officials that cell tower siting in Tompkins County should be determined at the county level. A county-wide moratorium on cell tower siting would provide time to develop a task force for intermunicipal coordination of responses to cell tower siting requests from Verizon and other companies.

Why is this important to Tompkins County municipalities? Cell companies are playing off differences in municipal ordinances, siting towers inappropriately. Sites are proposed that degrade community and natural values, benefiting one user group or municipality over others. Meanwhile, large areas of Tompkins County have little or no basic cell coverage.

At recent Dryden Town Board meetings we learned that Verizon will neither discuss long-range planning and siting nor agree to meet community needs, although municipalities and the county have worked hard to accommodate cell company requirements.

We encourage Tompkins County to take the initiative to ensure cell tower coverage that is equable for all areas and protective of neighborhoods, land values and natural areas. We recommend the formation of a citizens group to assist with coordination and communication among the municipalities of TC.

Sincerely yours,

Hilary Lambert
Hanshaw Road
(Dryden resident)

Nancy Morgan
Hanshaw Road
(Dryden resident)

The Microwave to Nowhere: Proposed Cell Tower Impacts

Here are two photos that demonstrate how the Verizon cell tower proposed for Hanshaw Road would impact Ludgate Farms Store and the surrounding neighborhood.

The two red balloons were hoisted on April 16 2009 as a demonstration of the approximate height and location of the cell tower, at the request of the Dryden Town Board at its April 2009 meeting.


Keep in mind that the cell tower would not consist of two pretty red balloons with a gap in between, but a metal tower bristling with attachments. There would also be a microwave installation that, as the Verizon rep admitted under questioning from a Town Board member, would point "Nowhere."

Because this demo was arranged at very short notice with nothing like adequate public notice, working residents along Cardinal and Meadowlark Drives on the Dryden side of Sapsucker Woods Road may not get an opportunity to view the pretty red balloons. Hence a photo is provided here of what the tower would look like from midway along Cardinal Drive. The other photo shows the impact to Ludgate Farms Store on Hanshaw Road.

Thank you to the Dryden Town Board and to Verizon for this demo, which illustrates how inappropriate this tower is at this location. It would intrude on Ludgates, on all hikers using the Cayuga Trail across Hanshaw from Ludgates, on all residents along Hanshaw Road to Monkey Run, and for many on Cardinal and Meadowlark Drives.


All the negative impacts would be in Dryden, while the tower would be invisible to the Ithacans who would reap the cell coverage benefits. Meanwhile many areas of Dryden have little or no cell tower coverage -- and stand to gain no more from Verizon over the next 5 - 7 years, according to the Verizon rep at the April Town Board meeting! Remind me again -- what is Dryden getting out of this proposed deal?


Verizon seems to be playing off one municipality against another, apparently hustling to feed its own business strategy and competitive edge while ignoring the real needs of the community it is supposedly here to serve. It claims special legal privileges as a so-called "public utility," but that's a two-way street.

What would Dryden get in return for allowing Verizon to taint this Dryden neighborhood? Absolutely NOTHING.


It is hoped that the municipalities making up Tompkins County can work together in cooperation with Verizon and other cell phone and internet companies for a better, wiser tower placement policy -- starting with this proposed cell tower. There is no right way to do the wrong thing -- and placing a cell tower at this location is the wrong thing.