My Summer is in a Canning Jar

Children Get It! We Are All Beautiful.

2011-10-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

Here's my daughter's story: Marlena went to Preschool in the Lincoln Park area of Duluth. She is an only child, and we live outside of town, quite secluded. We are also older parents, so unfortunately she'd had little to no interaction with other kids prior to going to preschool. She was pretty traumatized for the first two weeks. She would hide from the other kids under a blanket, and my Mom (who lived close by) would come and get her for the second half of the day. One day, about three weeks into preschool her teacher told me she had to tell me about what happened that day, and she was hoping I wouldn't be upset,(I thought, oh boy, what now?) She said they had gone for a walk to a nearby playground,and Marlena was sitting on a bench all alone. Before the teacher was aware, one of the neighborhood boys had approached her and was talking with her. The teacher was surprised after a moment to notice Marlena and this boy on the basketball court, trying to throw his ball into the net. Her teacher whispered to me as she told the story, "He was a little black boy" and watched for my reaction. I simply asked, "Did they have fun?" She kind of flinched, and said, "Yes I think so!" I went to Marlena and asked how her day was. I noticed she was not hiding anymore! She said to me, in a very excited little voice, "Mom, it was great! I made a new friend, his name is Tyrique and he has brown eyes too, and the most beautiful brown skin!" I just about cried, it was just so sweet, and so wonderful, and so pure. We have revisited that moment many times as she has grown, and reinforced the beauty in everyone. That boy took the time to approach her carefully, and share in his game. She is still playing basketball, it is her passion. And she still has a soft spot for brown skin.

Rendering Lard

2011-01-18T17:04:00.000-08:00

This weekend we received the half pig we ordered last summer. Along with the meat we were asked if we wanted suet for rendering, and the liver. Heck yeah! Rick also asked if I wanted the feet and head, that I declined because I had no idea how I would use it. He also offered suet for the birds..oh yeah...love to feed those birds in winter!

For the first time, Mike and I rendered our own fresh lard. First task was to cut the suet into chunks and grind it. It matched my pink "breast cancer awareness" kitchenaid! Then I put a small amount of water in the bottom of a roasting pan. This was then set into the oven at 290 degrees. Directions advised 300-325 but I think my oven runs a bit hot. In about an hour it was nicely simmering at 290 degrees. I stirred it often for several hours. When the temp reached 255 degrees the "cracklins" were sinking and there was a nice layer of clear lard on top. We took it out and let it cool a bit, then strained it through several layers of cheesecloth. At this point it was golden colored. I poured it into jars (a big one for my mother the pie queen) and into muffin tins and a loaf pan. This was then put into the freezer. When it was solid I wrapped the pucks and put them into a freezer bag for use throughout the year. I've never really used lard much, but my mother makes the best pie crust with lard so I will be trying that. Also, I will use it in any recipe that calls for shortening, and for our annual one time deep fried fresh veggie night. We don't really fry much at all, but once a year we treat ourselves to fried zucchini and green tomatoes. This was a fun "back country" style activity. The birds will benefit from the rough suet that I will hang in an onion bag in the big pine tree.

Contest

2010-12-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

Click on the "Cookin' Cousins" button on the right side of my blog to enter a contest for some great items! I order freeze dried foods from Honeyville for long term food storage. Their foods are top notch, and nice to have in the pantry for soups and casseroles when I don't want to run to the store in the winter for fresh produce. Go for it!

My Life Has Taken a Beading!

2010-12-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

I've been so busy with beads!
These are some of the pieces I've been working on:

I've made a half dozen of these crystal bangles (shown below.) It's a very easy pattern once you've made one. I’ve made this bracelet with several different color crystals. I love to wear two or three of these at a time. It is very comfortable and people always comment on how beautiful they are. The only drawback is that it is a bit pricey to make. It has over 144 bicone crystals in the bracelet and that means you’re spending about $20 just for the crystals. Add the beads and your time, 4-6 hours, and this bracelet is easily worth a couple hundred dollars. I must admit…it looks like it is worth a couple hundred dollars when you wear it!

It’s time to get back to blogging…sorry for the delay, for several reasons I just haven’t taken the time to update. I’ve been very busy with things around the house and things at work. The work stuff is technical, dry, and somewhat boring, but essential to our workplace. The home stuff is fun and time consuming.

It seems like I never have enough time for my beads, or enough money to spend. This can become a very expensive hobby. I like crystals, Swarovski crystals, and they are pricey! You can definitely tell the difference between them and the cheap knock offs. I made the mistake of buying some knock offs at a local bead store, I should probably just throw them away. They easily scratch and seem very dull when strung with other quality glass beads. A better option than throwing them away might be to make some Christmas ornaments from them. I just cannot get myself to throw them away! My dear daughter might enjoy stringing them with me for that purpose. Yikes, I just gave myself another project! Some of my bead magazines have patterns in them for just this type of bicone shaped bead used to make an ornament by stringing them over glass Christmas balls.

I currently subscribe to two bead magazines, Bead and Button and Beadwork magazine. I really like them both as there are similarities and differences in both. Beadwork has featured artists who create for each magazine. This is nice if you like a certain type of project, as these artists work somewhat in themes. Bead and Button is a little more “homey” in style and has a bit more variety in the type of project. I think that the projects in Beadwork have better directions and diagrams, and are a little more to my liking. It’s really a matter of personal preference, and I find that I enjoy both magazines when they show up in the mail. I mark the pages with a post it note when I find a project I want to try. I don’t bother with the ranking of expert to beginner, as I love a challenge! One thing I find challenging is finding the right beads for each project. Sometimes the sizes or colors are not available locally and are difficult to find online. I really don’t want to have 50 different sources for beads. I have found that I can substitute a size 14 for a size 13 seed bead. Going up or down one size seed bead doesn’t seem to affect a project, at least so far! I do find a difference when using larger beads. Going up or down a size in a bicone crystal will make some difference in certain patterns. Colors are not so difficult to substitute. In fact, I prefer changing up the colors from what the original pattern might have called for. It’s fun to see the final product, and know that I’ve put my own spin on it.

What to do with all these tomatoes!

2010-10-08T16:20:00.000-07:00

We are experiencing a fabulous fall! Warm days and cool nights, very little frost yet and the end of harvest is near. The only thing left in the garden are the carrots. I’m so burned out from the frenzy of harvest that I’m just letting those carrots sit for awhile.

We had a wonderful tomato season this year. Normally we are seeing tomatoes beginning to ripen a couple of weeks before Labor Day. This year we were canning and freezing ripe tomatoes in early August! I think it paid off to start the seeds on St. Patrick’s Day and move the plants into the greenhouse in late April. We had very healthy large plants by our mid-May planting date. Combine that with a very warm wet summer and we were overwhelmed. I do regret that I didn’t start canning tomatoes earlier. Most of the first tomatoes were pureed and frozen. We will be eating a lot of spaghetti, chili, and tomato soup this winter! We started canning tomatoes when the freezer started to get somewhat full of bags of puree. I’d forgotten that canning tomatoes is not all that bad. It’s the peeling and coring that gets a bit tedious. Once you’ve done that, it’s just a matter of heating the tomatoes, packing in the jar, adding salt, sugar, and lemon juice, and processing.

I was forced to find a way to use hard green tomatoes when the slugs attacked. Any tomatoes that were not tied up and close to the ground were being eaten by slugs. I had so many tomato plants and not enough cages that I just let some of my plants go wild. Those plants produced far more tomatoes than the caged ones! But they also had a lot of fruit lying on the ground. What to do? What to do? We ate quite a few sliced, topped with brown sugar, butter, and cracker crumbs, baked until soft…oooh so good!
The Recipe is from http://southernfood.about.com/od/greentomatoes/r/bl30202g.htm

Baked Green Tomatoes

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:

* 4 large firm green tomatoes
* salt and pepper
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 3/4 cup coarse buttery cracker crumbs
* 4 tablespoons butter

Preparation:
Cut green tomatoes in 1/2 inch slices; arrange green tomato slices in a greased baking dish. Season sliced green tomatoes with salt and pepper and spread each with about 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar. Cover sliced green tomatoes with crumbs and dot with butter. Bake at 350° until green tomatoes are tender but still firm, or about 25 to 35 minutes.
Recipe for baked green tomatoes serves 6.

We also tried hot and sweet green tomato pickles this year. Heaven! These are fantastic right out of the jar, tangy, sweet and hot, with a hint of tomato flavor. I love them on sandwiches, brats, and burgers. I’ve even eaten them on pizza, fabulous!

From Cooks.com:

HOT FISH-HOUSE STYLE GREEN TOMATO
PICKLES

2 qts. quartered green tomato
2 c. chopped onion
3/4 c. chopped hot peppers
2 c. sugar
3 tbsp. salt
2 c. vinegar
1 tsp. celery seed

Put tomatoes, onions and hot peppers in large pan. Mix remaining ingredients together. Pour over tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat immediately, put in hot, sterile jars and seal.

NOTE: For spicy but not hot pickles, reduce hot pepper to half or less the amount called for and fill. Measure with chopped sweet peppers.

It’s nice to see the harvest wind down, and I’m happy that I have some time for other pursuits. The summer was hard work, but the pantry and freezers are full. This makes for a wonderful feeling of security and satisfaction. Winter for us, is a time for being indoors, reading, sewing, doing beadwork, and planning for next summers garden.

What to Do With All This Produce?

2010-08-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

I am an avid vegetable gardener. My family spends much of the early spring through fall in the gardens planting, picking, and tending the crops. We have about 2600 square feet of vegetable and berry gardens. This time of year we are picking a LOT of food! And once you pick you must find a way to use all of those veggies as soon as possible. If you find yourself with too much fresh produce these are some ways to preserve summers bounty.

Blanching and freezing You can blanch most veggies like peas, green beans, carrots, broccoli, zucchini, corn, cauliflower, and beets. Blanching is basically quick boiling the veggies before freezing in order to stop the action of enzymes which make the plants grow. The University of Minnesota has extensive information on blanching, gardening, and preserving at the website http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/nutrition/00053.html
I blanch my veggies, cool them quickly in a cold water bath, and drain them. I use vacuum pack my vegetables, but you can also put the veggies in a freezer bag, pressing out as much air as possible. I freeze berries for winter use by just cleaning them, coring if necessary and placing them on cookie sheets in the freezer. Once they are frozen I package them and freeze them for later. You can even freeze tomatoes whole! Just clean them and take off the stems, put them in freezer bags (even better, use a vacuum sealer) and freeze whole. When you need tomatoes for soup, chili or spaghetti sauce, just thaw your tomatoes and add. They will have the texture of a stewed tomato, how easy is that!

Canning If you have never canned vegetables before, I highly suggest either taking a class or finding someone who knows how and learning from them. Canning is a science and it requires proper equipment and meticulous habits. You must use a pressure canner for most vegetables which are low acid. The acidity in the food determines if fruits or vegetables are processed in a pressure canner or a boiling water bath canner to control botulism bacteria. Low-acid vegetables and meats contain too little acidity to prevent the growth of these bacteria and must be pressure canned. Acid foods such as fruits, jams and jellies, pickles, sauerkraut can be safely processed in a water bath canner. You can pickle vegetables using a water bath method, as adding vinegar brine creates the acidity needed for preservation. I always follow recipes carefully, and never add items or vary amounts in the recipe. I use the “Ball Blue Book of Canning” almost exclusively as there are TONS of great tried and true recipes in this book. For more information see http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/nutrition/DJ0516.html

Drying Another way of preserving veggies is drying. You can dry veggies in many ways. I inherited a dehydrator from my parents. Back in the 70’s it seems like everyone was making their own jerky and dried fruit. Dehydrators were all the rage. You can pick these up at rummage sales for a great price and they do work! I dry carrots, zucchini, peppers, herbs, onions, garlic, tomatoes (mine are even better than the expensive sun dried ones from the store) beans, potatoes, and apples. This is pretty simple. You slice or cube the veggies or fruit, set it on the trays, turn on the drier to the appropriate temperature and just check every so often. I then bag or place the food in glass jars and use in soups or eat out of the jar. You’d be surprised at how good dried carrots and zucchini are! My daughter loves snacking on dried carrots and apples. There is basic information on drying at http://www.pickyourown.org/dryingfoods.htm

Fermenting Do you like sauerkraut? Or old fashioned deli style garlic dill pickles? Ever tried Korean Kimchi? These are all fermented vegetables. Crock fermenting is becoming popular again as people are looking for ways to preserve foods without cooking. All you really need is a ceramic crock or a food grade plastic bucket. My first batch of sauerkraut was made in the crock from a crock pot, it worked just fine. This year I have stepped up to a polish pickling crock, and am currently fermenting 10 lbs of garlic dill pickles. Oh man, they are so good and were so easy to make! For more information on fermenting go to: http://www.wildfermentation.com/

A Creative Weekend

2010-07-10T21:59:00.000-07:00

I've had a little time to do some artsy things now that I don't work on Fridays. Tonight I finished a very complicated bracelet made of seed beads and crystal rivolis. This was a very challenging pattern, and it took me weeks to finish. I really love the punkish, glamorous, glittery character of the piece. It's a pattern from one of my favorite bead designers, Laura McCabe. I suspect this piece would be ranked as an "expert beader" level design, "Bead and Button" magazine does not rank skill levels on their patterns. Probably a good thing, as I might have been intimidated by a ranking. One thing I really appreciate about doing a project like this, is that it reminds me that I have never assumed that I could not make something that I wanted to make. I'm not being boastful, it's just that I have always been able to decide what I want to make and then go about doing it. I haven't acknowledged my ability in a very long time. It feels really good to be producing something again!

Last Friday I took apart a glass decoration that had rotting feathers and fringes all around it. I just took some old beads that were a bit bigger than I like using, strung them onto the bottom and came up with a nice garden decoration.

Next I decided to dig out some junk from the basement and put together this:

It's an old bowling ball. I glued on glass pieces left over from a stained glass project and flat marbles. I had grout that was salvaged from the garbage at Home Depot (my brother in law used to work there...I don't dumpster dive!) I've never done a grout project and this was a bit tricky! I should have glued glass way under the ball, because grouting was harder over that large area on the bottom of the ball. If the grout starts to fall off..I'll know why! But, it was fun anyway and used up stuff that was collecting dust in the basement.

I've decided that I'll continue to try to take something out of the basement on Friday's and make something out of it. Should be fun!

Garlic Scape Pesto

2010-07-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

We are eating from the garden just about every day now. Being a zone 3 gardener, the harvest comes late. Last night we had a stir fry with baby bok choy, zucchini, early onions, garlic scapes, and pea pods. Oh..that first meal from the garden is just so wonderful! It is also a reminder that the race is on. We work very hard to plant, maintain, nurture, harvest, eat, and preserve the produce from our garden. I won't be buying any more limp lettuce at the grocery store for a few months and I'm anxious to bite into the first tomato. Tonight we tried two things with the garlic scapes. Scapes are like the flower of the garlic. It's a curly stalk that grows up from the center of the plant. You have to remove the scapes in order for the garlic to form a nice bulb. Scapes have a very mild green garlic flavor. We tried grilling some, but unfortunately Mike left them on the grill too long and they were charcoal scapes! I didn't like them! The rest of the scapes were chopped and put into the food processor. I added olive oil, grated parmigiano cheese, kosher salt and pine nuts.

I simply processed it for a few minutes and it made a wonderful pesto!

I think this will be great on a roasted veggie sandwich, in a pasta sauce, on pasta, on fish, on a cracker, etc! I had some on my corn on the cob, and tried it on a burger...very good. It has a very fresh green flavor to it, with a good garlic finish. Yum! I used about 24 scapes, 1 cup of good olive oil, most of a small jar of pine nuts, two teaspoons of salt and about half a wedge of parmigiano reggiano cheese. Very very easy. I will freeze most of this in small containers for future use.

Unanimous vote on wireless communication facilities ordinance!

2010-06-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

Last night our City Council voted unanimously to enact a new ordinance regarding wireless communication facilities. I am very pleased to say that we have jumped on board with hundreds of other communities who have said, "We will have control of where and what you build in our community!" I am not anti-cell towers or anti-cell phones, but I am against blind approval of cell towers. Prior to enacting this ordinance we really had no ordinance. This is not unusual as cell technology has exploded, and so has the proliferation of towers. The dirty little secret is that if your community has no ordinance, you will likely be a magnet for tower speculators, and before you know it, you'll have a few in places they really don't belong. Or a few at heights that are not really necessary and loom over the neighborhood.

I attended the committee of the whole discussion prior to the council meeting. This was a meeting where the planning department would introduce their ordinance and introduce the consultant and allow for questions. Partway through the meeting, one of the councilors said that she had just received an email from PCIA, (from their website: PCIA - The Wireless Infrastructure Association is the principal trade association representing the companies that make up the wireless telecommunications infrastructure industry. Its members include the carriers, infrastructure providers and professional services firms that own and manage more than 125,000 telecommunications facilities throughout the world.) and they want the council to delay action as they would like to have a say in the process. They claimed that this ordinance could violate federal law and that the council should delay it until they could give their side. Mr. Neuman from Center for Municipal Solutions explained that PCIA had sent a standard letter, which they send to nearly every community who is getting ready to enact an ordinance controlling wireless facilities. He stated that in over 700 communities who have put this ordinance in place, they have never had a legal challenge. Luckily when this came up at the council meeting, our Duluth CAO sternly stated that this was not a "stealth ordinance" and that there had been more than sufficient notice to the public. There had been ads published in the paper, it had been published on the City website for weeks, it had been presented for a two readings at City Council and it had gone through public hearing with the Planning Commission. In other words PCIA...tough shit. You came too late to the party. I find it highly arrogant of them to come so late and expect to stop the process. A lot of stakeholders who are Duluthians, worked hard to get some attention paid to this issue. You think you can sail in at the last minute, make veiled threats, and cow us again? Nope..didn't work! Councilors Stauber, Gardner, and Anderson tried to table the ordinance, but that was voted down. The final vote...unanimous passage!

My battle started because AT&T wanted to put a tower in my neighborhood that will directly invade the airspace of a significant and extraordinary migration of millions of songbirds. In attending council meetings I became aware that these "consultants" basically used the same justification for every tower. They have a narrow script. "People need uninterrupted in car coverage along the entire highway.", "911 calls are migrating to towers in Douglas and Lake County which could delay service", "People in the area have to stand by a window to get good reception.", "People have dropped their landlines and need uninterrupted service from all areas in their homes." I'm not saying these aren't all good arguments. What I am saying is that our city leaders needed a way to verify that what the company claims is actually happening. That was not happening in Duluth.

I began to ask, "Is there anyone in our planning department who has expertise in reading RF studies, is there anyone who understands these charts and graphs?" Well, no...no one did. And it's likely that might be the case in your town too. So, this means that the consultants for the cell companies come in and make lots of claims, but there is no one on local government who can verify those claims. The city takes them at their word...we all trust big business, right? (think BP!) This was pretty disgusting to find out. That we are approving towers that impact neighborhoods, probably will violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and gee whiz...we don't even know what we're doing!

So, it is gratifying to know that we have an ordinance that addresses migration, views, community notification, liability, annual testing, permitting fees, priorities on where towers can be sited, THIRD PARTY REVIEW! etc, etc. What had been a one page "ordinance" is now over 30 pages! All towers will have to go through a 3rd party review with consultants who can negotiate with the cell companies to make sure that a tower is the only solution for our community. Any tower that needs modification of any type (including adding antenna for co-location) will have to come in for another permit and follow the new ordinance!

So, get involved, in whatever suits you. Don't give up, victory is sweet!

And AT&T, thank you for being so disrespectful to our community, that's really what motivated me to get this passed.

Don't come knocking if you're thinking we're pushovers!

2010-06-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

Hey cell companies...guess what, there's a new sheriff in town! The Duluth Planning Commission just unanimously passed one of the best wireless communication ordinances I've ever seen! Click on the title to read what will likely become law in Duluth! BIG thanks go out to the Center for Municipal Solutions for helping to make this happen.

2010 Veggie Garden is Perking!

2010-05-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

We are going great guns here with the garden. We've got nice garlic coming, which was planted last fall. Strawberries and a few blueberries are blooming. The darn deer ate most of the blueberry plants but the ones that survived have blossoms. We put in peas and potatoes in mid april and they are coming up nicely. Last weekend we planted 35 tomato plants and 7 tomatillos. Mike had started those in the greenhouse and they were over a foot tall...they are looking great! Marlena planted the beans. I planted lettuce, onions, spinach, bok choy, radishes, beets, and carrots. We still have to put in cucumbers, eggplant, peppers ( we have 50 various pepper plants!) squash, zucchini, and cabbage. We started by loosening the soil and they laying on 4 inches of 4 year old manure. It's very weedy...but man do the veggies love it! I am planting buckwheat between rows as a green mulch. Once everything is in, we get a short break and then go right into canning and freezing mode. Oh...and of course we eat fresh stuff all summer!

New UDC will address cell tower issue

2010-05-15T17:17:00.000-07:00

I am encouraged that the City of Duluth Planning department has contacted a local researcher for advice on how the new zoning code should address cell towers and our unique bird migration area! There are real signs that they are listening to citizen input about cell towers in our community. The proposed UDC also prohibits antennas over 50 feet, I sure hope that proposal makes it to the final plan! I'm sure a company could apply for a variance, but they'd have to prove they need it. According to City of Duluth CAO David Montgomery, the city is also planning on requiring third party reviews of all tower proposals. Currently no one on city staff understands the technical aspects of the proposals. I find it ironic that the city of Duluth has been basically doing what the federal government has done with offshore oil drilling proposals; taking the industry's word for it. There is no one on City staff who understands the documentation that communication companies submit to justify need for a tower. This comes directly from the CAO. Perhaps they are realizing that blind trust in the communication companies might not be a good practice. Especially when one of those companies plans to build a tower in what is on of the most significant low altitude migration paths in America. Let's tighten up the code now, and hold communication companies accountable to prove need over want!

Communications industry and conservation groups jointly propose to the FCC interim processing standards for communications towers - Defenders of Wildlife

2010-05-05T18:11:00.000-07:00

Communications industry and conservation groups jointly propose to the FCC interim processing standards for communications towers - Defenders of Wildlife

Cell Phone vs Landline, Let's talk about "staying on task."

2010-04-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

A city official asked me last week, "Do you have any solutions for citizens so that we can provide better cell phone service? We need to stay on task as many people have gotten rid of their land lines and now have cell phones for their entire service."

I have a problem with this question on two fronts. First, it asks how the we (citizens) can provide better cell service. As far as I know, the citizens of Duluth are not in the cell phone business, and frankly, some of us could care less about improving service. Do we have people calling city hall and asking for better service? Is the city obligated to approve any proposal that comes before them for improved service? Not without verifying actual need! Should we assume that a private company has the best interest in mind when asking for concessions from the community without first verifying that there is actual need in the community?
Do people really need in car coverage on every inch of road?
Is it the community's responsibility to take care of people who are stupid enough to drop their landline when they don't have reliable in home coverage? Why don't they just get an in home antenna to improve their service?
And what happens to their phone when they forget to charge their battery and the phone dies during a 911 call?
What happens when the power goes out for an extended period of time (think winter blizzards) and there is no power to charge that phone or the backup power to the tower goes out? (Think hurricane Katrina)

I'm pretty sure the question was an attempt to shut me up. What follows is a part of what I sent back. I received a scathing reply that basically did not address anything I had suggested, instead I was attacked personally. All I can say is, nice way to "stay on task".

From my email:

1. Have carriers collocate on towers, and when they say they can't then our zoning must require that they submit a written refusal from the tower owner. We could even offer property tax breaks or reduced permit fees (which should be $5000 for a monopole and $2500 for a collocation) if a company agrees to collocate on other towers. If we don't start requiring collocation now and we continue to listen to arguments about 911 we will have to have a tower every 2-4 square miles. We don't need to have a tower every 2-4 miles, but there can be an "antenna" every 2-4 miles. BIG DIFFERENCE! Antennas do not have to be place at 190 feet, but this is the preferred configuration as it is easiest and cheapest for the carrier, and most lucrative when a community starts to REQUIRE collocation (how nice that they already have a tower that can accommodate 3 or more antenna arrays). There are communities that do not allow any tower to be built above 10- 20 feet above the highest feature. This requires more expensive equipment for a carrier, but a community has the right to set these controls.

"While historically, due to a lack of wireless infrastructure, a tower has often been needed, today significantly fewer new towers are needed. Theoretically, almost anything that can support the structural load of an antenna array and its associated cabling and is of sufficient height can serve in lieu of a tower. The effects of buying into this misconception can be seen when traveling any interstate highway.
How many towers do you see that have only 1 or 2 carriers attached and within a 1/2 mile or so there's another identical situation? Assuming that either tower needs to actually exist, there should only be one tower, not two or more." Source, Center for Municipal Solutions

2. Require that tower companies submit to third party review of RF studies by an engineer chosen by the city. Do we require experts to review building plans and utility plans? Why do we take these at their word, does anyone on City staff actually understand the RF studies that are submitted? (I sent this question to the city administration and the entire council...no answer yet!)

3. The test should always be, actual PROVABLE needs of the COMMUNITY. As far as the 911 issue, no one at St Louis County sees it as a big enough problem to even track it. Therefore, there is no actual way to PROVE that AT&T or any other carrier can solve the problem, and frankly, they are doing a disservice to the community in asserting that they can. If a person in Riverside does not have an AT&T phone, this tower will do them absolutely NO GOOD. (The tower will handle 911 calls from any carrier, as is required by law. But if your phone is not AT&T, the AT&T antennas on this tower will not handle your call. If at some point your carrier collocates on that tower, you will see improved service.)

Here's a good example from the Center for Municipal Solutions regarding need vs desires:

A community is obligated to permit an applicant the means to achieve its 'desires' or 'objectives', as opposed to its 'needs' This should be true, but only when desires and objectives coincide with true needs, such as being able to provide "functionally reliable" service. Notably, "functional reliability", not necessarily the signal strength claimed to be needed by the applicant, should be the test as regards meeting the applicant's needs, It's important to know (and understand) exactly what the carrier's needs are, as opposed to its desires or objectives. If one doesn't know exactly what the problem is and what's causing it, as well as all the options for remedying the problem, the local officials simply can not make informed decisions. Instead, they're relegated to simply relying on the applicant's assertions and what little they know about the cause and the possible solutions to the problem.
Desires are normally couched in terms of the Company's 'objectives', which sounds good, but under the law at (47 U.S.C. 332(c)) a company's desires or objectives are not the test. The test is the actual, provable needs of the Company, i.e. to provide "functionally reliable" service primarily within that community and not an adjacent community.
An example of needs versus desires and objectives happened in a North Carolina county recently when the applicant requested a 300' tower for a gap in a sparsely populated rural area along a major highway. Upon review of the application, it was discovered that the carrier already had sufficient signal to provide 'Rural In-Vehicle' signal strength throughout the majority of the alleged gap in service. As it turned out, the applicant was requesting a 300' tower so it could provide the equivalent of 'Urban In-Building' signal strength at the extremities of the area, even though it was to serve a "Rural In-Vehicle" market. Once this was discovered, the Company agreed that it could fill the few relatively small gaps in service that actually existed by co-locating on existing structures. Result: no new tower. The key was in knowing what propagation studies to request, being able to analyze the propagation studies, knowing and understanding the difference between the applicant's desires and its true needs, and knowing what would enable the applicant to fulfill its real need, i.e. to provide Rural In-Vehicle coverage for the relatively small area not already covered.
As the preceding shows, the effects of not understanding the difference between a carrier's legitimate, provable needs and its objectives/desires, and how they should be treated, are significant and can mean the difference between the construction of a new tower and being able to co-locate on an existing facility of some type, with the facilities often being unrecognizable by the average person. Result: No 300' tower and no physical or visual impact on the community, but with improved and expanded service.
(Read about tower misconceptions at the website http://telecomsol.com/misconceptions.html)

4. Understand that our City does not have to permit carriers to fill a gap from a single location, they can fill from distributed antenna systems, these are mulitple antennas which are placed on power poles, on existing structures, towers, and even buildings. There is quite an array of antennas providing service to Lakeside on top of St Michaels school, not even close 190 feet in the air! The cell companies do not pursue this if there is no push back as it is more expensive.

R. I. P. My Sweet Cat Tex

2010-04-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

On Monday we had to make the difficult decision to let our cat Tex go. We had been dealing with his ailing kidneys for some time now, and in December the situation went from bad to worse. He spent 10 days in the animal hospital and came home the day before Christmas Eve. In order to keep him going I had to give him subcutaneous injections of water and electrolytes pretty much every day. This involves a fairly large needle injected into the nape of his neck and letting the water flow from an I.V. bag. Not an easy thing to do, and he didn't much like it either. I'd hold him tight, massage his forehead, and hope he'd be able to stay still long enough to get the necessary dose. I didn't always succeed, but I always had to weigh his quality of life, and if he was not liking what I was doing, then it just made it harder. He rallied for four months but eventually his heart just gave out. He was obviously in pain and he'd quit eating. I tried force feeding him food and water for the last week, but on Monday he flat out refused all but water. It was time.

We will really miss this gentle cat. He showed up one day, while I was in the garden. I heard a purring noise, looked down and there he was, a very fat cat lying on his back. I reached down and rubbed his belly and said, "Whoa..who's Bhudda cat are you? From that day on he never wanted to go back to his owner, a neighbor down the road. Tex was a very fat cat, and probably had diabetes which led to the kidney failure in his later years. He was with us for 7 years and we never really knew how old he was. The neighbor said he'd found him as a stray, and that his girlfriend was allergic to cats so he couldn't let him live in his house anymore. We gladly accepted him into ours.

He loved Marlena from the beginning. He let her carry him around, holding him around his chest with her little arms with his body swinging as she walked. She'd dress him up, she'd wrestle with him, and he never said peep or scratched or bit. One year when we were outside with Marlena watching her go down the little hill on her sled, he surprised us all by getting on the back of the sled and riding along with her. We videotaped him riding the sled and then riding down the same hill with her on a wagon in the summer. We would say that he acts more like a dog than a cat. He was never much of a predator. When he first moved in we had a couple voles in the house. He basically watched as they ran past him in his cat bed. He never brought us mice, and living in the country, there was a lot of opportunity, right in the basement! As the picture above shows, he had a curiosity about creatures, but didn't attack. He was sitting on the porch one night, with a mother racoon and 4 babies. He refused to com in and watched as the babies ate his cat food. We quit putting out food after that. Even though the babies were adorable. I think Tex liked them too. He was much too fat and slow to ever catch a bird.

He was the perfect cat in so many ways. He always did his business smack dab in the middle of his box, in all the years we had him he never went onto the sides of his box. He tried to scratch the new couch when it was first delivered. I scolded him and he never scratched the furniture again! He would lie in my arms and let me clip all of his claws, purring the whole time. He never got up onto the counters or table and he loved to take showers or get right into the bathtub with you.

He won over more than one "cat hater" in his life and was well loved by everyone who met him. I miss his little greetings whenever you'd look at him and he'd notice. Just a little chirp to say hi. Sleep well my kitty!

St. Louis County Weighs in on My 911 Cell Call Questions

2010-04-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I decided to ask the St. Louis County 911 center about calls that are re-routed from cell phones. I thought, if this is such a life threatening problem as AT&T asserts in their proposal, someone must be tracking it and asking the cell companies to fix it.

Here's the response, what do you think?

Your email inquiry regarding cell phone tower placement was forwarded to me for answer yesterday.

In answer to your questions:

1. Does St. Louis County track emergency calls from cell phones that are rerouted from Douglas County Emergency Services?

Answer: No, we do not.

2. How many calls are identified as rerouted from cell phone calls originating on the Duluth Lakeshore and going over to Douglas County?

Answer: We do not maintain these statistics.

In South St. Louis County, we answer numerous calls on a daily basis which have been placed by wireless callers who are in need of an alternate public safety answering point. Some of the calls require transferring to Douglas County, but we frequently transfer calls to Carlton County, Lake County, and our North St. Louis County Dispatch Center as well. Occasionally we must transfer a call as far away as Ashland, WI or Houghton, MI. Our 9-1-1 telephone equipment is configured in such way that we are able to accomplish the most commonly used transfer locations by pressing a single button on the telephone panel.

This issue is not unique to St. Louis County, it is an issue for 9-1-1 call centers nationwide. It is not limited to a single carrier, but involves all carriers. The process of transferring calls to another call center or in receiving a call as a transfer from another center is "business as usual" in our industry.

Geographic features such as the terrain, and specifically in our area, the vast expanse of Lake Superior, seem to produce an increase in coverage challenges. These, however, are carrier issues. We are not involved in the site planning or placement of cellular towers with any of the wireless carriers who provide coverage in our area.

I hope this explanation addresses the inquiry you placed to our agency.

Thank you.

St. Louis County 9-1-1 (Duluth Center)

When is an Expert an Expert?

2010-04-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

This week the city council deliberated over a cell tower in the Riverside neighborhood of Duluth. I regret not being at the meeting. I heard that the AT&T representative mentioned "Ms. Boedigheimer" and the issues about migration I have raised. I love raising awareness! I anxiously await the opportunity to listen to this meeting when Pactv gets the DVD to the library. Evidently there was a bit of discussion by some councilors about the issue of cell towers "biting them in the back in the future." There was even a discussion about tabling ALL tower requests until the new zoning code is written! WOW...now we are moving in the right direction!

The DNT published this account of the meeting:
Published April 12 2010: Cell tower approved for Riverside neighborhood By: Brandon Stahl , Duluth News Tribune

"Councilor Jay Fosle knocked on doors and determined that residents of the Riverside neighborhood wouldn't mind a nearly 180-foot-tall cell tower being put in their community. And so the Duluth City Council approved giving AT&T the authority tonight to build a tower along the St. Louis River to provide what the company said will be a better cell phone connection for residents. Among the objections in the past to cell towers along the river or Lake Superior is the threat to birds. But Fosle said he spoke to a bird expert who said a greater threat to birds is picture windows."

Yikes! I was pretty miffed at this old and lazy argument. I asked Anna Peterson, a PHd candidate whose research involves the impacts of wind towers, cell towers, and tall structures on migrating birds in our area, what she had to say about this: "Yes, windows are a huge threat to migrating birds. The issue with towers or any structure is cumulative affect (windows, towers, turbines, and cats). In my opinion, it is foolish to separate one mortality factor from another (ie. towers versus windows). It's like saying what's one more forest clearcut? Or 100 more SUVs on the road? The argument is not valid. What's one more tower? You can imagine the impact when every city has that attitude because "windows" are more of a threat.
And I'm quite sure the ATT's bird expert shares that view."

I was really curious to know WHO this "bird expert" was that had emailed the councilor with such a poor argument. I had heard it was someone who had 28 years at Hawk Ridge, and had counted birds at the Lakewood Pumping Station. It sounds like someone who would have some credentials, probably a scientist, maybe an ornithologist? But no! I find out that it is a local bird guide, someone who seems to have NO actual professional credentials. It's nice that you are a local bird guide, but be called an "expert" and represented as such in an official proceeding is just wrong. His website lists his qualifications as having led birding trips and groups. Um, can you really say that he is qualified to be considered an "expert" who we use as a source of "expert" opinion to make decisions that might affect the entire City? Most people who are "experts" have some professional credential to back it up. Even a college degree in biology would help! It might help to verify sources and arguments proffered before repeating them in public. Once you've said it in a public forum, you own it.

Anna's argument is very clear. There are a great number of things that place pressure on birds. And the accumulation of further stresses is only going to make the situation worse. Several groups are working to raise awareness of the window issue and technology is available to make windows less likely to kill. There are campaigns to turn lights off in skyscrapers to minimize risk. The Audubon and American Bird Conservancy have invested countless hours and resources to raising awareness of the cat predation issue. People are not going to give up their beloved pets, but they can become aware of the issue and act accordingly. The same holds true for communication towers and windmills. As we become aware that they are another stress on bird population we have a similar obligation to be mindful in their placement. I am not opposed to all towers. I just want to see that they are not rammed down the throat of communities. Government bodies must act on a community's actual PROVABLE need for a tower. They must respect our natural resources, which belong to all citizens (and yes, wildlife IS a natural resource.) Our leaders should only approve new towers after it is PROVEN that a cell carrier needs it to provide a service that will fill a PROVEN COMMUNITY need. New towers should always be a last resort, after all, what they really need is an array of antennas. Carriers should be required to explore all other configurations (distributed antenna systems, on power poles, locating on tall structures, collocation on other towers, etc.)before building new towers.

No one knows exactly why birds are killed at towers, there are factors that are being studied, and we know that there is likely a link to lighting, weather, migration, and guy wires. Any single one of these factors, or a combination of them can cause problems for birds flying near a tower. Anna Peterson has stated that there will likely be kills at this Riverside tower. It is a high migration area in the springtime. But, it will take a combination of things, low ceiling, poor visibility, bad weather, high numbers of birds flying low. So, it may not happen a lot, but it probably will happen, hopefully not often, hopefully not ever. But if it does, I hope the tour guide regrets that he played a part in the approval of a tower that caused those deaths.

Maybe People are Finally Paying Attention

2010-04-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

This article was in the Duluth News Tribune today. I received a call from the reporter yesterday and steered him to Anna Peterson. I will attend the council meeting on Monday and speak on our city's shabby zoning. I am quite displeased with Cindy Petkac's assertion that we do not have to consider birds when approving cell towers. I suppose that she would say that because our zoning does not address this specifically, BUT as a community we do have to consider the laws in regard to migratory birds and endangered species. AT&T and our City could incur fines and great embarrassment if we completely ignore warnings and guidelines from USFWS and MN DNR. If there were massive kills at these towers (and it IS possible, these kills happen during weather events..anyone remember the Bong Bridge fog a few years ago?) how would we be able to go on advertising our community as friendly to birders and birds. We advertise all over the world that we have a world class migration in Duluth, we lure in tourists and sell hotel rooms because we have Hawk Ridge. How embarrassing will it be to read Petkac's quote once we have a major kill at one of the towers that the City leaders have approved? The council cannot claim that they are not aware of this issue now.

Duluth councilors anticipate storm over proposed cell tower in Riverside
Brandon Stahl - 04/09/2010

Fifth District City Councilor Jay Fosle said he’ll be spending his weekend knocking on every door in the Riverside neighborhood. While the area is in his district, he’s not campaigning for re-election, but wants to determine whether residents would be opposed to AT&T constructing a 180-foot-tall cell tower along the waterfront. “We’ve got to get out in front of this, this time,” he said. Fosle is referring to past cell towers the council has approved only to see residents find out later and oppose the construction. A tower along the North Shore that was approved by the council last year since has been criticized by bird enthusiasts, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for being a potential fatal danger to migrating raptors and waterfowl. Being a danger to birds isn’t something the city has to consider when approving cell towers, said city land use supervisor Cindy Petkac. But Councilor Sharla Gardner said she wouldn’t vote to approve the tower until she has a better idea if it’s a risk. “Clearly that’s a standard for our community,” she said during a Thursday night council agenda session. The tower could pose a danger to birds, said Anna Peterson, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota Duluth who is writing a dissertation on migratory bird patterns from Duluth to Grand Portage. But it’s difficult to determine how much of a danger it could be. “I can say with a high level of certainty that it will kill birds,” she said. “I just don’t know how many that will be.” Birds do migrate along the St. Louis River corridor, she said, sometimes at a rate of thousands to millions in a short period of time during the migratory periods. Because there’s such a high concentration of the birds, Peterson said, it’s likely the cell tower will kill a few of them — and even more during high fog or low cloud level days. She said a tower with guy wires and lights increases the risk — something this pole tower isn’t likely to have, according to the specifications submitted to the city. “The tower may not kill birds for years,” Peterson said. “But given the right conditions, it could potentially kill lots of birds in one evening.” As to the aesthetics of the pole and whether neighbors object, Petkac said about 15 residents who live near the proposed site were notified and none complained. But Fosle said he wants the feedback of the entire neighborhood before it’s too late, hence the door knocking. “The battle has started only after the fact,” he said.

The DNR weighs in on the proposed tower

2010-04-02T16:14:00.001-07:00

We received notice today that the City of Duluth received another letter of warning about the cell tower. This one comes from the Minnesota DNR and has very strong words about the potential for to migrating birds. It also rebuts Shane Begley's assertion that the DNR said there were no concerns with endangered species!

Click on the title to read the letter...it's a great one!

Here we go again

2010-03-29T11:53:00.001-07:00

I just got notice that AT&T is proposing a cell tower for Beaver Bay, right along the shoreline. This is in the same migration path as the tower proposed for my neighborhood. They also have the one proposed for the shore down in the Riverside neighborhood (which may be on a council agenda as early as April 12.) Now really folks, do we want a line of towers along the lakeshore just like the unsightly line of towers down I-35 to the cities? The tower will be proposed at a Lake County planning commission meeting on April 19 at 6:30pm at the Silver Bay Service Center, 99 Edison Blvd, Silver Bay, MN 55614. They will accept written comments at the Planning and Zoning office until April 15th, 2010. The address is: Lake County Planning and Zoning, 601 Third Avenue, Lake County Courthouse, Two Harbors MN 55616.

If you've read my blog, you know that these towers are being proposed in a very unique migration path. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife has spoken out in opposition to the one proposed for my neighborhood. Because they are under 199 feet, USFWS has no control over them, but in this type of migration path it is believed that they may cause significant kills.

Write a letter or go to the meetings. We need support to oppose both of these proposals before they are approved. Ask Lake County to require AT&T PROVE, by paying for a third party evaluation of their proposal, that they must have this tower at this site and at this height!

AT&T should be told to co-locate on another tower at the Riverside site, there is another tower within 1 mile which was approved with the understanding that they would allow co-location.

AT&T advertises good coverage on their coverage maps but comes to planning boards saying they have poor or no coverage, why do we allow them to lie to us?

Read my blog posts below for more information about the migration area and about these towers.

Spring Means Garden Planning

2010-03-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

In February we got a new dog, Buster. I’m really hoping that he is the ticket to deer control! He certainly pays attention to them, but so far it looks like he’s a deer chaser. I don’t want that, I just want him to bark them out of the yard. So far he is absolutely perfect. He’s a rescue pit bull, and has had a hard life up to now. He’s 2 years old and loves us and the cat. He’s wonderful to walk on a leash and very friendly to other dogs. He’s a great companion for our daughter and she’s being very responsible about his care. I think she’s pretty happy with him!

It is spring in Duluth, and my thoughts have turned to the gardens. My husband has been very busy with plant starts. We have tomatoes, basil, peppers and tomatillos started. We started everything a bit earlier this year, the beginning of March. In the past we would start plants on St. Patrick’s Day. Last year we found that things just didn’t mature in time. We had to bring in most of the tomatoes and didn’t really get many hot peppers at all. One can get very discouraged when you’ve put in so much time!
We are still eating from last years’ harvest. We have pickles, relish, and jam, rhubarb, strawberries, salsa, pickled beets, and a couple jars of pickled green beans. In the freezer are bags of zucchini and peas. Our squash was getting soft, so I cooked and froze the few that were left. We will be making butternut squash ravioli with that…yum. Our potatoes are sprouting and will become seed for the 2010 crop.
I plan on uncovering the strawberries this weekend. We may be on the last year of these everbearing plants. I’ll have to devise a way to let some of the plants sprout so that we can regenerate more plants. This would be a good way to save money by not having to buy more plants.
I have to go take a peek at my currant bushes, hopefully they have survived the winter. The raspberries need to be moved, they are in a shady spot and not doing so well.
Our cell tower battle is not over yet. Richard planned on filing the injunction against AT&T yesterday. This will begin a new chapter in this process. He really has put an incredible amount of time into building our justification for asking that this tower be placed elsewhere or lowered to treetop level. Not only are we arguing danger to birds in an extraordinary migration area, but also the aesthetic detriment to the north shore area and the scenic drive. I will keep you posted!

Update on Cell Tower

2010-03-06T10:05:00.001-08:00

I haven't blogged in awhile as I've been very busy with research and preparation for the filing of an injunction against AT&T. I'm very grateful to have a knowledgeable and willing team member who has taken on the task of writing the documents necessary for this action. I play the role of researcher, helping to find what he needs to support our argument. I'm becoming very adept at finding things on Google, and the various websites it leads me to. I think it's pretty amazing to be able to sit at a computer and have a world of information at your fingertips. I've read quite a few studies on tower kills. I have found much information on how cell signals work and the technology involved in towers and antennas. I've spent time with weather data. I've researched the scenic and esthetic North Shore. I've learned a ton about how birds migrate within this corridor and how geology, weather, instinct, topography and winds can influence the migration. I've also come to realize that we should not argue one obstacle against another. It doesn't matter that window strikes or cats kill more birds than cell tower collisions, these all have a cumulative effect. All are killing birds, and we have to do what we can to reduce the deaths, or one day we won't be waking up to the sound of birds.

Hopefully, a Victory of Sorts

2010-02-13T11:20:00.001-08:00

After Anna Peterson and I spoke to the City Council on Monday night, Tony Cuneo (one of the Councilors who voted for the tower) spoke up and thanked us for our presentations. He said that it was obvious that we were not going to give up and that we shouldn't. He also said that, had he known what he knows now, he would've voted no. He went on to say that this has brought awareness to the issue of towers in our community and that they will likely look at future proposals with a greater degree of scrutiny. YAY!! I really feel that we scored one on that note. If from this point forward our Council and Administration spend more time than picking up a rubber stamp, great! I would have loved to see one of the councilors grow a backbone and bring this back up, but I was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. After the meeting we met with a local activist who was attending for another issue. He told us about the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act, Statute 116b. This one is very interesting, and we are feverishly researching case law and the statute. Stay tuned...we might take some legal action soon!

Words for the Council

2010-02-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

This is my speech:

Good Evening Councilors,

My name is Kelly Boedigheimer. I live down the road from the planned cell tower at 78th avenue east. I've owned my home for 33 years and each fall I witness an extraordinary migration. Millions of songbirds and raptors fly south, directly over my home. This fall I watched thousands of Nighthawks fly over at approximately 20 to 30 feet above the treetops. Nighthawks are listed as one of 26 Species of Greatest Conservation Need. These are birds who are identified as being rare, declining, or vulnerable in Minnesota. All 26 species on the list migrate through this corridor.

Clearly, the council has approved an inappropriate site and should take action to fix the problem.

The Council cannot claim that they did not have notice that this was in a major migration path. And it is shameful that one Councilor has chosen to misrepresent this fact on a News Tribune blog, in an attempt to justify his vote.

On November 3rd I sent an email to the Council, explaining that this is a major migration area. I included the Guidelines from U.S. Fish and Wildlife which clearly state:

“TOWERS SHOULD NOT BE PLACED IN KNOWN MIGRATORY FLYWAYS.”

The council did not discuss migration during the November 9th meeting.

On November 10th I received a phone call from Robert Russell with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Division of Migratory Birds. He confirmed that this is one of the greatest migration paths in the western great lakes and a terrible place for a tower.

This tower was not approved by the Planning Commission and the Environmental Advisory Council had questions that went unanswered. The proposal was pulled by AT&T from the October agenda. Notice was made on Friday, November 6th at 3:45 that it was back on the agenda for the following Monday. This gave citizens no time to organize.

Because this item went onto the agenda on Friday, it is likely that Councilors didn’t even have the tower proposal in front of them at the meeting.

Several Councilors who voted to approve this tower told me that it was because AT&T convinced them they needed coverage for 911 calls.

On February 1st I received a letter from Andy Sackreiter, Radio Access Director for AT&T. I had asked why they need this tower. NOWHERE in his two page letter, are 911 or emergency calls mentioned.

AT&T gives this reason, “The planned cell tower will be equipped to provide 3G wireless broadband services.” Seems it’s not really about emergencies after all. And if Verizon and Sprint have 3G in our area, why can't AT&T locate on or near those towers?

The City has received an official warning about this tower from US Fish and Wildlife. The council and administration have taken NO action on it. This leaves the City vulnerable to even further penalty when birds die at this tower

Duluthians, watch for a tower coming to your backyard soon. Our leaders granted the wishes of AT&T while ignoring citizen input and the warning of a federal agency. In the future we must distinguish what the company actually NEEDS from what they WANT. And for a city our size they are going to want a LOT more towers.

I have given many reasons why this tower should be reevaluated. AT&T should have to prove that this is the ONLY solution. Third party evaluations at tower company expense should be mandatory for all future proposals.

Councilor Misrepresenting FACTS?

2010-01-22T18:49:00.000-08:00

On the January 24 "Buzz Blog" at the Duluth News Tribune website, the guest blogger was City Council President Jeff Anderson. He had some things to say about the Cell Tower Issue:

Cell Tower Update

"The Duluth City Council has received numerous e-mails concerning our decision to grant AT&T a conditional use permit for a cell tower on East Superior Street. In fact there was a Letter to the Editor in the January 20th edition of the Duluth News Tribune which was very critical of our decision.

I think it’s important for those concerned individuals to know how the conditional use permit granted by the council fits with the comprehensive plan.

The initial request for a conditional use permit ("CUP") came on August 13th. The city planning commission held a public hearing on October 13th. The planning commission sent the proposal to the city council without a recommendation because the motion to recommend the CUP failed on a 5-5 vote. On October 22nd, this matter came before the city council and was tabled until November 9th. At the November 9th meeting, the council voted 7-2 to approve the cell tower CUP.

Up until this point, there were few, if any, communications with the council that this tower was of concern to wildlife. In fact, one of my council colleagues spoke with a representative from U.S. Fish and Wildlife and they indicated no concern.

Our planning staff reviewed the CUP proposal for zoning and comprehensive plan compliance. In Minnesota, the law requires that if the comprehensive plan and zoning are in conflict, the zoning prevails. These types of towers are an allowable special use within the zoning at issue.

The city has now issued its final decision on the CUP. Revoking the CUP at this time would likely generate litigation for the City.

Federal law significantly restricts the City's ability to control the placement of these types of towers through zoning. Rest assured that the new zoning code is being carefully crafted to comply with the federal law."

I find it interesting that Anderson quotes an unnamed Councilor as a resource for information from Fish and Wildlife. He makes it sound like Fish and Wildlife was contacted prior to the vote. In light of the FACT that Fish and Wildlife took the time to send the City of Duluth an Official warning about the danger to birds at this site, I find his claim dubious at best.

Here is the email exchange that I had with him over his statement:

Councilor Anderson,

I have a question about this portion of the blog you posted on the DNT Buzz Blog regarding the Cell tower approved for my neighborhood:

"Up until this point, there were few, if any, communications with the council that this tower was of concern to wildlife. In fact, one of my council colleagues spoke with a representative from U.S. Fish and Wildlife and they indicated no concern."

You are referring to a conversation between Councilors discussing City business, which is public information.

I am asking, for the record, who is the "Council colleague" and who did they speak with at U.S. Fish and Wildlife?

I find your statement incredible considering the City received an official notice from U.S. Fish and Wildlife stating that they do have concerns.

He didn't reply in a timely fashion, so I sent this:

Council President Anderson,

As you have not replied to this question yet, (and were able to make comment on my e-mail query to Jeff Cox about presenting to the council in the meantime) I sense that you do not intend to answer it.

I believe in holding public figures accountable for public statements. I guess that now my only option of getting to the bottom of this is to bring this comment to a more public forum.

Thank you for reinforcing the spirit of my editorial.

Kelly Boedigheimer

Then....an hour or so later....THIS!

That is correct. I have no comment on your blog post question. My conversation between another councilor was private and not at a public meeting. I have consulted our attorney's office and they concur.

Respectfully,

Jeff

Now, why did he have to consult the attorney about something he said in a public forum? Am I wrong to assume that a public figure should back up statements made to rebut information that Citizens worked hard to prove? I think my editorial (you can read a long version below "Big Egos Make for Flawed Decisions") really got to him. It was highly critical of the fact that the Council did not listen to people who got a Federal agency to back up their claims on this tower. So what does this politician do on a public forum? Intimate that some other councilor heard from the same agency that they had no concern. Then he refuses to tell us who, so we can verify the information. Wow, he couldn't have done a better job of proving the point of my editorial!

Do you think he was telling the truth?

He also cut and pasted all of the stuff about the process and zoning from an email written by the City Attorney. I tell ya...if this is the advice being given to the council about FCC law, we are in trouble!
He copies this statement from the memo:

"Federal law significantly restricts the City's ability to control the placement of these types of towers through zoning."

I sent this memo to a consultant who works exclusively with municipal code and cell towers. He said this statement is "absolutely not true!" He didn't have anything good to say about the content of the memo. (A little advice: When you cut and paste from a memo you should make sure the information is accurate, it might makes you look ignorant if it's not.)

He explained that under section 704 of the Telecommunications Act, "local zoning authority over personal wireless services is preserved, and the FCC is prevented from preempting local and State land use decisions."

However, local government zoning decisions are still restricted by several provisions of federal law.
There are five things that cities cannot do when considering towers:
1. They can't discriminate, eg: choose to only let in Verizon
2. They can't completely zone out cell towers
3. They can't deny based on RF emissions (health effects)
4. Any decision to deny a request must be made in writing and be supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record.
5. The law also requires a State or local government to act upon a request for authorization to place, construct, or modify personal wireless service facilities within a reasonable time.

So, how does that substantially limit zoning? I think our City Attorney takes a very weak stand on this whole issue. Hopefully we have staff in the planning department with more understanding of the law. Otherwise...in Duluth, you can expect to see a Cell Tower in YOUR backyard very soon!

Time for a Creative Break

2010-01-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

I've been spending way too much time being a mom, gardener, hack blog writer, and activist. What has suffered greatly is my artwork. I used to draw all the time, charcoals, pastels, colored pencils, and pens were my best friends. But life has taken me in other directions and now my old drawing hands are very very rusty. I'm not very forgiving of my attempts, and I become frustrated that I cannot sketch like I used to. I do know that it takes a lot of practice, and practice means taking the time. I'm going to put a small sketchbook into my purse, and try and devote a few minutes a day to just exercising my eye hand coordination; with no criticism, and no judgments. We are our worst critics and the voices in our head are very hard to answer to. So, wish me luck as this seems about as hard as dieting for me!

I do take time to make jewelery. I've always loved beadwork, but my eyes are not so hot and I can't do Ojibway style beadwork anymore. I am doing some nice contemporary necklaces and earrings that I'll post in the future. I just ordered beads from Fire Mountain Gems for the first time...oh man, that can prove to be addicting.

I have only a few weeks before we pull out the heat mats, lights and potting supplies for seed starting. We plan to start peppers early February. Last year we started them on St. Patrick's Day and found that to be a bit late. Some of peppers froze before they could fully mature. I'm sure our cool summer didn't help, but starting them earlier won't hurt.

We found that making pepper jelly with all Habanero peppers is really the fantastic! We've gone through most of the jars we made last year. We are looking for Ghost peppers for making jelly this year. I like to mix it half and half with a fruit jelly like crab apple or plum and serve it with crackers and cream cheese. People swoon, and love the heat. Here's the recipe for the jelly:

Napalm Jam

# 1 1/2 cups vinegar
# 6 cups sugar
# 1 1/4 cups chiles
# 1 package pectin

Puree the chilies with a food processor or a blender. If using a blender, the vinegar may be needed to keep the blender from stalling and aide in the puree process. Either way, take care when opening the cover of the blender or food processor; the fumes are deadly. Place puree in a non-reactive sauce pan and add the powdered pectin. Add the vinegar if it has not already been used in the puree process. Stir to dissolve the pectin. Place over high heat until the mixture comes to a HARD boil (a boil that cannot be stirred down). Stir continuously as the mixture is being heated. Add all of the sugar and bring back to a full rolling boil while stirring constantly. Boil hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat and skim off the foam with a metal spoon. Place in hot sterilized jars and seal. Makes about 6 0.5 pint jars.

Note 1 The original recipe called for jalapenos. I have since made this jam with New Mexico chilies (after they have turned red) and a habanero type chili that I was growing. Each type of chili produces a different colored jam as well as a different heat response. The jalapenos will give a slow turn on and slow turn off of medium heat; the New Mexico chilies will get the back of the throat and the habeneros will produce a "step response" of sensation. I would be interested in other peoples experiences with other types of chilies.

Note 2 Originally, the chilies were "volume measured". All of the vinegar was placed into the blender and enough chilies were added such that the liquid reached the 2.75 cup line on the blender. I use a food processor and do not use vinegar in the puree process. To measure, I cut the chilies into the size of half a habanero and fill up a 2 cup liquid measuring container. Measurements are not too critical and the bite will vary from batch to batch as the chilies vary in heat content. I try to keep the amount of fruit at this level. If the bite is too much for people, bell peppers can be used to bring up the amount of fruit used.

Note 3 I use regular Sure-Jell pectin. Other brands should work just as well in this recipe. There has been no experience in using the low sugar recipe pectins with this recipe.

Note 4 Experiments with adding other fruits to this recipe have been tried. 1-2 ripe peaches, pureed and mixed with the chili mixture tastes good. The problem is trying to coordinate the fruit harvest with the chili harvest. I would be interested in other peoples experiments with other fruits.

From: John A. Gunterman
Posted By: The Chile-Heads Recipe Collection

This recipe was found on one of my favorite sites:

http://www.pepperfool.com/index.html

Follow the Money

2010-01-16T12:04:00.000-08:00

I've been fortunate to have some people just appear out of the blogosphere to help me with my research on this monopole issue. One of those people is Richard Colmi from the Center for Municipal Solutions. Someone who had read my blog postings suggested I contact their organization for help. This is an excerpt from their website http://telecomsol.com/about_us.html which describes their business:
"The Center for Municipal Solutions (CMS) is an organization that, since 1987, has been exclusively dedicated to serving local governments (municipalities and counties) and represents in excess of more than 500 communities in 23 states and the National Park Service.

The two founders have a combined total of more than a half century of experience (on the executive level) in the telecommunications industry. The members of the team of experts include Professional Engineers licensed in more than 40 states, including RF, Structural and Environmental specialists. We know of no other firm in the nation that exclusively serves local governments that has such a team with such all-round experience.

This depth and breadth of talent and experience enables us to ‘level the playing field’ for communities in their dealings with telecommunications service providers and applicants. They find that for the first time they are truly able to deal with the industry as equals, thereby reversing the historic roles, making the local government the proactive and controlling party."

I feel fortunate to have spoken with Mr Colmi for at least an hour about this tower. Though he couldn't give me specific guidance on how to stop this pole, he did give me a lot of great information about the cell tower industry.

One of the most shocking statistics he gave me is the average income one cell phone carrier on one site can generate is $2250 per day! That's $800,000 a year for each cell carrier! This tower means big money for AT&T. I don't believe for one minute that AT&T hasn't already been out shopping other carriers to rent on their monopole, as they intimated to the City of Duluth.

Mr Colmi also told me that most cities don't have a plan in place to control the expansion of cell towers in their areas. Cities could be bringing in big revenue in many ways from these towers. I tend to believe that this tower will not benefit the City in any way.

This site should be taxed as commercial property, I wonder if it is? Cell phone companies are not tax exempt like other utilities. Mr Colmi said that most communities do not know this and do not tax properly. You can bet I'm going to check the property records and raise a stink if it's not!

The City should be identifying back taxed sites where they will allow cell towers, that way the taxpayers could benefit from the leases on the land. One lease that the Center was able to negotiate brought in $2.8 million dollars for a 30 year lease!

The City should have an application fee in the range of $5000 for a new cell site and $2000 for a site on an existing tower. Why? Well, we have to keep records at the city, someone has to review plans, our city council and planning commissions have to review it...who pays for all that? I wonder what Duluth's application fee is, this is something I haven't dug into yet.

Mr Colmi's company works with local governments to implement all of these things. I passed all of this information, including links to the website, to the City Administration. Do you think they will actually do something with it? I have my doubts.

2010-01-12T19:15:00.000-08:00

I have talked with many people about this cell tower since the article in the paper. Friends mostly, people who share my views. But there are a few people who have questioned my reasoning, and my passion for stopping one tower.

One of the arguments was at a New Years party. A couple of friends were praising my activism and asking about the issue further. We had a great discussion about all of the steps a person goes through to try and stop city hall. One of my friends was listening and finally asked, “You know that cats kill more birds than cell towers, why are you going after one cell tower?” I answered, “I know that cats kill thousands of birds, and birds hit windows in bigger numbers too. But I didn’t choose that battle, and the fact that you are aware of that issue means that SOMEONE is fighting it! I saw that no one was objecting to this tower and I chose to speak up.”

Some people believe this tower will not be an issue because it is under 200 feet.
Research provided to me from a Doctoral candidate at UMD shows that the majority of birds flying during daytime are flying much lower than is usually assumed:

“these birds are generally flying low (within 100m of the
forest canopy).”

So the majority of the birds are flying between the treetops and 328 feet above the treetops. This monopole will project at least 100 feet above the trees. This area is mostly Poplar, which average 50 – 80 feet high. Stick a pole 100 feet above that with four big dish type antennas on it, add the enormous numbers of birds that pass through this area, and you have a perfect opportunity for at least some to become victims.

The other problem with this site is are the enormous numbers of birds that pass through it in the fall and spring.

Here are some totals from Hawk Ridge counts sent to me by Anna C. Peterson, PhD Candidate Conservation Biology, Natural Resources Research Institute University of Minnesota Duluth

Total raptors 2007: 60412
Total raptors 2008: 61514
Total raptors 2009: 48853

Season high 2003: 201825

These numbers include significant numbers of Bald Eagles and Peregrine
Falcons. These raptor species and many other non-raptors are on the
MN DNR's list of Species of Greatest Conservation Need

Many of these birds are SGCN and help make the North
Shore one of the most concentrated passerine (songbird) migrations in the
interior U.S.

Nonraptors totals from HRBO:
2008: 160,000+ (I don't have individual numbers)
2009: 126404 (including 4632 Rusty Blackbirds, ~19,000 warblers,
~23,000 robins)
These numbers are from Karl Bardon, HRBO counter.

Common Nighthawk count (2009): 13,000+ in 3 days

I've heard arguments that birds have great eyesight, this is true, especially of the raptors. BUT, when you design the tower to blend in with the landscape, add rain, or fog, or very low clouds at night (which is actually when most songbirds migrate to avoid being eaten by the raptors who migrate in daylight) you will likely have birds hitting this tower because they had no chance of seeing it. Birds are not stupid because they hit the tower. Put a cement barrier in the middle of any freeway, make it blend in, and see if people can avoid it on a dark night, with fog and rain. Are they stupid, or was it stupid to put it THERE?

This is the description of this specific area from the Minnesota DNR website:

“This is one of the most important and visible migratory corridors for songbirds and raptors in the entire Midwest as birds pass along the North Shore and over Hawk Ridge every fall.”

Speaking up was just the beginning. I didn’t really think that one email to the City Council and one letter to the local newspaper would lead to months of working on this issue. I am learning the ins and outs of cell tower siting, learning a lot more about the North Shore migration, and learning how to communicate my position so that others might be persuaded. I’m hoping that it doesn’t all end with a “Wall of Shame” website where I post pictures of the dead birds alongside pictures of the bureaucrats who didn’t listen.

2010-01-05T15:28:00.000-08:00

Did Mankind Inherit the Earth?

2010-01-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

I have found that there are many people who will argue about an issue without a whole lot of knowledge to back up their beliefs. My personal crusade to stop a cell tower in my neighborhood has brought out the worst in some people, both online and in person.

I began my fight because I thought that this tower would be placed in an area that is significant to bird migration. My daughter and I wait at the end of our driveway for the school bus. Each fall we watch flocks of birds fly right over our heads. These are extraordinary in that they are huge flocks, and virtually constant. These birds travel in a narrow strip, from the lakeshore to just beyond our yard, uphill from the lake. There are several tiers of flocks. On some days you see Eagles, Hawks and Songbirds flying less than one hundred feet high and some that are tiny specks, several hundred or even thousands of feet high. But there is one constant, lots and lots of birds. Because Hawks and Eagles migrate in the daytime, there are probably 10 times more Songbirds migrating at night!

One evening this fall; as I worked in my garden, I watched the annual migration of Nighthawks. They flew about 30 feet above, I could see their white patches on the undersides of their wings and that their mouths were wide open. Nighthawks cannot swallow, so they fly openmouthed and the bugs they catch slide right down their throats. It was so thick with Nighthawks that a woman jogging down the road stopped and walked in circles, exclaiming, “This is amazing!” Each fall and spring we are fortunate to witness this amazing one day migration. Once, many years ago, I stepped out into my yard and witnessed a Bald Eagle drop a salmon, smack dab into the middle of the yard. That was the moment I started watching the sky, paying attention to the birds migrating through this extraordinary place.

We are fortunate to live directly under the most significant flyway in the western Great Lakes. It is the concentrated path that the birds follow when they come down from Canada. Birds instinctively know that if they were to attempt to fly across Lake Superior they might not eat or find a place to land for a very long time. Therefore they follow the shoreline along Lake Superior. By the time they reach Duluth the numbers are huge. They follow the shore and catch the thermals up to the hill we call Hawk Ridge. Some of these flocks are so large that they are detected on NEXRAD radar! My instincts told me that a place with so much bird movement would not be a good place to erect a man made obstacle like a cell tower. I received confirmation of my belief when Bob Russell with the US Fish and Wildlife Division of Migratory Bird Management called me and encouraged me to fight this tower. He confirmed that this is an “egregious” place for a tower. He regrets that FWS does not have the authority to stop a tower under 200 feet, but acknowledges that this tower should absolutely not go in this major migration path. He was able to help by sending a letter of warning to the City. The letter explains that if this tower is built, FWS will enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and the Endangered Species Act if and when there are documented bird deaths at this tower.

People have shocked me with their ignorance and arrogance. Some people do not believe as I do, that the birds are more important than having improved cell phone coverage for AT&T. They argue that more birds die from window strikes and cat predation. I agree. But this tower is not yet built. It is something that we can avoid. Can we go back and ask everyone to board up windows on buildings already built? Can we enforce a law that says you must keep your cat inside? Those are issues that are ongoing, people are trying to find solutions. That doesn’t mean that we throw up our hands and say…”geez there’s more dead bodies from this, these dead bodies don’t matter.” And then there is the argument that our needs are greater than the lives of animals. This is the argument I’ve seen on the blogs. “If the birds are too stupid to avoid the tower, they deserve to die.” And “It's called survival of the fittest for a reason. If a bird isn't smart enough to fly around the tower, maybe it just wasn't meant to pass along it's genetics to the next generation.”

So we intentionally place an object in the flight path these birds have instinctively followed for thousands of years, and call them stupid if they hit it. We disregard animal life to such an extent that we make fun of a very serious issue. Are people so disconnected from nature that they do not realize that if we continue to trash the Earth and creatures, WE will no longer live? I guess this is the same lack of ethics that allows people to dump their garbage on the side of the road. Or pour motor oil down the sewer drain. Somehow corporations find a way to justify pollution in the name of profits. How about the jerk that shot the last successful breeding Whooping Crane from the eastern migratory population? I’m sure he/she thought it was great fun to kill something. It escalates to the point where we don’t care about each other. We find a way to justify our lack of regard because it’s for the good of humankind. I don’t get it. I really don’t. I find it hard to understand how mankind has gone from being a steward of nature to a dominator.

We claim extraordinary intelligence, but lack the ability to think deeper about our role on the Earth. We are part of a system, a system with a tenuous balance. When we are so arrogant that we cannot even fathom that life might be more valuable than “improved cell coverage and wireless communication” we are in great trouble.

Perhaps you think I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. “Oh, it’s just one tower!” But it is one tower today, placed in one of the most significant avian flyways in the Western Great Lakes. Let this one go and there will be more. Eagles, Hawks, and Songbirds all stand to lose if we have one bad weather day. In fog or rain they will not be able to see this tower, and at 180 feet it is far above the treetops. This has nothing to do with the bird’s intelligence, how smart are we when we place an obstacle in a path that has been used for migration for thousands of years?

Big Egos Make For Flawed Decisions

2009-12-31T16:46:00.001-08:00

I've learned a bit in the last two months about politicians. City Councilors are elected to represent the taxpayers. I’ve learned that when elected, they magically become experts in whatever comes their way. Their egos swell as they become all knowing, comfortable, and confident in their every decision. We expect them to responsibly weigh the issues, and seek additional information or advice if an issue is complicated. And if they have little to no knowledge of the subject, they should defer to someone who does.

But when you become so self important that you disregard citizen input without investigating it, you become ineffective to the people who asked you to represent them.

When you give greater credence to sales pitches from developers over legitimate citizen input, you are no longer representing those who elected you.

I oppose the proposed cell tower that was granted a land use variance on East Superior Street. Prior to the vote, I sent a detailed email warning the City Council that Fish and Wildlife expects us to consider migrating birds when siting towers. This site is the probably the greatest migration path in the western Great Lakes.

Did our councilors read the email carefully? Did they contact fish and wildlife for clarification? Did they bring up migration during the meeting? Did they question the AT&T representative about whether they were following the guidelines? Unfortunately, no.

Last week, our City received a letter of warning from US Fish and Wildlife. In a nutshell FWS does not want to see a tower there. If it goes there and birds die, they will enforce the law and levy fines.

Who actually, did our Council listen to? An AT&T salesman who told them that AT&T’s objective for this site is to improve poor coverage. Did any of the Council happen to check the coverage map for this area? I did, guess what it says. GOOD COVERAGE for the entire 2.5 mile area that this tower will cover. Who is AT&T lying to, the customer or the city?

Most of the Council was convinced by the salesman that 911 calls could originate at Brighton Beach and go all the way to Bayfield. Supposedly this would cause a delay because they’d have to be rerouted. I told this to a communications engineer, he laughed. Fish and Wildlife also laughed, and wondered why they didn’t bring up Homeland Security, as this is one of the currently fashionable reasons cell companies use to justify towers. Letters of proof presented from emergency service agencies in Wisconsin are form letters that do not address this specific area. One letter says: “when calls for assistance are received from Minnesota valuable time is lost confirming the callers location and transferring the calls to St. Louis County or other appropriate dispatch center.” The letter says “Minnesota” is this proof that calls regularly originate from the proposed area? Minnesota is a big state. The second letter says “Bayfield County communications center routinely receives wireless emergency calls from the north shore of Minnesota. Our dispatchers expressed the need for Lake County to be on “speed dial” due to the frequency with which they need to relay emergency information” Lake County? This tower will service a site in St. Louis County. Is the problem with Lake County or St Louis County? If you read both letters you can clearly see that they are form letters. Both letters contain exact text in the exact same areas in the body of the letter: “… County also receives wireless 911 calls from neighboring counties in Wisconsin.” And “…is committed to work with cellular providers to increase service to our citizens. Please let me know how I may be of further assistance.” I wonder how many other Cities got these letters as justification for a tower. Did our Council even read the letters? Did they delve into this emergency call issue further? Did they ask for proof or data to back up the claim?

Nope… they swallowed it whole and voted yes.

Perhaps the Politicians should have swallowed their pride and listened to citizens who provided plenty of proof of their claims. Claims that were verified in the warning letter from the Federal Government. Nope, they were duped again by a party who stands to gain quite a bit of income, and the taxpayers will be left holding the bag.

The Email I Might Yet Send

2009-12-29T21:12:00.000-08:00

I haven't sent this...yet. I wrote this draft to City Councilor Jeff Anderson:

Councilor Anderson,

Since you have now replied to my email twice, I feel compelled to bring up a few points.

Your second reply:

Thank you for your e-mail. I am always open to reconsideration if I think my decision - or our decision as a council was flawed. In this instance, I do not believe it was.
Respectfully,
Jeff

Jeff Anderson
Duluth City Councilor

Councilor Anderson,

I have made it clear that live just down the road from where this tower will be built. Therefore I felt that elected representatives should take time to consider my objections, and perhaps look into them. I received an interesting phone call from a neighbor right next to where this tower will go. He was mad that he was not informed. When I went back to the planning commission notes where they talk about who was informed, I found that NO ONE except the developer at White Pines (the new development across the freeway and uphill 600 feet from the site) was informed. The justification was that there are no homes within 350 feet of this site (it's rural...duh) so they felt that they didn't need to contact any adjoining landowners EXCEPT the White Pines Development (600 feet away!) as they bought their lots (for their very expensive homes with a view) before this tower was planned. Well, what about the folks next door who bought their homes years before this tower was planned????? Weird huh? Seems like in this town if you're rich and plan to build a fancy home with a view you might get a voice at the table. I think that might explain why no one in the neighborhood objected!

After receiving the warning letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, do you still think your decision was not flawed?

I sent all Councilors an email, prior to the vote, asking that you read the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Guidelines for Siting Towers. It was sent to the Council on 11/3/09 and you replied to me on 11/11/09 after the vote. Just reading your response to that email leads me to believe that you probably didn’t read the entire email or take my objection seriously. It seems to me that the Councilors who voted yes never heard the alarm bell I was ringing! I’d say it was a flawed decision because the Council chose to disregard, ignore, or not pay attention to a valid issue that was raised by someone in the neighborhood. Why didn't any of the Council bring up my concern in the meeting? Why were there NO questions to the Representative from AT&T regarding the (now verified) FACT that this is a major migration path? Why didn’t any of the Council question AT&T about the USFWS Guidelines? Why wasn’t this item tabled until we could verify that it would not be sited in a migration path? It went onto the agenda late on a Friday after being pulled several weeks prior. Jeff Cox stated “Obviously by filing something on Friday, it increases the chances that the council will have questions and may table the resolution at the council meeting.” But no, this item sailed through. I find that a big flaw, that Councilors are given information that should be taken seriously, blow it off, and continue to ignore what may become a major embarrassment and quite possibly a legal issue with Fish and Wildlife.

Not flawed? The AT&T Representative provided this statement: “The objective of this site is to improve coverage at the junction of Hwy 61 and the scenic bypass.” Go to AT&T’s website and type in 78th avenue east and Superior street. You will see that AT&T advertises good coverage in this area. Who is not being told the truth? Are they lying to the City or their customer?

Not flawed? Do you really believe that they gave compelling evidence that emergency calls are going over to Wisconsin? Read the information they gave a second time. You’ll see the flaws. I am not an expert on cell communications, but it is my understanding that a signal goes to the nearest tower. There are three towers, Moose Mountain, 47th avenue east, and Knife River; that are quite a bit closer. The letters provided by the AT&T Representative as testimony are obviously form letters, and if anyone on the Council would PLEASE go back and read them carefully, you will see that they do not address this specific problem. They speak generally about calls from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Lake County. They DO NOT address calls from this area! I’m wondering how many other City Councils will get the exact same letters as justification for more towers in other areas.

Not flawed? The planning commission could not agree to approve this tower, they actually HAD a discussion about Migration. But, the answers to their questions came from the AT&T Representative, who, according to the minutes, named the wrong regulatory agency (DNR), and practically quoted one of the USFSWS guidelines dealing with tower lights and guy wires, which tells me he had knowledge of them. But conveniently, he never addressed the guideline that states: TOWERS SHOULD NOT BE PLACED IN KNOWN MIGRATORY FLYWAYS.

Not flawed? The Environmental Advisory Committee never reviewed this proposal because it was taken off the agenda and then put back on before they had another meeting. But the majority of the Council voted to approve it, seemingly basing their decision on information provided by the AT&T Representative, who stands to make quite a bit of money in the end. I know what AT&T’s motivation is for ignoring USFWS Guidelines. I cannot fathom why the Council and the City continues to ignore this issue.

Not flawed? There was not a lot of convincing or compelling evidence given as to the need for this tower. There were people trotted in to give “technical” information that most councilors could not be expected to understand. A decision is flawed when it is based on information that you cannot understand and debate with knowledge.

Not flawed? If the council had expertise in Communication tower siting they would’ve known that it is always prudent to bring in a 3rd party, at the cell company expense, to evaluate need. And they would’ve been aware of the Federal Government’s Guidelines. I’m sorry, but a decision based on inaccurate, possibly misleading, and incomplete information is flawed.

As long as there is no building permit (and I have verified that there is not) we should do everything to stop this from becoming an embarrassment and a legal problem for the City. I know I am, is anyone at the City willing to?

Something Stinks in the Planning Department Notification Process

2009-12-29T20:39:00.000-08:00

I've gotten a couple interesting phone calls due to the story. One from a neighbor very close to where this tower will go. He was mad that he was not informed. When I went back and read the planning commission notes where they talk about who was informed, I found that NO ONE except the developer from White Pines, Eastridge Development (26 high end building sites across the freeway 600 feet from the tower site) was informed. The justification was that there are no homes within 350 feet of this site, (it's rural...duh) so they felt that they didn't need to contact any adjoining landowners EXCEPT the White Pines Development (600 feet away!) Planning felt that they would be affected as they bought their lots before this tower was planned. Well...what about the folks next door who bought their homes years before this tower was planned? Seems like in this town if you're rich and plan to build a fancy home with a lake view you might get a voice at the table. I'm not sure where to go with this, but it really tics me off. I live in this neighborhood too, and there's probably less than 20 homes between me and this tower. But does the City Council listen? Maybe they should, now that I have the Feds after them!

I also got a call from a man in Colorado who's Aunt sent him the story. He does activism for the birds also. It was nice to have someone call and say he's supporting the effort. Keeps me going!

Front Page News!

2009-12-29T20:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the tower battle hit the front page of the Duluth News Tribune!

Published December 28 2009

Wildlife officials say planned cell phone tower is danger to birds

By: Peter Passi, Duluth News Tribune

Citing concern for migrating birds, representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have weighed in against a recent decision by the Duluth City Council to allow for the construction of a new cell phone tower on the lower side of Highway 61 off 78th Avenue East. But animal advocates may be too late to the dance.

A letter sent last week said the service “is concerned that the construction ... represents a hazard to migratory birds in the well-documented coastal flyway along the Lake Superior shoreline.”

Fish and Wildlife normally wouldn’t get involved in a tower under 200 feet tall, said Bob Russell, a biologist working for the service’s migratory bird program.

“But there can be issues even with shorter structures where there are large concentrations of birds, especially in bad weather,” he said.

AT&T plans to erect a 180-foot tower about 150 feet east of the Minnesota Highway 61 expressway and about 1,800 feet inland from Congdon Boulevard.

Russell pointed out that more than 25,000 birds per day have been sighted flying over the nearby Lakewood pumping station during the fall migration and noted that count doesn’t include millions of birds that fly through the area at night. Most of the birds that migrate by dark fly at heights of 500 to 3,000 feet, making a collision with the tower unlikely, but Russell said strong headwinds and poor weather can cause the birds to fly at lower altitudes that could put them on a collision course with the proposed tower.

Raptors and other birds that migrate by day should be able to avoid the tower, as long as they can see it; but Russell said foggy and low-light conditions could put these birds at risk, too.

He referred to the western shoreline of Lake Superior as probably the largest migratory flyway for birds in all the upper Midwest.

“Normally, people don’t put these towers in such egregious places,” Russell said.

Nick Rowse, another biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency would prefer to see the tower sited more than a mile away from Lake Superior to avoid the shore and a neighboring ridge that’s also a common migratory route for many hawks.

“We would recommend the tower not be constructed as proposed,” Rowse said, but he acknowledged the Fish and Wildlife Service lacks jurisdiction to block the project.

Even if Duluth city councilors wanted to revisit the issue of the proposed cell tower’s siting, they may have little ability to change course at this time.

The City Council approved a conditional use permit for the cell tower on Nov. 9, and City Attorney Gunnar Johnson said a motion to reconsider the matter would have had to come forward at the council’s next meeting, Nov. 19. The council has since met three more times, likely closing the door on the issue.

“It would be difficult at this time for the city to undo this action,” said Johnson.

AT&T spokesman Tom Hopkins could not be reached for comment before the Christmas holiday to see if the company would reconsider its plans.

In the event that the tower is built nevertheless, Fish and Wildlife requests that the city require AT&T to conduct post-construction surveys for a minimum of one year, watching for evidence of bird mortalities, particularly during the spring and fall migrations and following periods of fog or foul weather.

Russell said if significant bird deaths are documented, it could trigger an enforcement action, as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits the killing of migratory birds except when specifically authorized by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Some species of birds are afforded additional protections under the Endangered Species Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Kelly Boedigheimer, who lives in the 7100 block of E. Superior St., has been concerned about the danger the tower could pose to migrating birds since she heard of the project and repeatedly shared her concerns with city councilors, though with little success.

“I’ve been exceedingly disappointed by their lack of response,” she said.

Only councilors Jay Fosle and Todd Fedora voted against a resolution granting a special use permit for the proposed tower.

Watching birds migrate through the area has been one of the highlights of living up the shore in Duluth for Boedigheimer, who said she looks forward to observing the fall and spring movements of birds with her daughter, a fourth grader. Boedigheimer brought her concerns to Bob Russell and the Fish and Wildlife Service and enlisted his support for stopping the structure.

“I’m doing it for my daughter because it’s the right thing to do,” she said.

Here is the link to the letter sent to the City by the US Fish and Wildlife Service at Reporter Brandon Stahl's Buzz Blog

http://www.areavoices.com/buzz/

You'll have to scroll down to find the headline: Proposed Cell Tower Concerns Feds

I wonder if the City and AT&T will continue with this now that they have been put on notice?

Will the Duluth News Tribune Listen?

2009-12-25T11:32:00.000-08:00

I had a conversation with a reporter about my tower battle. He saw my email exchanges with City Councilors and wanted to know more about the issue. Our city has approved at least a half dozen towers recently. My battle has expanded from just talking about bird kills at towers. I am asking my City to create a plan to deal with the pressure from the communication industry for more towers in our area. If we're going to have to have them, at least we can plan for them. Decide where we will allow them, and create an ordinance that requires cell companies to pay a third party to prove they need the tower in the first place! There are also ways that Duluth should be getting revenue from the towers.

I'm learning that the communications industry is not exactly honest when selling a tower to a community, surprised? Not me! I've learned that a single cell site will generate an average income of $800,000 per year. And many cell sites are multiples. BIG business! We should be getting something back for our City, and listening to citizens when there are objections, rather than rolling over like dupes when a Cell salesman uses trumped up reasons to sell his wares.

Go to AT&T and search for coverage at 25 N. 78th avenue east Duluth MN 55804 where this tower will be sited,
or use this link:

http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/#?type=voice&lat=46.85994780861816&lon=-91.97361017956271&sci=11

You will find that they are advertising that there is good coverage in this entire area. If this is the case, why did they tell our City Council that this is an area of poor or no coverage? Who are they being dishonest to? The customer? The City? We should have required that they pay for a third party assessment of need. But no...we forged on and voted yes. And in defiance of the migratory bird treaty, I find this quote from a Fish and Wildlife manuscript published in 2000 very relevant to the argument of finding a balance:
"The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-104), in fact, mandates that all television stations be digitized by no later than 2003. By some estimates, this mandate could result in the addition of 1,000 new, 1,000-plus-foot "mega-towers" across the landscape in the United States. However, the MBTA of 1918, as amended -- our "marching orders" for DMBM -- is a strict liability law. The Act does not allow the killing or taking of migratory birds, except by permit, and the Service does not issue incidental take permits. Thus, the incidental killing of even one bird is legally considered a taking under MBTA and is technically a violation of the law. Concerning their mandates, the Telecommunications Act and MBTA may, thus, be directly at odds. Taking these issues into consideration, the Service recommends that communication companies do whatever they can to prevent needless bird deaths."
Shame on the salesman, for ignoring or not understanding the guideline that says that we should NOT site towers in known migration paths. He has some knowledge of the guidelines, he loosely quoted them to our planning commission, but left out the part about migration paths. Convenient huh?

Will the Council Listen to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?

2009-12-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

December 7, 2009.
I received two encouraging phone calls today. The first was from Bob Russell of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He called me to say that I should keep up the pressure as he has received some phone calls from Duluthians looking for confirmation of the information I have been publishing. Just today, he received a phone call from Councilor Tony Cuneo. Kudos to Councilor Cuneo for taking the initiative to look up the person I have been quoting and actually make a call! Bob says he explained to Tony the USFW reasons that this site is NOT a good choice. He explained that Eagles and Golden Eagles are highly protected by USFW and that this area is a known flyway for those species. If we have a foggy day with low ceilings, raptors could fall prey to this tower. He also explained during bird counts at the Pumping Station (almost within eyesight of this tower site) 250,00 birds were counted in one migration season. Counts are done during daytime, but most birds migrate at night to avoid the raptors who fly during the day. So you could actually estimate that millions of birds fly through the area at night. I'm sure he gave Tony compelling testimony as to why they do not want to see this tower go in that spot.

I asked Bob, "If this tower is built, and I walk down there and find dead birds, should I photograph them and send them to Fish and Wildlife?" He said yes, Fish and Wildlife will prosecute if there are kills at this tower.

My second call was from my new friend Claire, who contacted me after reading my letter to the editor. She likes to call people and volunteered to call anyone that I could direct her to. She called USFWS this weekend and again today, and really put pressure on them to get the letter to the City from US Fish and Wildlife, warning the city that there are laws that protect migrating birds, and putting a tower in that area would put the city at risk if there are documented kills.

She called me late today to say that the representative from the Ecology division of USFW is drafting a letter with the US Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement warning and it should be received by the City this week!

So, I'm wondering what the city will do now? They will have been duly warned that Fish and Wildlife takes it's role as steward of our natural resources seriously, and is willing to prosecute if there are kills at this tower, and that it should not be sited in this migration path.

This is the Federal Government telling the City that this is a bad idea!

I'm hoping that at least one councilor will put this back on the agenda asap, and that councilors who voted for it will wake up and heed the warning.

Duluth City Councilor "Comfortable" with Approving Tower in Migration Path

2009-12-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

This another attempt to convince the City Council to change their vote. I sent this on December 3, 2009, thinking that I'd done a pretty good job with the research.

I will not stop even if they build it. I will document kills and send documentation to Fish and Wildlife, who has said they do prosecute. Oh the stupidity. Is a cell phone really worth placing a tower into such a significant flyway?

Dear Coucilors,

I am contacting you on the issue of the communication tower to be built at 78th Avenue East and Superior Street. I am disappointed that the City of Duluth representatives who voted for this may seem to have viewed our annual bird migration as a non-issue. I am begging you to read my entire email, I feel that the letter I sent to the Council on November 3rd was either ignored or forgotten by the time the tower was put back on the agenda on a Friday, November 6th. Perhaps if migration had been taken seriously, some of these issues would have been addressed at the meeting.

This tower is slated to be built in the corridor that is a part of Hawk Ridge. Would the City approve a tower at Hawk Ridge? I would guess that there would be a LOT of discussion about migration in that case. But, what people are not realizing, is that this site is THE CONCENTRATED PATH THAT THE MIGRATING BIRDS FLY ON THE WAY TO HAWK RIDGE BLUFF! The birds move along the shore, and catch the thermals up the hillside toward Hawk Ridge.

This has been documented during the last three years during the Hawk Ridge annual count. The numbers of birds documented to have passed through this area are staggering. In 2007 Karl Brandon did a count of non-raptors (songbirds etc.) at the Lakewood Pumping Station, he determined that "the Lakewood site is considered to be better than Hawk Ridge for documenting the migration of non-raptors along the North Shore." and "the bulk of non-raptor movement was often along the lakeshore a mile from the overlook at Hawk Ridge and probably directly over "Lakewood" (He refers to the Lakewood Pumping Station as "Lakewood" throughout the report)

He and his helpers counted 76,213 non-raptors from August 22 to November 30, 2007 over the Lakewood Pumping Station. For those of you who have not been in my neighborhood, you can practically see the pumping station from the place this tower will be built.

This year Hawk Ridge did a count of non-raptors and tallied 164,991 birds in 75 days. That's just during daylight. Many of the songbirds migrate at night and are not included in this count. That's an average of 2199 birds a day. Three days had spectacular totals, on August 20 they counted 13,180 non-raptors, October 19th saw 14,103 and October 31 tallied 15,873!
When counters work, they use binoculars and scopes, and look out over the ridge towards the lake; the birds are coming directly along the shoreline, over the Lakewood Pumping Station. I have witnessed these migrations for the 14 years that we have lived on 71st Avenue East. I contacted local bird expert Laura Erickson, she said she has not doubt there will be some kills at this tower, merely because of its location. I have a very good friend who tells me that in October there are dead birds littering the ground under the Moose Mountain tower. That tower is only 100 feet tall and is not lighted. It is in this migration path and forebodes the possibility that if you put a tower even closer to the lake, we will see collisions by virtue of the proximity in the migration path and the fact that most songbirds migrate at night.

Literally thousands of birds pass over that area every day in the fall, many are rare and decreasing in numbers. Hawk Ridge documented 102 non-raptor species (songbirds etc) in their counts. Of those 102 there is at least one, the Golden Winged Warbler rated near threatened. The Bay Breasted Warbler, Blue Winged Warbler, Canada Warbler, Rusty Blackbird, and Wood Thrush are all listed as vulnerable, and were counted this year. Also sighted are the Boreal Chickadee, Evening Grosbeak, and Snow Bunting, all are on the top 20 list of birds with the greatest decline since 1967.

I contacted Bob Russell, from the Saint Paul Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and was told that this area is an inappropriate site for a cell tower. He states that this site is "obviously in an area of MAJOR bird migration." and "The most important flyway on the Western Great Lakes."

He encouraged me to fight this. This is an excerpt from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service memo regarding communication towers:

United States Department of Interior
Fish and Wildlife Service
Washington, DC 20240

September 14, 2000

To: Regional Directors
From: Director /s/ Jamie Rappaport Clark
Subject: Service Guidance on the Siting, Construction, Operation and Decommissioning of Communications Towers

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. 703-712) prohibits the taking, killing, possession, transportation, and importation of migratory birds, their eggs, parts, and nests, except when specifically authorized by the Department of the Interior. While the Act has no provision for allowing unauthorized take, it must be recognized that some birds may be killed at structures such as communications towers even if all reasonable measures to avoid it are implemented. The Service's Division of Law Enforcement carries out its mission to protect migratory birds not only through investigations and enforcement, but also through fostering relationships with individuals and industries that proactively seek to eliminate their impacts on migratory birds. While it is not possible under the Act to absolve individuals or companies from liability if they follow these recommended guidelines, the Division of Law Enforcement and Department of Justice have used enforcement and prosecutorial discretion in the past regarding individuals or companies who have made good faith efforts to avoid the take of migratory birds.

(Emphasis added by me)
The memo is a lead in to the Guidelines that the Fish and Wildlife Service developed for the siting of communication towers.

The entire memo and guidelines can be read at: http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/CurrentBirdIssues/Hazards/towers/comtow.html

Has the City of Duluth and AT&T made good faith efforts to avoid the take of migratory birds? What will happen when someone calls Fish and Wildlife to report kills at this tower?

This is the from the Fish and Wildlife's guidelines for siting Communication Towers:

4. If at all possible, new towers should be sited within existing "antenna farms" (clusters of towers). Towers should not be sited in or near wetlands, other known bird concentration areas (e.g., state or Federal refuges, staging areas, rookeries), in known migratory or daily movement flyways, or in habitat of threatened or endangered species. Towers should not be sited in areas with a high incidence of fog, mist, and low ceilings.

The question of migration was brought up by the Planning Commission, in the October 13, 2009 Planning Commission minutes: "Vigen asked if there are any special environmental issues like migratory birds. Begley (AT&T representative) said the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) says to stay away from strobe lights and guy towers. Reports show no endangerment to endangered species or fauna.

Please note that there was no real answer to migration specifically and no reference to the published guideline that clearly states that towers SHOULD NOT BE SITED in or near wetlands, other known bird concentration areas (e.g., state or Federal refuges, staging areas, rookeries), IN KNOWN MIGRATORY OR DAILY MOVEMENT FLYWAYS, or in habitat of threatened or endangered species. Towers should not be sited in areas with a high incidence of fog, mist, and low ceilings.

So, conveniently the question of migration was dismissed with one of the other guidelines which, to their credit, AT&T has met:

"If collocation is not feasible and a new tower or towers are to be constructed, communications service providers should be strongly encouraged to construct towers no more than 199 feet above ground level (AGL), using construction techniques which do not require guy wires (e.g., use a lattice structure, monopole, etc.). Such towers should be unlighted if Federal Aviation Administration regulations permit."

If someone from Planning or from the City had contacted Fish and Wildlife themselves, they might have chosen a different path. This is a unique area, and should be considered a major migratory path. A lower tower and possibly no lights are just one of the suggestions made by Fish and Wildlife. Accepting the answer from a salesman seems short sighted to me. This proposal never even went to the environmental advisory committee. Documentation in their minutes shows that they took it off their agenda when AT&T pulled the proposal the first time.

On the issue of lighting this tower, the FAA has final authority, and has not made a determination yet on whether this tower will be lighted. Some towers near major highways are required to be lighted. This tower will be very close to highway 61. Mr. Russell at Fish and Wildlife strongly suggested that this tower might end up having to be lighted. Won't the folks at Eastridge development enjoy a white strobe light just out their beautiful picture windows?

Why do I care so much?

Birds are just as important as bees, if we don't have birds to pollinate, spread seeds, eat weeds, bugs, and vermin, life on earth will become quite grim for our children and children's children. In fact, entire ecosystems will fail.

There are 51.3 million birders in the U.S. alone and the number is constantly climbing. Birding watching has exploded into the No. 1 sport in North America, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Those birders expect a community to be responsible for the treasure we have been provided. How will we be regarded when someone begins to document the kills from this tower? It's disgusting to me, that we tout ourselves as a place to come and watch birds. Go to "Visit Duluth", where we advertise the Hawk Ridge migration. Are we too stupid to stop a tower placed in the most significant migration path in the Western Great Lakes? We are not paying attention to the fact that the southern shoreline of Lake Superior has one of the highest densities of low-altitude bird migration in fall anywhere in North America. But we will use the birds to sell hotel rooms to tourists.

Someone needs to ask hard questions about the justification for this tower. Are "the bars" really this important? Is this the only site available? Does the tower have to be 185 feet tall? How many 911 calls are sent over to Wisconsin, and where is the documentation?
I notice that the objective stated by AT&T says, "In some areas you could actually initiate a call on a site that is located in Wisconsin. This could be a 911 call routing problem. If there were an emergency call placed in these areas." (Emphasis added.) Does this mean that it has not actually happened? Is this really mostly about providing 3G network? Is a cell phone or internet service really worth the sacrifice? Shouldn't we wait for a determination from the FAA that this tower will not actually be lighted? Is this tower really going to only provide clear service to a 2.5 mile area? I've owned a home in this area for 32 years, my cheap tracphone works just great from my home and all along this area.

Please, don't let this be another embarrassment to Duluth. The City Clerk has said that anyone from the Council or Administration can ask that another number be assigned to this issue and that it be put back on the agenda at any time in the future. Please get it on the agenda now.

This is one reply I received today:

Thank you for your e-mail. I am comfortable with the council's decision and will not be advocating for a reconsideration.

Respectfully,

Jeff

Jeff Anderson
Duluth City Councilor
P.O. Box 385
Duluth, MN 55801
218.590.5970 Phone

And my reply to him:

Councilor Anderson

Pardon me for saying this, but when you are given the authority to make a decision for the community you should be open to reconsidering issues when it is possible that your decision was flawed. You are rubber stamping towers in our community without holding the companies accountable to prove, using an outside resource at the communication company's expense, that a tower is necessary in a particular spot, or that a tower needs to be the height they are requesting, or that they actually even need the tower.

I'm glad you feel comfortable with your willful disregard of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Guidelines for Siting Towers, that they "should not be sited in known migratory or daily movement flyways"

And I am glad that you are comfortable with your decision to approve this tower in defiance of the Migratory Bird Act.

I get it.

And I'm sure the U.S. Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service will be happy to overlook that, since AT&T and decision makers for my City took such pains to avoid doing so. Not.

Enjoy your cell phone, after all...."it's all about the bars!"

Kelly

His arrogant (in my opinion) reply....


Attachments:

Thank you for your e-mail. Yes, I am still comfortable with my decision.

Respectfully,

Jeff

My Fight with City Hall

2009-12-25T11:22:00.000-08:00

I am very disappointed with our city council.

Yesterday most of them voted to approve a 180 foot cell phone tower directly in a major bird migration path. Only Jay Fosle and Todd Fedora voted no.

Councilors cannot say that they were not informed of a potential problem with this site. I sent them this email last week:

Dear City Councilors,

It has come to my attention that the proposed 180 foot cell phone monopole for 78th avenue East and Superior Street will be back on the agenda soon. In light of this news I would like to voice my concern about possible problems with migrating hawks and songbirds. Potential bird kills from Cell towers is an important issue, with research supported by many government and private groups,

“Using numbers from several long-term studies, conservation groups and government biologists estimate that communications towers kill from 4 to 50 million birds a year. They endanger or threaten at least 50 species.” Quoted from

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/ToweringTroubles.html

As you are all aware, Duluth has a unique geography which contributes to our spectacular migration each fall and spring. Raptors and songbirds follow the shoreline to Duluth, avoiding the long dangerous trip across Lake Superior where there is no food and no opportunity to rest on land. I live on East Superior Street and enjoy watching thousands of birds migrate in spring and fall. Every morning while my daughter and I wait for the bus we watch flocks of birds flying directly over the area between Superior Street and Highway 61. The birds fly quite low sometimes, this spring we watched the migration of hundreds of nighthawks that were approximately 30-50 feet above our heads. My concern is that we will be placing a tower directly in a migration path. I have contacted the US Fish and Wildlife Service with a specific request for information on this site’s suitability for a cell tower. I will pass on any information that I receive from the Fish and Wildlife Service. There is further information on this issue at their website http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/CurrentBirdIssues/Hazards/towers/towers.htm

At the least we should make sure that this tower does not have guy wires or any type of beacon or up lighting. At 180 feet it is under the guideline, this is good news. It is unfortunate that this tower is planned in an area where it will be the only tall structure. Please read the following guidelines for placement of new cell towers which is from the Fish and Wildlife Service website. My goal is to provide you with information to help you make your decision on this tower. If we must place it at 78th Avenue East, please make sure that it fits the guidelines established by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/CurrentBirdIssues/Hazards/towers/towers.htm

I included in the email, the US Fish and Wildlife Guidelines for Cell Towers which clearly state that local governments should take all measures possible to place cell towers away from migration paths. I warned them that I had already contacted Fish and Wildlife for confirmation that this is a migration path, and that they should take this into consideration when making their decision. I received a phone message today, from an agent at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that this site is indeed, a major migration path.

I'm guessing the council wrote my concerns off as another eco-nut. Not one councilor mentioned this as a potential issue.

I'm not done talking to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They don't seem to be disregarding my concerns, and they seemed quite willing to help.

How is the City of Duluth going to look when it gets out that we are okay with placing a cell tower where we will likely see hawks, eagles and all manner of migrating birds killed because we were listening to an AT&T salesmen selling to us with the phrase, "It's all about the bars!" People don't like dropped calls! People want to be able to take pictures while they're running the marathon! Do you think that all those folks who come here to watch the Hawk Migration will understand and appreciate the 3G service in this 2 mile area?

I understand that people want their cell phones, and that we need coverage for 911 cell phone calls in emergencies, but are we really not able to slow down and look for a more appropriate spot?

If the tower is built I will be inclined to document the bird kills and find some way to get that information out. Is it really "progress" for our community when we sacrifice so much to make a phone call?

Looking Back on the Season

2009-12-25T11:21:00.000-08:00

Each year we try some new gardening methods and plant varieties in our vegetable garden. One of the methods we are using is the “no-till” method. Normally we would hire a friend to come out and till our soil. At the same time we would amend the soil with organic turkey fertilizer. There is a cost to tilling, and the turkey fertilizer was not cheap either. Repeated tilling will eventually cause soil compaction. It also disturbs the beneficial critters in the soil that help break down organic matter into even better soil. We decided that our gardens are not so huge that we couldn’t aerate the soil by hand. We are fortunate to have a friend who is a welder, and he was able to build us broad forks in trade for some artwork. The broad fork looks like a stout potato fork with two handles. You simply push the broad fork into the soil (I have to stand on it sometimes) and pull it back with both handles to loosen the soil. By loosening the soil, rather than tilling we maintain the biological structure of the soil and help build a better environment for the beneficial critters like worms and microbes. Broad forking is great exercise and requires no gas or machine maintenance.

The drawback of no-till is that you can get a lot of weeds.

I tried not weeding. Really, I didn’t weed…much. What I did do, was plant buckwheat as a cover crop. Buckwheat is fantastic. It grows very quickly and is very easy to pull up. I planted it in between the rows and around the edges of the garden. It quickly takes over where weeds would’ve filled in. When it just started to blossom I’d let the bees at it for a couple days and then pull it up and drop it around my plants for mulch. Buckwheat has a hollow tubular stem and breaks down very quickly as compost, adding nutrients to your soil. I also use a fair amount of straw as mulch. I always mulch my tomatoes, and strawberries. In the past I’d spread straw around most of the other plants in my garden, but this year I let the buckwheat do the trick. I thought I was pretty smart with this Buckwheat method, and for the most part it worked well. But we also applied a four inch layer of well seasoned manure. It produced a lot new weeds! I’m glad we added the manure, because I think it really helped our yield. But we had a lot of Clover, Creeping Charlie, Lambs Quarter, and Purslane. I know that some folks eat Purslane and Lambs Quarter; I just haven’t acquired a taste for it…yet. I don’t mind pulling some of these weeds, but Clover and Creeping Charlie are very difficult to pull. Next year I’m going to try much heavier layers of mulch. Some folks layer their mulch like lasagna. I think I’ll try shredding newspaper and white paper, layer it around where I’ve planted, soak it well, top it with a layer of compost, and finally add a layer of straw. I’ll plant the buckwheat in between the rows and all around the garden. I think I’m just going to relax and learn to work with the weeds, they don’t seem to inhibit our yield, we have never had so many peas. We had huge cabbages, zucchini coming out of our ears, and more cucumbers than we could keep up with (thus the 40 jars of pickles in the basement) All in all, this year was a garden success, but there’s always something new to try.

Growing Fruit in Zone 3

2009-12-25T11:18:00.000-08:00

This year we added some new fruits to our garden. I planted red and black currents from bare root plants. I don’t think I’ll see fruit on those for a couple of years. In the future I might spend a bit more for fully mature plants, as you will see fruit in less time. Currants are considered the easiest fruit for a novice to grow. I like that, something I can stick in the ground without a lot of fuss. Currents are highly nutritious and will make nice juice for jelly. We also added blueberries. We amended the soil with peat moss for acidity, and some sand for drainage. We mulched with pine bark, also very acidic. Blueberries need some fussing. You have to have good acidic soil with good drainage. We did get a few berries, nothing to crow about yet, but hopefully in a year or two we will be able to add preserved blueberries to our pantry.

We expanded our strawberry patch to include June bearing strawberries. These require that you train the plants into alternating rows. Each year you discard the plants that bore fruit and keep the new plants that you trained to grow off to one side. I don’t think we have our bed configured properly for this purpose. We are going to have to move the new plants to another bed in the spring. I notice a distinct difference between June bearing and Everbearing Strawberries. The June bearing strawberries have a lot more flavor, but they are small and very delicate. Also, as their name indicates, they bear fruit in only in early summer. The Everbearing variety produce very large strawberries, much like the “store bought” type. They are not as sweet, but the make dynamite jam and preserves, and they produce a LOT of fruit. We picked at least a pint a day for much of the summer, and in mid-summer I picked two pints on most days, I was still picking strawberries into October. I have 50 Everbearing plants, and from those we canned 50 jars of strawberry jam and preserves, froze 9 quarts of whole berries and ate strawberries almost daily. I do fuss over my strawberries. I make sure that the bed is weed free and mulched. We top dressed the plants with fertilizer in the spring and sprinkled a handful of manure around each plant in July. The plants really responded to the manure. I also make sure that I clip all of the new baby “sucker” plants as they emerge. You must clip all of the suckers in order to let the plant put energy into making fruit. Everbearing strawberry plants last about 3-4 years before they begin to slow down in yield. You then replace them with new plants. I’m also a big advocate of regular watering. I take note of when it rains and when it’s dry. I make sure that my garden gets an inch of water each week, and it is best if it’s from rain.

My husband is very handy, and built a frame for berry netting. It’s simply cheap pvc pipe configured like a cube over the garden. We hung netting on top and around the sides, leaving a space for us to enter. The birds, deer, chipmunks, and squirrels have been kept out so far! Deer will eat the plants right down to the dirt. They took quite a few of my Junebearing plants because we didn’t have them covered.

All the work is really worth it, we opened a jar of strawberry marmalade this morning...heaven on a waffle!

Deer Deer Deer

2009-12-25T11:15:00.000-08:00

Deer…dear deer, at least I used to think so. This year the deer were not nice to us. They pillaged our gardens on a daily basis. They became a nuisance early on, ignoring our shouts and chomping away on those lovely zucchini blossoms. This was the first year that we tried eating zucchini blossoms. I baked them into a frittata and they were delicious! I had planned on trying some stuffed with cheese, battered and fried. The deer decided that they should have them instead.

I do like watching deer. Fifteen years ago when we moved into this house, we set out food so we could watch them. I guess that so many years of living in Saint Paul and not seeing much wildlife got the best of our common sense. The deer became quite tame, coming in for apples and carrots, showing off their babies. What fun it is to watch fawns play and cavort out in your yard! We’d watch them racing around and around the house…what a hoot!

When we started vegetable gardening I always planted more than we needed. I’d say to the deer, “You can have some, but don’t take it all.” There were days that I’d be four feet from a buck, he’d be contentedly nibbling around the edge of my garden, but he’d never venture into the middle, even when I was watching from the house. This went on for well over ten years. The deer would stay out of the middle of my garden and eat around the edges. Everyone was happy. I do use “Liquid Fence” quite liberally as insurance. I got into the habit of putting bamboo stakes down either side of my rows of beans, and suspending netting over the top. The deer weren’t able to control the temptation of green beans, so I learned to protect them. I also use predator tape, which is a mylar ribbon that you attach to poles and place around the garden. It works well in the spring but the deer seem to get used to it.

This year we had several does that would trounce right into the middle of the garden like it was planted for them. They ripped down deer netting, crashed through fencing and basically just ate anything they could reach. We lost a lot of squash, they ate whole squash! Not just little bites. Then they ate the leaves off of everything except the potatoes and cucumbers. They ate zucchinis and squash blossoms, pumpkins, beans, beet greens, carrot greens, lettuce, broccoli, beans, strawberries, strawberry plants, and peas. They took bites out of a lot of tomatoes, ruining them in the process.

I think I’m paying for all my years of gloating. People would ask me, “Do you have a deer fence?” I’d reply, “No, I plant enough for the deer too. They never take too much, we coexist.” Now I’m asking myself, “Bigger garden or beefier fences?” I have resorted to a slingshot and small pebbles. But that doesn’t help when I’m not at home. I’ve also said to the deer, “Keep eating! I’ll get my veggies from you in the fall!” Only problem is that we are in the city limits, and I can’t shoot ‘em. So, we are researching an electric fence. I’m tired of sharing, and they aren’t giving enough back.

Summer in a Canning jar

2009-12-25T11:14:00.000-08:00

We have two very large vegetable gardens, two strawberry patches, raspberries, currants, blueberries, and rhubarb. Because of this, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen canning in late summer. It's very rewarding to go down into the root cellar and see shelves full of jars. To me those jars are summer. Each and every one is precious, I love opening them throughout the winter and tasting how wonderfully good home made preserves, veggies and pickles can be.

This year we made a lot of pickles, hot pickles, sweet pickles, curried pickles, bread and butter pickles, and pickled green beans. We're famous among our friends at parties for those green beans!

We just finished a batch of german red cabbage. We made this last year and when I tried some right out of the jar, I didn't like it. Then just last week I took out a jar and heated it...wow! It was better than any red cabbage I'd had in a restaurant. So, that solved the problem of "what do we do with all the red cabbages in the garden?"

We had trouble with tomatoes. They didn't ripen. So they're in boxes and ripening slowly. Every few days I get enough to make a few cups of sauced tomatoes for the freezer or a batch of salsa. If you grow tomatoes and do not have a Back to Basics Food Strainer and Sauce Maker...get one! I got mine at Ace Hardware. It looks like an old fashioned meat grinder with a big bowl on top. you wash the tomatoes, cut them in large chunks and grind them. The seed, skin, and core come out one end and you have nice tomato pulp out the other end. Gone are the days of me blanching tomatoes, dropping them into ice water, peeling, coring and seeding. Ugh! It is a nice quick way to process tomatoes for salsa.

We also bought a Mehu Maija steamer on Ebay. They are available at Amazon and Ebay, but I haven't ever found one locally. It's a Finnish invention that allows you to steam whole fruits in the top, and extract the juice via a tube at the bottom. No more cooking apples, running them through the ricer, then squeezing the pulp through a jelly bag! This baby made quick work of 5lbs of wild plums. We just put them in the top, set the top onto the pan of boiling water and let it simmer for 90 minutes. You then open the valve on the tube and fill jars with beautiful clear juice, ready to be canned or made into jelly. I'm looking forward to trying it on berries next year.

Sewing with my Daughter

2009-12-25T10:48:00.000-08:00

One day this summer I took a day off from canning and gardening to spend some time designing and sewing with my daughter. We had just received the book "Stupid Sock Creatures" in the mail, and we wanted to make some new buddies! We started out going to rummage sales in search of socks and buttons. We found a couple pairs of socks at the first rummage sale that would be just perfect for some of the projects in the book. We took some time to have lunch together, including dessert, and lots of good conversation. It was really nice to take time for Marlena and not have to say, "I'm busy right now, I've got too much to do."

In the afternoon we leafed through the book and Marlena decided on a couple creatures she'd love to make. We chose socks, and buttons for eyes, pulled out the sewing machine, and got busy! This is Red Wetty, we decided he likes to toast marshmallows on his tail, that's why he's so chubby. His tail and teeth were the hardest to sew, my machine did not like the small seam allowances I used, and it tended to pull the stretchy fabric down into the lower part of the machine, screwing up the tension. I'm learning that I have to use a bit wider seam, so that the feeder feet will move the fabric evenly. I also learned a trick from my Mom, she places waxed paper under the fabric to keep it from getting stuck in the feeder. This works well with fleece too.

The first creature we made went pretty smoothly, it was a thicker sock and was a bigger creature. He also has a neck, and this required a bit more cutting of the sock. Marlena did the final stitching up of his stuffing hole. Here's Wronky, he needs someone to cheer him up, he loves to have you make him smile. He also likes wearing sweaters, perfect for our chilly fall days. He likes sitting on top of the television, using his antennae to make sure you have a clear picture. He doesn't know we have satellite TV.

We're really enjoying these projects. It's a good way to recycle old socks and the stuffing from old pillows. I'm thinking we should include some charms or notes inside each creature...something special about them or us. This is also getting Marlena excited about sewing. It's a good way to show her how things are constructed. I'm giving her crewel embroidery needles to hand sew so that she doesn't poke her fingers (like I do) and decide that sewing is painful. Marlena says, "Let's make all of them in the book!"