Jeffco seeks settlement on Lookout Mountain tower

Wider availability of digital TV for metro area at stake

Charley Able, Rocky Mountain News

Monday, January 29, 2007

GOLDEN - Jefferson County wants to broker a settlement that could provide digital television to most Denver-area viewers within 18 months.

Preliminary site work necessary for construction of a controversial television tower on Lookout Mountain began this month after Congress approved legislation that apparently allows federally licensed broadcasters to skirt local land-use authority.

Denver is the last major market in the nation without widespread digital TV coverage.

Late last year, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., pushed through a last-minute bill granting federal licensees the right to build HDTV towers and facilities without local approval.

Now the broadcasters are moving ahead and seeking dismissal of the remaining legal obstacles, said Marv Rockford, spokesman for Lake Cedar Group, a consortium of local broadcasters.

County Commissioner Kevin McCasky said he wants to ensure that the towers are consolidated, and to do that "we have to get Lake Cedar to agree because (federal) legislation pre-empts our regulatory control."

"What the county has embarked on now," he said," is trying to mediate the issues and have some type of land-use regulatory agreement with Lake Cedar."

For more than a decade the group of broadcasters sought the county's approval to build new towers on Lookout Mountain capable of handling the larger and heavier digital TV transmitters.

Finally, in 2003, former Jefferson County commissioners approved Lake Cedar's proposal. But a judge sent the case back to the county in response to a lawsuit filed by opponents.

The proposal was approved again in 2004.

But when the case once more was remanded to commissioners in 2005, the current Board of County Commissioners found the proposal presented a risk of multiple tower failure, throwing the case back to the judge.

The legal challenges came from opponents united under the umbrella group, Canyon Area Residents for the Environment, or CARE, which represents homeowners groups in the area.

Deb Carney, an attorney and spokeswoman for CARE, said the fight is not over yet. At the very least, she said, her group will oppose Lake Cedar's motion to dismiss the CARE lawsuit, which has tied up the proposal for nearly three years.

But Rockford said the Allard legislation trumps local zoning laws and CARE's court challenge.

CARE members and others living near the site say the new tower would increase what they believe is a threat to public health from radio frequency emissions.

Rockford, however, said the new tower actually will decrease the amount of radio emissions on the mountain because the directional signals will be focused away from nearby residential areas.

At least three other broadcast towers would be removed after the proposed 730-foot structure and a companion transmitter building are up.

While awaiting tower approval, some Denver broadcasters began transmitting a limited digital signal from atop a building in downtown Denver.

And at least one station already is using a low-power digital signal from an existing tower on Lookout Mountain.

The reach of the current signals, however, is too limited to satisfy federal requirements for digital, or high definition, TV.

Digital television timeline

• November 1995

An advisory panel urges the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a digital television broadcast system.

• December 1996 Federal officials approve digital television standards.

• March 1997 Broadcasters offer a plan to make digital television available to 43 percent of American households by 2000. (The deadline for full conversion to digital television was set for 2006.)

• November 1998 Forty-two U.S. television stations begin broadcasting digital television signals.

• November 1999 The original deadline for Denver broadcasters to begin transmitting full-power digital television signals.

• December 2005 The FCC postpones - to Feb. 17, 2009 - the deadline for full conversion to digital television and the cutting off of current analog signals.

The promise of digital TV

• Digital television will allow broadcasters to offer a high-quality picture comparable to movies as well as CD-quality sound and other enhanced features.

• Analog TV provides resolution of up to 480 horizontal lines.

An HDTV picture can provide resolution of up to 1080 lines, providing improved detail.

• The technology also can be used to transmit large amounts of other data into the home, which could be accessible through home computers or television sets.Source: Federal Communications Commission