Equipment on Water Tank Property:  Easy Money or a Serious Problem Getting Worse?

Let’s say you are a water engineer and you have the public trust to provide water.  This sounded like a good idea at the time:

·       Your public agency has a water tank that’s sturdy and tall – why not put a half dozen antennas up there?

·       The money is good and regular as clockwork-public agencies can always use an extra one or two thousand dollars a month.

Since the 1990s when the lease was signed, a few more antennas may have appeared on the water tank … so what?  And sometimes in the middle of the night, a generator appeared on water agency property.  “Hey,” a few busybody water engineers might ask: “was that part of our deal?”  One day someone from the agency looks up and sees workers climbing all over, taking a little bit down and putting a little more back up.  “What’s going on?  Does the lease confer a right to the carrier to enter the water agency property and modify the tenant improvements at will?” you wonder.

Times Have Changed Since September 11, 2001

After September 11, the Department of Homeland Security identified public water supplies as potential terrorist targets.  The U.S. Environmental Protection agency has required “Vulnerability Assessments,” which commonly refer to how rapidly the water agency can respond to deliberate contamination of water supplies.  Not many water agencies thought that giving wireless carriers 24/7 access to water tanks was an increase in vulnerability … but it is.

PlanWireless does not believe that the wireless industry harbors terrorists; far from it.   The wireless industry itself would remind us of how critical personal wireless services are in the event of an attack (just think of Flight UA 93, where most of the communication was by personal wireless use).  But each water agency needs to consider a few issues at some point in its self-analysis:

·       Does a wireless carrier have keys to enter the water tank property?

·       Are you aware that most carriers do not work on sites themselves?  They hire contractors or outsourced labor to enter properties and climb the tanks.

·       The wireless industry is characterized by a turnover in personnel.  The person who installed the cell site is probably a different person than the person who wants to modify it.

·       Does someone from the water agency accompany a member of the wireless industry each time there is a visit to a cell site?

·       Just because a person has a key, does that mean that he/she is authorized to access the property?

This is what PlanWireless is saying: many water agencies are not happy with the way wireless tenants are interpreting their leases.  This is happening at the same time that increased vulnerability to public water supplies must be controlled.  There are two trends: 

·       The wireless industry is interpreting the lease in order to make constant upgrades.

·       Water agencies need to ensure that access to public water supplies is properly controlled.

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Kreines & Kreines, Inc.
58 Paseo Mirasol, Tiburon, CA 94920
Phone: (415) 435-9214
Fax: (415) 435-1522
e-mail: mail@planwireless.com