June 24, 2020
The Maui Planning Commission approved a communications tower west of Maui that would serve as a backup in case of emergency, though it has banned the use of 5G at the site.
The county’s Department of Public Works had applied for a special use permit to upgrade the Maui Police Department’s Makila communications facility. The new facility would be used “exclusively through government agencies with the MPD as the number one user,” according to the allocation documents.
The plans call for the structure of an 85-foot-tall tower with five microwave antennas, as well as a single-story radio set structure on a 3,200-square-foot portion of a 37. 7-acre plot in Launiupoko. The site would allow the tower to be built with MPD’s existing facilities in Ulupalakua and East Molokai and with a planned installation at the Lahainaluna Water Treatment Plant above Lahainaluna High School.
“Public Safety Communications, Local Government Communications. ” He’s going to have to be protected,” said Walter Pacheco, MPD’s communications coordinator. “You want to be physically powerful enough and have enough recovery paths or choice routes to be able to hold on when everything else rarely works well. That’s what this tower is for.
Pacheco explained that the facility is not designed for the generation of 5G and is not intended to be used for that purpose. However, the task was met with opposition from witnesses (planner Jared Burkett said 57 letters of protest had arrived just before the hearing), who expressed fears that the tower would open the door to 5G.
“I’m concerned that farmland is being used for wireless radiation towers that harm plants, animals and insects, all of which are mandatory for agriculture,” said Debra Greene, who was among a dozen witnesses at the assembly who opposed the bill. I’m worried about the alteration of aesthetics. . . I’m worried about the fall in asset values.
She and others wondered why police couldn’t use fiber optics.
Pacheco explained that they use fiber optics, however, fires outside have broken appliances and caused power outages. In some cases, cables were removed from backhoes.
“It’s not a physically powerful infrastructure. It’s a physical infrastructure that’s subject to things like fires,” Pacheco said.
The point-to-point microwave generation that the facility would use “is necessarily a link between two fast locations” to move data between sites; it doesn’t go to a single device, unlike 5G, which sends information from cell towers to phones, Pacheco said. Antennas would be placed above the floor to direct power from the floor to target stations.
Pacheco added that the ministry has “no intention” of doing 5G and that advertising activities are allowed at a government-funded facility. He said the frequencies the tower would use (ranging from 6 to 18 gigahertz) are different from those of 5G itself.
“5G is not a frequency; It’s a generation that uses frequencies expressly to direct energy from the cell tower to the phone or to the user,” he explained. “So I don’t have any challenge with a limitation on the deployment of any form of 5G within the facility. . . as long as we know that frequencies are just frequencies. What we do with that is the generation called 5G.
Commissioners voted 6-0 to approve the assignment on the condition that the facility be reserved for government use only, limited to point-to-point microwave technology and not use 5G. If officials wanted to do so in the future, it would have to go back to committee for approval and further public comment.
“Although all of today’s testimony opposed this approval, I think most of the considerations were addressed very well through Mr. Pacheco,” Commissioner Kawika Freitas said, adding that while he had some considerations, he believed the assignment would gain advantages. Emergency Services.
“I’m sorry that this blocks some people’s vision, the protection of our citizens is very important,” he said.
* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews. com.
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