Work on Cedar County’s new tower site inches closer to completion

HARTINGTON – Work at the site of Cedar County’s new emergency communications tower continues to dominate discussions at the board of commissioners’ meetings.

Kevin Garvin, the county’s director of emergency management and 911 communications coordinator, provided the commissioners with a tower project update on Aug. 22.

He informed the board the roof of the support building at the new tower site – located about two miles north of Hartington – was poured on Aug. 21 and had to be allowed to sit for seven days.

After seven days, the contractor – Jody Koch Construction & Excavation Inc. of rural Hartington – and subcontractors were scheduled to come in and begin the next steps on the support building, starting with the interior and electrical work.

Garvin discussed the tower project’s tentative schedule with the commissioners.

The crew installing the antennas is set to begin work on Sept. 6, weather permitting, and take 12-14 days to complete it.

He also told the board the transfer switch for the new tower site’s generator has arrived, but the generator itself will not arrive until late September or early October.

“We discussed the invoices from the contractors and the board requested an explanation of the invoices,” Garvin said in a follow-up interview. “The board requested an explanation of the change orders in the invoices. Much of the changes were due to the fact that there were some discrepancies in the early version of the plans.”

In addition, “The board asked that I work with the contractor to identify any future change orders anticipated and obtain a cost for those changes before allowing the contractor to proceed with the work,” he said.

After work had started on the new tower site, the Federal Emergency Management Agency notified the county that the project would be approved for disaster assistance based upon the county’s application from May 2022, when a storm blew the old tower down.

“As a result, we made changes to help comply with FEMA standards,” Garvin said. “Some items we had planned on in the early drawings would not be available before the project was completed, so we had to switch a few components.”

He said the county is working on getting some additional paperwork to FEMA.

“Once the next approval is received from the state and federal agencies, we will begin the process of proving to FEMA what it cost us to achieve the scope of work they approved,” Garvin said. “At that time, they will provide the county the funding approved.”

He and the commissioners also discussed the old tower site’s liquid petroleum gas generator.

“We are having difficulty getting anyone to service it,” Garvin said. “The board decided to put it on the September consignment auction and that the (county’s) District 3 roads shop would transport it down to the auction site.”

The board directed him to contact Creamer Auctions of Hartington to make arrangements and provide information regarding the generator to be sold.

A discussion about dirt work at the new tower site led to the board agreeing that the county had enough equipment within its roads department to handle doing most of the dirt work.

Garvin and the commissioners also discussed the issue of weeds at the old tower site, which is located in a cattle pasture just north of Hartington.

“It was decided that the District 3 roads shop had a weed trimmer that may work for reducing the overgrowth of weeds so we can safely get equipment moved when the time comes,” Garvin said. “The board will assign an employee, possibly from emergency management, to use the weed trimmer at the appropriate time at that site.”

Another discussion he had with the board was about the fencing for the old and new tower sites.

“The board questioned if the old fence at the old site could be reused in any part at the new site,” Garvin said. “The contractors we have engaged thus far didn’t think so.

“We discussed at length where we should place the new fence and if we should put it on the property line or set it in from the property line to allow for upkeep,” he said.

There also was discussion on the rural water system pipes that run on the edge of the new tower site and whether the county wanted those on the inside or the outside of the fence.

“We discussed about keeping the fence just big enough so that only the tower and building were fenced in and the rest of the property was unfenced,” Garvin said.

“That led to a discussion about leaving enough room inside the fence to allow the tower crews sufficient space should they ever need to work on the tower or antennas,” he said.

The commissioners took no action after discussing the fencing for the new tower site.