The article assigns some "blame" to the BLM and the Forest Service and being I worked for the USFS for some 26 years administering special uses, which includes electronic sites, I have a persceptive to offer. These agencies administer lands which contain the largest amount of reamining wildlife habitat in the U.S. and are bound by many laws laying out their responsibilities in regard to wildlife. Wildlife habitat is being lost at an alarming rate in the U.S. and public land is becoming more and more important in providing it. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 attempts to protect the biological diversity of plant and animal life. Biological diversity may sound like a distant and unimportant concept but is similar and many times more important than economic diverstiy. Each species is like the rivets and other seemingly small parts of an airplane, when taken alone may look unimportant, but when considered in aggregate are essential to keeping the aircraft flying. Biological diversity is the very reason life exists on this planet and is more important to our daily survival than the price of oil and the stock market index.
Many species, when removed from an ecosystem, can remove key components and cause widespread inbalences which result in biological havoc. These agencies, along with the other land management agencies of the federal government were established, in some cases over 100 years ago, to make sure this does not happen. The Endangered Species Act is very frequently misrepresented, especially by large money interests, because it can at times, cause less of a profit to be made. In actual practice, using data of biological reviews under the act, less than 1% result in substantial effects to projects. Some people would like to have you believe otherwise.
Agenices are also responsible for maintaining scenic resources. Good thing too as not very many other entities are and federal public land is becoming more and more important to allow relief from the urban/suburban visual blight that is affecting us.
Both the BLM and Forest Service have rapid processes for issuing electronic site permits when applications for them are at an existing site with lots already surveyed and available. The authority to do so is delegated to a relatively low level in the agenices. Often the permit is issued in a matter of a few weeks, depending on the backlog of the personnel involved. When an application involves a new site the use establishes new roads, new power corridors, and new visual effects. The agencies must also consider that one user usually grows into many and the effects of that must also be analyzed. The delays are not because agency personnel want to cause delays or are sitting on their hands. There are so many applications and with personnel cuts being rather drastic, the backlog of applications just keeps getting larger all the time.
In my experience the delays usually result in better projects, both for the applicant and for the land. When presented with delays, applicants often get to work and find alternatives they hadn't seriously considered before. Often these solutions are cheaper and more effective than the proposal in the original application.
A statewide system to replace the NHP's low band radios has been fraught with problems, some of them through gross mismanagement by state personnel themselves. If they had gone through the process of frequency coordination and actually applied to the FCC I think they could have had a VHF trunking system nearly completed by now, which would have more interoperability away from Reno and Vegas than the new 800 MHz system will have. I think some marketing people working for the two major vendors are partially to blame for this problem now facing the NHP, as they have pushed a statewide 800 MHz system in a very low population density state where VHF high radio systems are almost the only thing used in the rural areas of the state by cities, counties, the state, and the federal government. This entire situation appears to have had a lot of "reactionary" type management, rather than proactive management. That is this is a reaction to decsions reached by the FCC denying them continued use of an illegal VHF system, one that they were depending on, which relied not only on illegally used and interference causing use of public safety frequencies but on frequencies allocated to the railroad service. That VHF system was possibly a reaction to decreasing availability of VHF low radio equipment and finding that interoperability, a relatively recent emphasis, was not probable on that band. The 800 MHz system is causing delays in the form of needing far more sites, something that should have been considered as a factor when they decided to use this band. This is a factor known by nearly everyone who understands land mobile radio. That point does not include discussion of the increased cost of contruction and long term maintenance they will experience either. The more moving parts you have the more likely the machine to break down.
Nevada is not well known for its long term planning as compared to other states and this doesn't affect just radio communications but other state functions as well. Just look at water and highway planning for example. Not that any state is doing all that great in these matters but take a look at the necessity to have 395 cross Virginia street over and over when the freeway was built north to south through Reno. Overpass/interchanges cost significantly more per foot than land and right-of-way management during the delay between acquistion and construction usually do. I suspect a lack of long term right-of-way planning and acquistion may have played a substantial role. For people familiar with Las Vegas take a look at the design and construction of the 15/95 or 515 interchange. It was used beyond its planned capacity in less than 5 years. I don't make these comments as a far away observer as I worked on the Toiyabe National Forest and the majority of the lands on the ranger district I was assigned to on that Forest were in Nevada. I interfaced with at least half a dozen agencies in Nevada.
There is cetainly a lot more "blame" to be cast on the state communications folks, the vendors, and the state legislature and the thrust of this article just diverts attention from the real causes onto what some people will incorrectly assign to a rodent species and so called 'red tape" that is protrayed or implied to be discretionary for the land management agencies. It is usually the unpublished facts that have more bearing on a situation than those that reach the media. I say this out of a lot of experience with both issues like these and the media. The Forest Service and the BLM are following the law and are also required by it to do long term planning. It seems as if the State of Nevada has had doses of doing neither in reaching the dilemma they are in.
