I had heard somewhere that the Fed was no longer providing access to Fed property or towers for non-Fed users. It has happened here in CO (City of Estes Park taken off of USFS sites).
This particular situation could involve lands on the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest or Rocky Mountain National Park. If it involves this National Forest I can comment in detail on Forest Service wide policies, but do not know about any site specific situations that may be involved . If it involves this National Park, then National Park Service policies will come into play, as well as site specific concerns that I'm not privy to.
I've been retired from the U.S. Forest Service for nearly 10 years now so there could be policy changes I'm not aware of. I can easily look up current policy to find out if what I will say is not correct, If I'm not correct I will repost here.
Some Forest Service repeater sites are located on mountain tops on National Forest land a commercial electronic site has been approved. The best examples, due to how large and important they are, include Sandia Crest adjacent to Albuquerque, New Mexico and Mt. Wilson, which provides coverage for much of the Los Angeles basin. At these sites, lots have been plated and surveyed on the ground and the site plan approved by the Regional Forester, who is the mucky much just below the Chief of the Forest Service. These sites must also be shown in the Land and Resource Management Plan for the National Forest they are located on, often known as the "Forest Plan". Commercial and non-federal electronic uses must be at one of these approved sites.
If a potential electron site applicant determines a need for another location they first have to prove that their needs will not be met by one of the pre-existing approved electronic sites. If they do then the Forest Plan has to be modified. Since the Forest Plan included an extensive public involvement effort and is, in effect, an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), this modification, depending on its extent, may require the EIS process, or the less complex process of an Environmental Assessment.
Since state and local jurisdictions, mostly those in the western U.S., heavily depend on electronic sites located on National Forest land, they are not being asked to vacate that use. What I suspect has happened involves Forest Service sites that are not located at an approved electronic site. These Forest Service sites are typically located at fire lookout towers or remote peaks with a minimal amount of development. In some cases state and local agencies, mostly local, were issued a special use permit and allowed to place an antenna on a Forest Service tower, or on a Forest Service lookout tower, while placing the actual radio device inside a Forest Service structure. Space in an existing vault or building and the addition of some simple antennas does not add much impact to the pre-existing impacts of the site.
This situation works until one of four things happen. First, other users want this arrangement as well and the site can no longer accommodate additional users of the Forest Service structure and tower. Second, commercial users want to apply for these sites and cry foul when they are not extended similar treatment. Third, as more and more state/local users occupy the site, impacts are incrementally added and have resulted in a situation that exceeds the original intent of the site. Fourth, the Forest Service no longer needs the site for National Forest administration so they remove the building, antennas tower, or the fire lookout at the site. When this happens the state/local users can't build their own facilities because they would be located outside an approved electronic site. Often, the agencies involved don't want to go through the process of of getting the Forest Plan modified so they find a different solution to meet their needs, which can involve them moving to an approved electronic site.
There is another possibility. A large group of commercial users may have approached the Forest Service saying that the piggybacking state/local agencies at an existing Forest Service site bypasses the process for getting electronic special use permits issued. The commercial users are saying that this precludes the public from commenting and other nearby electronic site users (located at approved sites) from responding with comments relative to interference to the systems of existing FCC licensees and special use permittees. This may create a need to take actions in response on an entire National Forest or one of the nine National Forest regions.
The last possibility is that the city of Estes Park violated the terms of their special use permits and it was terminated. This is an uncommon occurrence.
Be assured that there is not a change in policy to kick non-federal users off National Forest land.
