By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
When radio communications go out for any period of time in Juab County, communications for officers is compromised and a communications tower in Dog Valley would eliminate that problem.
Lt. Brent Pulver, Juab Couånty Sheriff Chief Deputy, met with county commissioners and discussed the communications tower being constructed in Dog Valley. “The tower is essential to law enforcement radio communications,” said Pulver. “The State of Utah has already started construction of the tower.” Dog Valley in Juab County is eight miles west of Nephi and north of SR-132 West. It was named for the prairie dogs that were common in the area in pioneer times and is part of the Champlin Peak on the USGS map. The approximate elevation is 4,852 feet above sea level and it provides the best location for a radio tower to serve law enforcement in the east Juab area. “When the system goes down,” said Pulver, “we are at the mercy of CentraCom and CenturyLink.” CentraCom Interactive is a telecommunications company, which provides Phone Service, DSL Service, Cable TV and Cable Internet to much of central, north and western Utah and was founded as the first independent telephone company in Fairview. CenturyLink, Inc. is an American telecommunications company, headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, that provides communications and data services to residential, business, governmental, and wholesale customers in 37 states. The company operates as a local exchange carrier and Internet access provider in U.S. markets and is the third-largest telecommunications company in the United States in terms of lines served, behind AT&T and Verizon. When the tower is completed, CenturyLink will no longer be part of the picture, he said. Twenty-seven yards of concrete were needed for the project and the road leading to the site needs to be improved for the heavy trucks to travel. Five landowners need to give permission for the road to be used on a permanent basis. Some of those landowners do not want to grant a right-of-way easement because it would require owners to give up property. “Verbal permission has been given to use the road (during construction),” said Ryan Peters, county attorney. However, the state does want continued access in order to maintain the tower and the equipment at the site. A right of access contract could be drawn up, said Peters, but some property owners think that is too formal. He and his office will continue to work with the property owners on gaining the right to use the roadway leading to the tower so that equipment and the tower can be maintained when it is needed, said Peters. “My focus is to get emergency services up and running,” said Pulver. The tower is an important part of maintaining emergency services for Juab County. “What is the protocol?” asked Clinton Painter, commission chairman. “We can be covered with Utah Valley Dispatch, based in Spanish Fork, services,” said Pulver. What did happen when radio service was lost was that the paging feature was lost. That meant that officers who were needed at the scene of an emergency could not be paged. That meant that those needed had to be phoned rather than dispatched. Painter said that he knew that the fire chief, police chief and sheriff would be contacted in that manner if the radio service was interrupted. Once the tower is in place, said Pulver, that would no longer be a problem. The paging ability would always be available. “The tower should be in soon,” said Pulver. “It was to be built by the end of the summer but will be in earlier, possibly in four weeks.”4>
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