Sheriff: Tower to be replaced by end of 2025

A state-owned tower that last year’s tornado totaled at Adair County Secondary Roads on the south side of Greenfield will likely be replaced before the end of this year.

Adair County Sheriff Jeff Vandewater and other officials updated the board of supervisors Tuesday, March 18 on the project. The tower is crucial to emergency responders being able to talk to each other on the job.

The tower is part of the Iowa Statewide Interoperability Communications System, which aims at providing responders with 95% reliability across Iowa. It links to other towers in Madison County, Adams County and Adair, while also receiving a signal from a tower at the Adair County Sheriff’s Office.

“So, originally with this tower providing connectivity with the system and not additional receive or transmit capability, I wanted to add county-owned equipment to the state tower to increase our coverage, essentially,” Vandewater told the Adair County Free Press. “It greatly enhanced our ability to talk on our portable radios, which are the small ones we carry on our belt for in-building coverage like at the high school, courthouse and residential houses.”

Insurance will cover the replacement cost of county-owned equipmen — which is around $412,000 for equipment, labor and reinstallation tools — that will be placed on a new tower built just west of the exiting tower at Secondary Roads. A new 195-foot tower being built at Secondary Roads necessitates a new dish also being placed on the tower at the sheriff’s office.

After pre-project studies are completed this month, excavation, fending and grading will begin in May and June with a foundation being poured for the new tower in the months after. The tower itself will begin going up in September with attennas being placed in September and October. By November and December, the old tower will be able to come down.