LAWTON – Comanche County Emergency Management will use part of its American Rescue Plan Act funds to replace the Big Rock Tower, a county-owned radio transmission tower near Medicine Park.
The Comanche County Board of Commissioners voted 3-0 Aug. 5 to reinstate Emergency Management’s original $2.5 million ARPA grant, which was awarded in May 2023. The department has already spent about $1.74 million of its grant on mobile and portable radios, along with related equipment, and will spend the rest on the Big Rock Tower project.
The commission originally awarded $2.5 million to Emergency Management for equipment, said attorney David Floyd, who is advising the board on ARPA-related issues. But when Emergency Management Director Clint Langford sought bids, they came in much lower than he had expected.
“And so, $1.7 (million) was the final amount that was ultimately awarded, freeing up $800,000 for other projects,” Floyd said.
He said county officials had considered including funds for rebuilding the Big Rock repeater tower in the original ARPA grant, but the grant agreement was not written in a way that made officials feel comfortable with including the Big Rock tower project. But since the county spent less money than anticipated on radio equipment, the remaining funds were available for that project.
Consequently, officials moved $800,000 into the county’s budget for ARPA-funded projects, amended the original grant agreement to include the project and reinstated the total grant amount. Tower replacement Any tower must undergo an engineering inspection every five years to ensure they are still structurally sound, Langford said in an interview after the meeting. He said the Big Rock tower showed signs of weakness at its last inspection – mainly because it is a tubular structure.
“It’s, like, piping that makes up its actual mainframe,” Langford said. “That is not the modern construction standard that we have nowadays.”
He said modern construction standards call for radio transmission towers to be built as solid rods, which eliminates internal corrosion and other problems.
The new tower will be approximately the same size as the old one, but it will be built with solid rods to boost its structural stability.
Langford said the county will move quickly on building the new tower because it will be financed by ARPA dollars. Federal law requires local governments that received ARPA funds to allocate the money by Dec. 31 of this year and spend the money by the end of 2026.