Sprinklers vs. police radios - who wins?
Recently, city officials in Plano, Texas noticed dying grass in some city parks and road medians. This is not hugely uncommon in Texas in the summer. I know we gave up on saving the lawn somewhere around July at my house. In Plano, however, officials were ticked off that their $5 million sprinkler system wasn't working. At the opposite end of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex, officials in Duncanville, Desoto and Cedar Hill were ticked off that they had endured years of radio frequency problems for emergency dispatching -- so, they built bigger towers.
Those bigger towers send radio frequencies far enough to interfere with the radio controlled sprinklers in Plano. Not a city of people who back down, Plano went to the FCC to complain that they should have had more notice of the upcoming usage of that radio frequency.
Tim Smith, managing director of the Southwest Regional Communications Center which handles 911 dispatching for Duncanville, Desoto and Cedar Hill put it best when he said to Dallas News, "Which comes first: watering plants or protecting police and fire?"
I can't believe that in this day and age, in a place that frequently experiences drought conditions and watering restrictions on residents, that a municipality is going to go this far over some dead grass. Sure they have to revamp the sprinkler system but certainly anyone can see that 1) police and fire protection is more important and 2) watering the grass until it's unnaturally green isn't best practice.
[Via Gizmodo]
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