Emergency services may be unable to communicate with one another if the City of Norman Park and Colquitt County can't quickly erect a tower and move communication equipment onto it from the city's water tower. Renovations to the water tower are planned to start no later than May 1.

MOULTRIE, Ga. — An effort to improve water service in Norman Park — funded by a federal grant —now threatens the ability for local emergency responders to communicate in the northeast corner of the county.

Antennas that enable radio communications for the Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office, EMS, volunteer firefighters and the Norman Park Police Department are located atop the Norman Park water tower.

Colquitt County commissioners learned Wednesday evening that those antennas will have to be removed as part of the city’s effort to overhaul the water tower.

“We were under the impression the antennas could remain in place during the renovation,” Norman Park Police Chief Chuck Snyder told commissioners. “We’ve since learned this is not the case.”

The City of Norman Park has proposed erecting a communications tower near city hall and has asked the county to contribute to the construction cost and the cost of installing new communications equipment on it. Negotiations are underway between attorneys for both entities to present councilmen and commissioners with an intergovernmental agreement outlining what each of them would be responsible for.

The clock is ticking, though, Snyder said. The company that’s doing the work on the water tower wants to start no later than May 1, he said, and Norman Park doesn’t have bids for the new tower yet.

Commission Chairman Denver Braswell asked Snyder whether the new tower could be erected by May 1.

“It’s going to be close,” Snyder replied.

Loss of the antenna would have a serious effect on the agencies involved, according to both Snyder and Sheriff Rod Howell. Snyder said he responded to a log truck overturned Tuesday afternoon on Highway 319 near Crosland and he saw deputies literally holding their portable radios up in the air to try to get a usable signal.

“And that was with the antenna in place,” he said.

Some years ago, the county purchased a booster system for the antenna to help with radio communications in that part of the county, but on Wednesday Howell told commissioners that system hasn’t solved the problems.

The Norman Park water tower is 150 feet tall, Snyder said, and the proposed tower would be 180 feet, which means the service could be better because the antennas would be higher.

The work on the water tower is one of five water and wastewater projects funded by a $5.4 million grant that was announced last February. The grant was announced by Gov. Brian Kemp but is part of the federal coronavirus response. According to the grant announcement, the project includes removing lead paint and repairing rust and deterioration.

The city council broke ground in May for another of the projects, a wastewater treatment plant, but Mayor Bruce Norton said at that time that he expected the water tower project to be the first project to finish.