Nesting bird delays station's return to airwaves

KMBH-FM 88.9 is planning to resume broadcasting as soon as it repairs its own tower, finalizes a lease to transmit from another tower, or when a possibly endangered hawk finds a new place to nest.

The tower used by the Public Broadcasting System’s local radio affiliate was damaged at the end of June by high winds from Hurricane Alex, KMBH interim general manager John Ross said this week.

The station has been off the air for almost two months, but the station’s Web site provides no information about the transmission problems. However, the Web site does include a current program schedule.

KMBH-FM 88.9 is owned by the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville as  RGV Educational Broadcasting Inc.. It is the Lower Rio Grande Valley’s only public radio station.

Ross said he has been working on a deal with American Tower Corporation, which owns a radio tower about a mile away from KMBH’s crippled tower, to allow KMBH to temporarily transmit until its own damaged tower can be fixed.

That process has required a lot of paperwork and “rigmarole,” he said, and was then delayed when the hawk or falcon nest was discovered about 150 feet high on the tower that KMBH wants to lease.

It’s an issue, Ross said, since an antenna must be attached to the tower, and federal regulations prohibit disturbing endangered species.

But whether the bird is endangered isn’t certain.

According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Species Report, the northern aplomado falcon is the only hawk-like bird in Cameron County on the endangered list.

“The tower company supposedly has a biologist scheduled by the end of this week to come and make a determination,” Ross said.

If it is an endangered species, the antenna will be attached below the nest until the chicks are hatched and the nest is vacated. If it’s not endangered, presumably work on the antenna may proceed. Ross said the temporary signal won’t be as strong as its normal signal, which is a necessary adjustment to avoid conflicts with other nearby radio signals.

“We’ll have to lower our power to go on at that tower, but it will still be a pretty good signal,” he said.

Meanwhile, the repairs to the damaged tower are taking longer than the two months that Ross initially expected.  

“We’ve got a ways to go on that,” Ross said. “It involves getting the funds in place to finish the job. The rebuild takes time, and there are financial complications.”