Marine on St. Croix is finally getting its first cellphone tower.

A 180-foot tower is being erected on a plot of city-owned land near the city’s compost site and septic system drainfield.

The site, located just north of downtown Marine, offers the best coverage with the least visual impact, said Marine City Council member Bill Miller.

“It’s been 25 years in the making,” he said. “It’s really hard to site one here because we’re in a national park.”

The proposed site is outside the boundary of the federally protected St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, and the National Park Service does not have a scenic easement on the land, he said.

AT&T will be the core tenant, but other companies may opt to co-locate on the tower. The city will get $22,000 a year for leasing the land, Miller said.

The lack of cellphone service has long been a public-safety issue in Marine, he said.

“We’ll now have cell service out on the river,” he said. “It’s a sad story, but we have had people drown here. Would those people have been able to be saved if we would have been able to have better communication to deploy our first responders? The answer is yes. This cell tower checks a lot of boxes for us.”

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