Washington couple finds 120-foot cell tower on their property — co-op threatens to cut power if they don't sign easement

A married couple that lives in the Friday Harbor Orcas Power and Light Cooperative (OPALCO) in Washington State has a towering problem on their property — literally.

Liz Covert and Denis Goudie claim that OPALCO built a 120-foot cell phone tower on their property without their permission — and that they threatened to cut their power if they didn't sign an easement within 90 days.

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"It's not OK to do this to private homeowners," Covert told NBC's King 5 local news. "It feels like bullying."

But the issue is that OPALCO is a San Juan County non-profit co-op where members receive discounts on their utilities as a trade-off for easements that let OPALCO build infrastructure on their properties.

Covert and Goudie say their easement only covers landscaping, while OPALCO — which didn't respond to Moneywise's request for comment — claims on their website that "The pole site in question was on the property mentioned, with the previous owner's permission, prior to the current owners' purchase of the land." It adds that "members agree to grant OPALCO easements when they join the cooperative" and that "OPALCO will have the right to use as the easement allows."

And that key word, "allows," is what a court will consider as Covert and Goudie pursue litigation to topple the tower.

A 2025 San Juan Journal article about the dispute notes that the couple bought the property in 2017 and that they say the easement that accompanied it "contains no accommodation for utilities to be placed above ground."

They were aware of a wooden tower structure on their property, the story says, but it was replaced with a steel tower that's "20 feet taller" along with a bigger generator that is now "adding noise during startup cycles" in an elevated area that offers "the best potential for a view."

Covert told the outlet that she and her husband didn't even know the tower was going up until a neighbor inquired about it, as "We live on the adjoining property, and it's uphill and out of sight from us." She added that "They had never reached out to us, as the property owners, to let us know they were doing this work on our property."