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New People’s Army targets include cell phone towers. The
telecommunications company owners (and their insurance companies)
hate it. So do the wireless system clients and the people of the
local community.
But should they? They don’t realize it but
maybe Ka Roger’s people are promoting their good health.
In the United States, more and more communities
are campaigning against cell phone towers being built in their
midst.
The city of Newport News, in Virginia, is a
recent example.
Telcoms usually disguise the towers to look like
large trees or tall flagpoles. In America’s “cowboy states”
they are made to look like “monstrous cactuses,” writer Sabine
Hirschauer says in a report of July 16, 2008 about how the city’s
Planning Commission are facing up to the matter of cell towers.
Here are excerpts from her report:
Cell tower complaints are loud and clear
By Sabine Hirschauer
NEWPORT NEWS: They can look like tall flagpoles.
Or oversized trees. Or monstrous cactuses out West.
But no matter how they’re disguised, they’re
still cell towers.
And as they increasingly dot the landscape, the
towers face growing opposition from critics who say they’re ugly
and unaesthetic misfits that drive down property values and may be
harmful to one’s health.
While there are dozens of towers on and around
the Peninsula, the Newport News City Council recently denied a
request from nTelos to wedge a 131-foot tall cell tower between a
pool and playground at Magruder Elementary School in southeast
Newport News.
“Schools are inappropriate places for cell
towers until they are proven to be safe,” Johnson said.
There is no conclusive evidence that low radio
frequency transmissions from cell towers harm people at the levels
that are allowed by the Federal Communications Commission, which
also has to approve the towers.
But Johnson finds himself among a growing number
of people and groups nationwide who are worried about what effect
the towers might have on people. In 2000, the Los Angeles Unified
School District banned cell towers on school properties because
“there continues to be considerable debate and uncertainty within
the scientific community as to the potential health effects to
individuals, especially children, from exposure to extremely low
frequency electromagnetic and radio frequency radiation,”
according to the board’s resolution.
Since 2004, the International Association of
Fire Fighters has prohibited cell towers on fire department
facilities for the same reason.
And the American Cancer Society states “we do
not have full information on health effects . . . in particular, not
enough time has elapsed to permit epidemiological studies.”
While Johnson may have won a battle, it’s too
soon to say whether he and others will win the war against cell
towers too close to home. Today, the Newport News Planning
Commission will discuss an application from T-Mobile to put a
135-foot tower on the Nelson Elementary School property in northern
Newport News.
Another T-Mobile application for another
tower—a brown “slick-stick,” which means all antennas will be
located inside—awaits more information. It would be located on the
grounds of Sanford Elementary School in central Newport News.
Peninsula residents usually don’t rally
against cell towers unless they end up in their backyards, planners
in Hampton, York and James City counties said.
In April, the York County Board of Supervisors
denied T-Mobile’s request for permission to construct a 180-foot
tower near the intersection of Dare Road and Railway Road after
residents packed county meetings, worried the tower would push
property values into the ground in the Lakes of Dare subdivision.
But with more and more people dropping their
land lines and switching to cell phones to save money, officials in
Poquoson said providing sufficient cell phone coverage, not health
and aesthetics, drove their recent cell tower discussions.
“We wanted to make sure people can call 911
[with cell phones] and get the help they need,” said Poquoson
Mayor Gordon C. Helsel Jr. Poquoson recently approved its second
cell tower.
Newport News’ policy has been not to recommend
towers on elementary school sites because they are usually in
residential neighborhoods, said City Manager Randy Hildebrandt.
Elementary school sites are also usually two to three times smaller
than high schools.
In May the City’s Planning Commission voted
against the Magruder application because of the concerns of area
residents and the proposed tower’s proximity to the elementary
school’s pool and a playground, said Planning Commissioner Victor
Albea.
Representatives of nTelos did not return calls
to comment.
So far, the city has three towers at schools
with two of those sitting on high school property and one between
the former Briarfield Elementary School and Heritage High School.
Installed from 2002 through May 2006, the towers
are being used by several cell phone companies and fetched upfront
lease payments to the schools of $9,000 to $120,000. As part of the
agreements, the payments grow annually from $10,350 in the first
five years to as much as $47,223.24 in coming decades.
“It’s not worth the money if it hurts our
kids,” said new City Councilwoman Pat Woodbury, a former School
Board member.
During her tenure on the Newport News School
Board, Woodbury emerged as the sole dissenting vote against cell
towers on school property.
“I voted against them every time,” she said.
“And I will vote against them on City Council.”
Woodbury said she had researched in particular
the health effects of cell towers and worried how radiation from the
cell towers affect children.
If the city gives the go-ahead for the Nelson
Elementary School cell tower, T-Mobile would pay Newport News Public
School System $24,000 up front to lease the land, followed by
$27,600 for every year of the first five years.
The School Board has already approved towers at
Sanford and Nelson elementary schools.
“Do you put a monetary value on the health of
our kids,” Johnson said. “I don’t think so. It’s an
outrage.”
Why are cell towers controversial?
• Often considered eyesores
• Residents fear they’ll cause drops in property values
• Health effects such as brain tumors are feared, but studies
remain inconclusive about cell tower radiation.
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