INSIDE

Opponents organize against cell tower

By Meg Olson

Opponents of a cellular telephone transmission facility have organized themselves as the Point Roberts Alliance for Sound Public Policy, stating as their intention to “really examine this issue closely and from every angle. “

In a six-page letter submitted in person to the local parks board, which is considering leasing land to Verizon Wireless for the construction of the facility, Craig Jacks, who signed the letter as chairman of the group, asked the parks board to attend an October 16 public meeting to discuss the proposal.

“When are we going to find out how much power this tower puts out?” asked Jacks, at the October 4 parks board meeting. “Where’s it going to be located? Point Roberts has a future. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a park there without a tower?”

In a March 2006 letter to the parks board Andrew King of the land use firm The Meridian Group, representing Verizon Wireless, described a “200-foot tall lattice tower with antennas mounted on top” and a 12 by 30 foot equipment shelter located on a 50 by 30 foot fenced compound. The letter went on to say there was significant flexibility with regards to where to site the facility on the parks-owned parcel between Benson and Johnson roads.

John Hammell, who described himself as electro-sensitive, asked the parks department to consider possible health risks from radio-frequency radiation (RFR) from the tower. “I can hardly handle the load I’m under now,” he said, adding that in urban areas with more transmission facilities he “felt hammered by brain fog.” He added that residents in the area and children at the school would be put at risk because the federal health standards were insufficient.

“The parks board has said we will follow due process, do the right research and ask the right questions,” said board member Linda Hughes. Hughes submitted into the district records 33 pages of email correspondence with Hammell on the issue. She also said she had read a book given to her by Hammell which describes the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts as having “set the bar” for telecom siting regulations. “According to the resource you gave me their regulations state that a cellular tower cannot be placed closer than 1,500 feet from a school,” she said, which would be analogous to the current proposal.
“We have a lot more recent information,” Hammell replied.

At the October 16 forum at the primary school the group distributed graphical representations of the proposed tower, which Hammell said he had received from the parks board. Point Roberts water district manager Dan Bourks confirmed the drawings represented an earlier plan to build the facility on water district property. If sited on parks property the facility would be similar, he speculated. The water district has declined Verizon’s proposal to lease the land adjacent to the water reservoir, commissioners citing a need to retain control of the property to accommodate long-term planning needs.

Waters said the parks board has a lot more land, approximately 65 available acres, but with more limitations on uses. “We’re putting it in a secure area at the old garbage dump site that can’t be used, and we haven’t made a final site decision yet,” she said. “We’re trying to pick a spot with no major trees, just scrub trees, and as far from the school as possible.”

Thirty audience members at the forum watched a portion of a documentary film produced by the Council on Wireless Technology Impacts, titled Public Exposure: DNA Democracy and the Wireless Revolution. The film argues that, as radio, microwave and now cellular phone communication have proliferated, humans live in a world where the level of non-ionizing radiation is tens of thousands of times higher than the world our species evolved in, which is unlikely to have no effect.

The film discusses instances of “radio-frequency sickness syndrome,” specifically referencing the 1978 Lilienfeld Study (Johns Hopkins Foreign Service Health Status Study), which investigated the health effects of 20 years of microwave irradiation on the personnel of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The film also addressed the issue of scientific certainty in setting public policy, and argues that while the 100-percent certainty of scientific proof might not exist in reference to what limit of exposure causes health effects, ample evidence exists to set public health policy, “the more likely than not test.” Federal standards, they argue, allow a much higher exposure level than is safe.

Milt Bowling of the Clean Energy Foundation of Canada also spoke of his early efforts to keep a cellular transmission facility away from his child’s school, alarmed by the uncertainty of the health effects. To get an idea of the penetrating power of the signal a cellular phone receives, he suggested, put your phone in a microwave oven and call it. “That signal travels all the way from a tower about a mile away, through trees, through walls, through your bone and muscle and it pierces the shielding of that oven and makes the call. Is that a signal you want an inch from your head?” he said.

No members of the parks board, representatives from Meridian group, Verizon Wireless or Whidbey Telephone Company attended the meeting, though Hammell said all were invited. Nick Kiniski attended to represent the fire department, which supports the new facility as an asset to public safety through improved communication capabilities. “We’re just saying we want better communications,” he said, after being peppered with questions about why and how it could be accomplished without a local cellular transmission tower. “Are you saying at whatever cost?” asked an audience member.

Most audience members expressed concern about the health effects of the proposed facility. “At the end of the day we’re all siting here because we have a concern,” said an audience member. “Most of us don’t want to see a 200-foot monstrosity go up, especially that close to the school.”

Material presented at the meeting predicted the facility would be 1,000 feet from the primary school. On a plat map prepared by Syd Wallace in 1983 the approximate location is 1,500 feet from the school and Waters said they would try to locate it as far from the school as possible within site limitations. “We haven’t picked an exact spot yet,” she said.

Waters added that the parks board was not the regulatory body in this case, merely the potential landlord, and that Whatcom County zoning laws would regulate where and if the tower could be located in the community. The project would require a conditional use permit, issued by the county planning and development services division after review by the hearing examiner’s office.

Hammell says that federal communication laws make the parks department the only agency that can listen to his concerns about health effects and legally act on them – by not renting them the land.
County planning and development director Hal Hart agrees that his department, as the local regulatory agency, cannot consider health effects of RFR in deciding to allow a wireless facility.

“Where the airwaves are everybody’s right local government control is preempted by federal law so there’s only so much we can do,” he said. The county can regulate land use but not set telecommunications standards; though it can and does require cellular transmission towers to meet standards the federal government has set emissions from cellular equipment.

Land use specialist Marilyn Bentley said the county code’s section on wireless facilities (WCC 20.13) specifies that certain areas are considered more suitable for wireless facilities, and the proposed site is near the bottom of the list. “It’s not a high priority siting,” she said. “The high priority areas are those that would have the least impact on residential areas.” To erect a tower on the parks property, zoned recreation open space, Bentley said applicants would have to demonstrate that the areas on the Point zoned commercial and light impact industrial were not feasible. A 200 foot-tall structure would need to be set back that distance from any property line, she added. The applicant would also have to provide engineering analysis showing why that height and a lattice structure, rather than a monopole or co-location on an existing structure like the Whidbey Telephone tower, was necessary for the network goals to be accomplished.

Water said the district, which has spent $2,500 so far on legal bills and is at the end of its yearly budgeted amount for that account, would continue to work with legal counsel on requests for public documents submitted by Hammell. She also hoped district commissioners might have a proposed lease to consider at their next meeting, November 1 at the community center.