Tower Tremors: Wireless Communication Towers
August 31, 2007 by Sumo
Cellular towers are becoming a part of our modern landscape equivalent to when billboards began to multiply a few decades ago. And like billboards, they are a mixed blessing at best and an environmental blight to many people. Each year in North America an estimated 4-5 million birds per year are killed in collisions with communication towers, typically towers that are 200 feet or taller. Migratory birds receive the most damage, especially some 350 species of night-migrating birds, which violates the spirit and the intent of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Code of Federal Regulations at Part 50 designed to implement the MBTA (2000 figures from Fish and Wildlife Service). Bird loss caused from towers was a fact generally unknown by federal agencies or the public until the 1990’s. “People who man towers kept quiet about these bird deaths. They didn’t want to alarm the public on the extent of this problem.” Said bird expert Sam Robbins, quoted in the February 2000 issue of Wisconsin Natural Resources.
Why so many new communication towers? Many more of us are using cellular phones and the communications industry has been expanding. Like billboards, the towers are indicative of economic growth, yet are encroaching upon the environment and visually impacting the areas in which they are constructed. Environmentalists are trying to block new wireless towers; the Forest Conservation Council and Friends of the Earth petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny 29 applications for towers until further environmental studies have been done. An FCC Memorandum Opinion and Order on the matter was released on January 4, 2002. The 29 Objections/Petitions to Deny, jointly filed by the Friends of Earth and the Forest Conservation Council against 29 Applications for Antenna Structure Registrations, were dismissed. The FCC gave the reasoning that “We find that the Petitioners have not demonstrated standing to file their Petitions because the Petitions are speculative and do not show how the construction of these towers would affect the interests of any identified person.” John Talberth of the Forest Conservation Council says that inadequate research has been done on wireless towers “They cause significant adverse impact to wildlife, scenery, wetlands.”
Localities are receiving requests for approval to construct wireless communication towers. Industry forecasters calculate that between 122,000 and 250,000 new cell sites will be needed in the U.S., as many as half of these will require new towers. In the article “Cell Towers Take Root on Farms” Katie Dean explains the financial benefits to farmers who lease their land to a communications company to build a wireless tower. Dean cites a farmer from Shelbyville, Missouri who gave up an acre of his farmland to US Cellular to build a 430-foot tower for a payment of $7,500 on a 99-year lease. He wouldn’t have made that much from farming that acre.
So what’s a town or any group of people interested in maintaining a pleasing and aesthetic environment to do? Reni Gertner contends that “Towns Can Reject Cellular Towers” in an April 16, 2001 article with that title, in Lawyers Weekly USA. Gertner gives examples of how there is a “growing trend toward allowing municipalities to reject cell phone towers.” Gertner suggests performing engineering studies in advance to locate and zone possible tower sites, and negotiating tower height, location, or structure to be less of a blight to the surrounding area. Local municipalities and planning commissions have come up with bylaws to control the construction of new telecommunications towers; exclusions from certain environmentally sensitive areas, multi-use structures instead of erecting additional towers, ordinances on distance from features such as wetlands, historic districts, bodies of water, designated scenic roads or highways. Like billboards, wireless towers are a part of modern life, and like billboards, towers can be modified, controlled, and tamed.
Battered by the Airwaves? Wendy K. Weisensel, February 2000, Wisconsin Natural Resources, http://www.wnrmag.com/stories/2000/feb00/birdtower.htm
Cell Towers Take Root on Farms, Katie Dean, January 10, 2000, Wired News, http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,33352,00.html
Towns Can Reject Cellular Towers, Reni Gertner, April 16, 2001, Lawyers Weekly USA, http://www.weconnect.com/citizens/articles/Lawyersweeklyfiles/article1.html
Environmentalists try to block new wireless towers, Paul Davidson, June 10, 2001, USA Today/Money, http://www.usatoday.com/money//telecom/2001-06-11-environment.htm
Communication Towers and Avian Mortality, 1998 Report from NAOC Resolutions Committee, Birdnet: The Ornithological Information Source, http://204.29.171.80/framer/navigation.asp?charset=utf-8&cc=US&frameid=1565&lc=en-us&providerid=262&realname=BIRDNET&uid=902789&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nmnh.si.edu%2FBIRDNET
Planning for Cellular Towers, Ben Campanelli, Fall 1997, Planners Web: Planning Commissioners Journal, http://www.plannersweb.com/articles/cam128.html
Calculations on the Mechanical Safety Area at Transmitter Towers, February 1996, Cellular Alert-Canada, http://www.reach.net/~scherer/p/twrmath.htm
Legislation: Wireless Telecommunication Facilities, Article IIII, City of Appleton, Wisconsin Planning Department, September 17, 1997, http://www.appleton.org/planning/article13.html
Memorandum Opinion and Order In the Matter of Friends of the Earth, Inc. and Forest Conservation Council Various Objections and Petitions to Deny against Applications to Register Antenna Structures with Environmental Assessments, Federal Communications Commission DA 02-5, January 4, 2002, http://wireless.fcc.gov/releases/da0205.pdf
Model Wireless Telecommunications Facilities Bylaw, Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, May 2001, http://www.central-vt.com/cvrpc/bylaw/bylaw1.htm
Tower Siting Contacts, Federal Communications Commission, http://wireless.fcc.gov/siting/contacts.html
The Medina Experience in Federal Court: A New Venue for Zoning Review?, Kirk R. Wines, City Attorney , Medina and Hunts Points, Washington, Cell Slayer Website: http://www.cellslayer.com/medina.htm
The Medina Experience in Federal Court: An Update, Kirk R. Wines, Medina City Attorney, May 1997, Cell Slayer Website, http://www.cellslayer.com/
Local Government Regulations of Wireless Telecommunications Facilities, Governor’s Center for Local Government Services, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, November 1997, http://www.inventpa.com/docs/wireless.pdf
The Price of Zoning Revisited: Zoning Issues Raised by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Winter 1999, Carol C., McDonough, Illinois Real Estate Letter
http://www.cba.uiuc.edu/orer/V13-1-1.pdf
Locate Wireless Telecommunications Towers Sensitively, Scenic America, 2000, http://www.scenic.org/growthstrat6.htm
Tower Site Evaluation Form, US Fish and Wildlife Service, September 14, 2000, http://migratorybirds.fws.gov/issues/towers/comtow.html
How Many “Towers” Are Needed for Coverage? Don’t Call Them “Cellular Towers”, Cell Sites Earn More Than You Think, You Can Say “No” to These Guys, You Can Make Them Fit, More Tower Companies…, articles from PlanWireless, http://www.planwireless.com/index.htm
Cell-Phone Towers and Communities: The Struggle for Local Control, by B. Blake Levitt
http://arts.envirolink.org/arts_and_activism/BlakeLevitt.html
http://towerkill.com/ website has state-by-state Tower Reports (older-1998)
And of course a standard reference is: Action Guide: Taming Wireless Telecommunications Towers, which can be obtained for $8.00 from Scenic America (202) 543-6200. http://www.scenic.org/
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Interesting PBS, something I really hadn’t given much thought to…yet it is a very important part of our lives…right around us in fact. Now I’ll pay better attention when I see something like this.
I suppose it’s unthinkable that these can be minimized, &( heavens forbid) SHARED among the various cell phone companies.
What about the towers that are camouflaged? They have ones that look like palm trees, cactus..just to name a few of the designs that one would consider aesthetically pleasing.
It’s a given that towers are not good for birds, but what about us humans?
Over 190 million cell phones are in use in the United States, with users often scrambling to another room, building or street to get better reception. As consumers, it is frustrating when your cell phone reception gets dropped or is too garbled to hear. But beyond “Can you hear me now?” is another considerably more important question:
Are the cell towers and antennas popping up all over the country - -the very ones that we depend on for clear reception and a wide coverage area — safe?
Cell phone companies also maintain that no risks exist from the towers. “There are no health risks posed by the towers. Independent scientific panels around the world have reached this conclusion,” said Russ Stromberg, senior manager of development at T-Mobile.
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A study by Dr. Bruce Hocking in Australia found that children living near three TV and FM broadcast towers (similar to cell towers) in Sydney had more than twice the rate of leukemia than children living more than seven miles away.
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Says Dr. Neil Cherry, a biophysicist at Lincoln University in New Zealand:
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“Public health surveys of people living in the vicinity of cell site base stations should be being carried out now, and continue progressively over the next two decades. This is because prompt effects such as miscarriage, cardiac disruption, sleep disturbance and chronic fatigue could well be early indicators of the adverse health effects. Symptoms of reduced immune system competence, cardiac problems, especially of the arrhythmic type, and cancers, especially brain tumor and leukemia, are probable.”
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Biomedical engineer Mariana Alves-Pereira says exposure to cell phone towers can lead to vibroacoustic disease. “From what I understand, some of the complaints are similar in what is seen in vibroacoustic disease patients, which are people who develop a disease caused by low frequency noise exposure,” she said. Symptoms can include mood swings, indigestion, ulcers and joint pain.
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Dr. Gerard Hyland, a physicist who was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in medicine, says, “Existing safety guidelines for cell phone towers are completely inadequate … Quite justifiably, the public remains skeptical of attempts by governments and industry to reassure them that all is well, particularly given the unethical way in which they often operate symbiotically so as to promote their own vested interests.”
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According to the Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center, “Studies have shown that even at low levels of this radiation, there is evidence of damage to cell tissue and DNA, and it has been linked to brain tumors, cancer, suppressed immune function, depression, miscarriage, Alzheimer’s disease, and numerous other serious illnesses.”
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According to Dr. W. Löscher of the Institute of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmacy of the Veterinary School of Hannover in Germany, dairy cows that were kept in close proximity to a TV and cell phone tower for two years had a reduction in milk production along with increased health problems and behavioral abnormalities. In an experiment, one cow with abnormal behavior was taken away from the antenna and the behavior subsided within five days. When the cow was brought back near the antenna, the symptoms returned.
Ok, that’s scary. Fortunately, I’m the only person I know who’s not addicted to her cell phone, & don’t even like the idea I can be made to be on call 24/7 wherever I go! At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, some things are just more intrusive & more trouble than they’re worth, & the fact that a thing is technologically possible does not make it by definition desireable.
(Judging from the conversations other people seem to be having in public, 99.9% of those using them don’t seem to be aware that their conversations are not only inane, but the fact that they’re taking them public demonstrates they don’t really mind broadcasting that fact to the world at large. The only times I will concede that they’re they’re both necessary & useful is in emergencies & the lost man in the grocery store looking for some arcane ingredient his wife asked him to pick up for dinner–say, milk).
I have to agree with having to listen in with the rest of the world someone’s inane conversation. It really gets my goat bad! I sat in a jury waiting room last year and had to listen to a guy talk business the whole time. I wanted to slap him for it. He couldn’t even keep his voice down the retard. I also agree with them being more for emergencies while out of the sphere of one’s home. I don’t want people to hear my conversations…ever! Sitting in a doctor’s office and listening (always loudly) to someone else’s life is beyond the pale. Where do these people come from anyway?!
Where do they come from? My guess is the twin planets of NFM & NFS. (No F** manners & No F*** Sense.)
Er, in that case, the human race IS being overrun by aliens from outer space. Heha. Just a cranky demon’s opinion
i turn my cell phone on one week out of eight, only when i’m traveling. i despise the things. i am your basic luddite with an internet connection
and i suspect that we will find down the road that these things truly are harmful to us.
in my conspiracy theory frame of mind this morning, i imagine that we have ALREADY found out they are harmful to us but have quashed the research so that AT&T, Verizon et al don’t lose any profits.
Demon and Belle…you are probably both right!
I have to admit (the internet IS a good place for broadcasting confessions of guilt, after all, just one of the more useful of its many aspects), more than occasionally, when someone is talking on a cell in a public place & it really annoys me, I will pick up the thread of the conversation & talk to them as if I were in on it.
I enjoy watching their heads explode as they try to wrestle with the conundrum posed of talking to two people at once in very different mediums. I’m happy to report that almost always, they react as if I’M the one whose public rudeness is beyond the pale!
This in an America where “multi-tasking” is considered a high & valuable art, & almost as necessary as driving an SUV.
I didn’t adopt the moniker “demon princess” for nothing, though I do make an effort to keep my special powers under wraps. I share the tip in order that others can avail themselves of it when a really annoying cell phone user is using up valuable air in a public space. It works.
That’s an interesting alternative. I guess I’d have the nerve to do it if the phone person were annoying and loud enough. A good lesson.
Stumbled upon quite by accident, when I was leaning into a grocery case & heard someone (I thought) talking to me, & responded before I straightened up & realized she was actually talking on her cell phone. When I did, I kept right on talking to her & expecting a response. It was delightful.
Don’t use it often, & only when the obnoxious user is invading MY space & should know better *if they had any manners* Maybe, if enough of us defend our space this way, the obnoxious cell phone users will get the message & confine their inane prattling to private spaces, like their cars (after they’ve come to a stop, it’s to be hoped).
Funny! Odd how things happen that way. I’ve done that too but not regarding the phone. Was I ever embarrassed when I realized that person really wasn’t speaking to me. Ewww!