NYC Council Member Peter Vallone introduces new cell antenna legislation
Written by Leonore Gordon
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Doug Loranger of San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU) and the new national coalition CLOUT circulated the following story:
May 7. 2009: New York City Council Member Peter Vallone held a press conference on May 6 regarding new cell antenna legislation he is introducing (see Daily News story below). Vallone mentioned the new nationwide coalition CLOUT (http://www.cloutnow.org/) during his presentation, which includes a number of New York City-based grass-roots and other community organizations. Leonore Gordon of the Brooklyn-based Coalition to Regulate Antennae Siting (http://www.safeantenna.org/), a CLOUT co-founder, is pictured standing behind Vallone (she's wearing green).
Launched in New York City in 2006, at a press conference on the steps of City Hall, the "Coalition for the Regulation of Antenna Siting," or, CRAS, was formed as a coalition of existing community groups and legislators from New York City and from the New York State Legislature, all opposing the indiscriminate siting of cell phone antennas. We presently are in the process of incorporating like-minded groups from around the country into our coalition.
We are also requesting advocates to contact elected officials interested in rewriting Sec.704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to sign a letter/petition to Congress addressing this issue.The petition will be linked to this front page, and letter regarding this petition is pasted below.
Cell phone antennas and towers were, at that time, (and in the present) increasingly proliferating in densely populated areas. Back in 2006, and now in 2009, we stand alongside fellow citizens and lawmakers around the globe who are worried by the growing bodies of scientific research pointing to serious health risks, (including cancer clusters in areas with high population densities,) posed by the low-level, continuous EMF radiation emissions from these antennas.
We hope that in the new Obama administration will bring to our country a return of the respect accorded to the research provided by science, trumping the attention paid to research performed by industry-funded researchers and lobbyists. In that spirit, we fervently wish that our calls will be heard by the new Congress to listen to the new research regarding EMF health risks, just as it is apparently slowly being heard in other parts of the world.
As long as researchers continue to be unable to prove the long-term safety of these antennas to human health, we of CRAS support the "Precautionary Model" now being used internationally as a guiding tool in assessing appropriate locations for antenna siting, and in assessing safer standards for determinating potential health risks caused by EMF radiation.
This website offers web-links to extensive research on the health risks of EMF radiation from these antennas. Links are provided to multiple organizations examining this issue, to court decisions favoring tighter regulation, and to national and international news articles pertaining to cell tower siting. Site also includes a history of the community organizations in the New York area opposing siting near populated areas.
It is of the utmost importance that the public learns about these new studies, as there has for too long been a disturbing trend in the media to close its eyes to any scientific reports not quoted to them by the telecommunications industry. This "blindness" is far less evident in Europe.
Along with the industry, the U.S. media remains curiously oblivious to any studies suggesting that these cell phone antennas pose any danger to human health, even as the overwhelming evidence from highly respected sources mounts, pointing to a dizzying array of health dangers linked to EMF radiation from cell towers and cell phones, including kidney damage, lowered sperm count, and gliomas. Even a memo released in 2008 from the director of the University of Pittsburgh's Cancer Institute warning of EMF emissions from cell phones, barely received attention in the U.S. media. (See web site)
The new international scientific studies referenced above, and cited, among others, under "Research" menu in web site, provide a rebuttal to those skeptics exposed only to the very limited supply of "scientific" reports and studies quoted by the telecommunications industry to the media, and to the public. In their efforts to promote further antennae installations, the industry most frequently cites research done by the American Cancer Society which is dismissive of health concerns regarding EMF from antennas or cell phones. They also quote the FCC's claims of its own "safe" EMF standards, with the intention of debunking public fears. (U.S. EMF standards are among the lowest in the world.)
This latest "Interphone" and "Bioinitiative Report" research, cited above, now offers the worried public and its equally concerned legislators, our own tool in this ongoing debate, and challenges the existing safety standards set by the FCC, and by other international bodies.
Also of compelling concern to members of CRAS, and relevant to the many obstacles faced in limiting residential antenna siting, is a 12-year old piece of federal legislation, Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, (link: Telecommunications Act of 1996). This troublesome piece of federal legislation has been tying the hands of local legislative bodies desiring to respond to constituents' worries about EMF emissions.
We at CRAS are committed to raising the awareness of the general public, and of our elected representatives, about this provision, which prohibits city and state municipalities from writing legislation to limit or ban cell antenna sitings solely on the basis of health concerns about EMF dangers.
Innumerable articles appearing in newspapers across the U.S. quote frustrated legislators who are attempting to respond to a growing wave of citizen protests against antennas appearing outside their windows, across from (and above) elementary schools and nursing homes, and even, most recently, in a Sonoma, Ca. high school parking lot at the end of winter vacation. In every article, without exception, the legislators involved report the industry metaphorically thumbing their noses as they remind legislators that they are not permitted to raise health concerns in legislation. (See "Hot off the Press" section of website.)
This concern about EMF radiation and its health effects must be addressed in the new Congress, and brought to the attention of the new Obama administration, who must be asked to recognize, and to examine, the growing body of research across the globe addressing the health concerns in populations living in close proximity to residential cell phone antennas and cell towers.
Thanks to SNAFU, San Francisco Antenna Free Union for sharing their logo.
See YouTube for clips of SNAFU's documentary film:"Bad Reception: The Wireless Revolution in San Francisco."
The International Association of Firefighters produced a document in 2004 calling for a moratorium on the placement of these antennas on firehouse roofs after numerous firefighters experienced symptoms serious enough to warrant medical attention, and to cause changes in their brain's functioning ( see INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS).
Court Precedent in US
We do have a promising new precedent set by the Court of Appeals in San Francisco, where it was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle on 9/11/08:
09-11-08) 17:42 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court reversed itself Thursday and said cities and counties can regulate the location and appearance of wireless towers and poles, a ruling that could revive a dormant San Francisco ordinance.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld San Diego County's limits on the placement, size and design of towers and poles that are needed for companies to provide cell phone service and wireless Internet connections. The court also voted 11-0 to discard a standard it had established in 2001 that barred local governments from adopting any restrictions that "may have the effect of prohibiting" wireless services.
Federal courts in the nine-state circuit have relied on the 2001 ruling to overturn restrictions on telecommunications structures in several communities, including San Francisco and Berkeley. The court said Thursday that it had misinterpreted federal law when it issued the earlier ruling, and that local governments can regulate wireless towers and poles as long as they don't actually prohibit wireless service within their borders or create a "significant gap in service coverage."
San Diego County's 2003 ordinance was intended to keep unsightly structures out of neighborhoods. It required poles to be camouflaged in residential areas, set height limits, required companies to submit a "visual impact analysis," and allowed a zoning board to deny an application if it was inconsistent with the character of the community. Two courts had overturned the ordinance, based on the 2001 appellate standard, before Thursday's ruling reinstated it.
The new ruling gives cities and counties "the ability to even-handedly control the environment in our neighborhoods," with no exemption for wireless companies, said attorney William Marticorena, president of the California-Nevada chapter of a national association of telecommunications regulators. "There isn't some special place for the telecom operators to put the 50-foot-tall red monopole (cellular tower) in front of city hall."
Thomas Bunton, a deputy county counsel who represented San Diego County, said the ruling allows local governments to hold public hearings and require wireless towers and poles to be concentrated in certain areas and camouflaged to fit in with their surroundings.
Lawyers for Sprint, which challenged the San Diego County ordinance, and Verizon, which filed supporting arguments, were unavailable for comment.
In San Francisco, Deputy City Attorney William Sanders said the ruling could restore portions of a 2007 law that a federal judge struck down in June.
The ordinance required wireless companies to seek a city permit before locating transmitters or other installations near a park, a historic landmark or a building with architectural importance, or on a street that the city has designated as scenic.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, citing the appeals court's 2001 decision, ruled that the ordinance was invalid because it allowed public hearings in permit disputes and failed to set precise standards for denying a permit. San Francisco supervisors have already drafted a new ordinance to comply with the ruling, but the city now has the option of asking Patel to reconsider in light of Thursday's decision, Sanders said.
The 2001 decision was also the basis of a January 2006 appeals court ruling that allowed Qwest Communications to install a fiber link to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory over the city of Berkeley's objections. The court said in 2006 that Berkeley's ordinance, which required telecommunications companies to pay a fee or go through an extensive permit process, had the effect of denying service.
Marticorena, who took part in the Berkeley case, said Thursday's ruling won't affect Qwest, which has installed its link, but will allow Berkeley and other cities to take another look at their regulations.
Read the ruling. The ruling in Sprint vs. County of San Diego can be found at: links.sfgate.com/ZDXO E-mail Bob Egelko at
. This article appeared on page B - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle
for further questions, or assistance, e-mail
Finally, a major victory on our local home front! This is the case that led to my creation of this web site, and of of the New York State CRAS Coalition. One major correction to article below ; we shareholders most emphatically did not give permission for cell tower to be installed. Our coop board president and management company secretly signed a contract with T-Mobile without informing shareholders. We shareholders then, a year after contract was signed and days before cranes arrived to install antennae, took T-Mobile to court, embarking on a 3 1/2 year campaign working through the court system, community organizing, and use of the media, resulting a settlement with T-Mobile, in Nov.'08, in our favor:
Print this story Residents of a Park Slope co-op who fought for years to keep cellular phone transmitters off the roof of their Eighth Avenue building are finally off the hook.
Cell provider T-Mobile dropped a lawsuit on Nov. 10 against residents of 130 Eighth Ave., who had given permission for the phone company to install the transmitters in 2004, but later backed out.
The equipment ended up near the corner of Seventh Avenue and President Street — but the discontinued lawsuit marks the end of a lengthy and tumultuous legal battle between residents of the eight-story co-op, who feared that the antennae could cause long-term health effects, and the cellular company that insisted that the antennas are harmless.
But residents of the building, which is between Carroll Street and Montgomery Place, say the fight isn’t over yet.
“I’d like to see them blocked in residential neighborhoods where there is a dense population,” said co-op resident Leonore Gordon, who founded the Coalition to Regulate Antenna Siting. “My goal is to find a way to have a minimum of them put up.”
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