RAISE THE ROOF

“Cellphone towers bring extra tax revenue and better reception to a section of the city, but many are skeptical because of the potential health risks and the impact on property values. Increasing numbers of people don’t want to live near cell towers. In some areas with new towers, property values have decreased by up to 20%.”

Examining invisible urban pollution and its effect on real estate value in New York City, William Gati, New York Real Estate Journal, September 2017

By Lyle Laver for The National Business Post

March 29, 2022

Remember the days of Spinal Tap? As they said, “Put it up to 11!”

The wireless industry is about ready to do that to us. We all love our phones and the ability to live within this “mobile” environment of instantaneous information and connectivity. However, with all of this comes a cost, and it is no longer just about how far you have to keep the cellphone away from your ear. Cell towers and small cell antennae now sit within feet of our homes. And they are not just sitting there looking like pine trees. These active placements are emitting energy – electro-magnetic fields of radiofrequency radiation – within a few feet of your home.

There is no getting away from it. You can’t see it. Most can’t feel it. But the next buyer of your million dollar home might definitely assess it.

At a city council meeting in April 2019, Mayor Janice Parvin of Moorpark, Calif. (a suburb of Los Angeles) said, “Can you imagine, though, having street lights on both sides of a corner, and one house has this configuration (small cell antenna) attached to it – the value of the house that has the attachment versus the one that doesn’t and how that could impact…but that’s a whole other topic.”

Today across America, mobile networks are powered by more than 418,000 cell towers, each one emitting microwave radiofrequency radiation. Over the next six years, the WIA (Wireless Infrastructure Association), through their member companies, are planning to install another 800,000 – almost a 300% increase in the proliferation of the cellular infrastructure. No longer painted as faux pine trees, these cell towers and small cell antenna now speckle the landscape of residential streets in America.

Where 4G only needed antennae every ¼ mile, the new generation of mobile delivery, 5G, needs antennae every 500 to 1,000 feet to deliver the plethora of information over shorter energy wavelengths. And as mandated by Federal Communications Commission regulations, there can be “no gaps” in coverage.

What does that mean for us?

Imagine waking up one morning, looking out your bedroom window and noticing someone working on the pole right beside your front yard adjacent to your house. Wondering what is being installed, upon closer inspection and asking the installer, you find out that a small cell antenna is being placed on that pole, 25 feet from your home.

Now, let’s get real. WiFi is common inside a home with at least two children. Our kids can’t be without their Oculus headsets for very long. But how can this be happening? Who permitted this? Who allowed this unannounced microwave energy emitting small cell antenna in front of my home? How could this happen?

In 1996, the federal government passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the first major overhaul of telecommunications law in almost 62 years. The goal was to allow more entities to enter the communications business. From long distance telephone service to broadcast and internet services to cellular infrastructure, this act allowed for more competition. That same year, the FCC adopted safety limits for human exposure to wireless radiation in anticipation of the oncoming age of digital and mobile integration.

That was 26 years ago.

Today, now into our fifth generation (5G) of mobile content and data delivery, with phones and pads instantly accessing the latest news, self-driving vehicles lining the roads, and AI infiltrating our consumer lives, the FCC has maintained its regulations based on scientific data and health standards from 1996. The only problem is that in 1996, there were 30,000 cell towers, or about 388,000 less than today. Each powers up and emits levels of radiation just outside your bedroom windows.

The proliferation of 5G and wireless technology has arrived, and it’s on a telephone pole close to you.

From New Hampshire to California, homeowners are feverishly approaching their city councils looking for answers. City councils now shrug their shoulders, not knowing how to respond, legally asking for counsel so they may have an appropriate answer for their constituents.

Enter Nicole and Robert Golden from Moorpark. In November 2021, they looked up to see a man installing of a small cell antenna on a telephone pole adjacent to their back fence, 14 feet from their child’s play structure in the backyard and 43 feet from their bedroom. No notice from the city. No understanding what was happening. They were shocked.

As the Golden family began to ask questions, they also began to research, only to find more questions than answers.

Sound familiar? To some of you it might. To others, this will quickly be sweeping into your neighborhood in the near future. Families all across America right now are asking their city councils for help in rectifying this horrible situation that will gravely affect the future value of their homes, along with the health and well-being of those who live within.

As Nicole Golden said, “Because (the small cell antenna) is so close, it has to be in the disclosure of my home if I sell it. It also has to be in the insurance paperwork for the buyer as well. There could be a house across the street going for $800,000 and my house won’t sell at all because … health is not something the FCC recognized. It could be somebody who comes over here looking for a home, is already aware of, or just has a little bit of information on (5G), and it makes the deal fall through.”

Julie Levine, Executive Director of 5G Free California and longtime resident of L.A.’s rural and well loved town of Topanga, had to sell her home at a $300,000 loss due to cell towers that had infiltrated the canyons in the region to fill a gap in coverage. Having been diagnosed with electromagnetic hypersensitivity, Levine was having difficulty sleeping and suffered headaches, vomiting and diarrhea.

Since moving from her home, Levine has had a hard time finding an area in California where she was able to reduce her exposure to the radio frequency radiation of these cell towers.

As Norm Alster of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University describes in his report, “Captured Agency: How the Federal Communications Commission is Dominated by the Industries It Presumably Regulates” the FCC and its petitioners have now full right of way and have begun making inroads, applying for geographic locations, leasing poles from regional power companies and dropping in small cell antennas where needed. Ordinances are turned into resolutions to minimize the legal process. Adopting the term, “shot clock,” – based on the pro basketball 24-second clock – the FCC is limiting the time that local governments have to approve the process for the incoming petitioner — companies wanting to install wireless infrastructure throughout a region.

The 2019 FCC declaratory ruling states:

* Regulations must be the same for wireless infrastructure as for other infrastructure deployment (such as gas company installation) for a city council.

* Wireless applicants must be provided the standards in advance.

* All cities are prohibited from banning wireless service and cannot allow for gaps in coverage.

* FCC has imposed requirements for wireless applications: 90 days to approve new wireless structures, 60 days for the wording.

*All “rights of way” in installing on government owned infrastructure can be used.

* Councils must limit application fees.

Some cities, in efforts to protect residential neighborhoods, now use:

* Resolutions for small cell applications instead of ordinances, so all can be done within the FCC’s time frame.

Location requirements include a hierarchy of preferences:

* Must first try to place wireless infrastructure in nonresidential zones.

* If preferred location not available within 500 feet of each other, wireless infrastructure can use nonpreferred city locations which may include any location in a residential zone 250 feet or more from any structure approved for residential use.

If located in residential area, location must be far enough away from any structure approved for residential use.

Cities vary their implementation and policy decisions. For example, in Petaluma and Los Altos, Calif., and Scarsdale, N.Y., resolutions stipulate that any wireless infrastructure must be kept at least 500 feet away from parks, playgrounds and schools. However, regions such as Montgomery County, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C., have been more lenient, calling for only a 30-foot setback.

As of 2019, the FCC successfully removed local governmental control nationwide, stipulating that all wireless infrastructure can be placed on government-owned equipment on public rights of way and can proliferate through all zones including residential neighborhoods.

Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) considers cell towers as “hazards and nuisances.” According to an April 14, 2012 report from the House subcommittee on insurance, housing and community opportunity:

“With regard to new FHA originations, the guide provides that “the appraiser must indicate whether the dwelling or related property improvements are located within the easement serving a high-voltage transmission line, radio/T transmission tower, cell phone tower, microwave relay dish or tower, or satellite dish,” which is radio, TV cable, etc. If the dwelling or related property improvement is located within such an easement, the DE Underwriter must obtain a letter from the owner or operator of the tower indicating that the dwelling and its related property improvements are not located with the tower’s engineered fall distance in order to waive this requirement.”

In 2014, the National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy (NISLAPP) wrote a report called, “Neighborhood Cell Tower’s and Antennas – Do They Impact a Property’s Desirability?” In it, it concluded that homebuyers and renters are less interested in properties close to cell towers and antennas.

“Ninety-four percent of homebuyers and renters said a nearby cell tower or group of antennas would negatively impact interest in a property or the price they would be willing to pay for it. Documentation of a price drop of up to 20% is found in multiple surveys and published articles.”

In 2021, Moira Hahn and Mark Hotchkiss, who have lived at their Long Beach, Calif., address for the last 21 years, received notice from an AT&T subcontractor that a wireless facility would be installed 25 feet from their home. They said they were more concerned about the emissions than the tower’s size and appearance. But five local licensed realtors told them the tower would lower their property’s value by between 20% and 35% or more.

Their case remains unresolved, but it is hardly an outlier. From Pennsylvania to New Hampshire, California to Texas, Italy to the UK, wireless technology infrastructure is now butting up against the actual consumer, invading personal residential properties, not only with phones but now with its 5G small cell buildout.

We need to educate ourselves. Much like smoking, we were able to understand and become aware of the negative impacts to our health and, hence, curbed our behavior. We must do the same with our use of mobile technology. We must understand wireless infrastructure will continue to grow, so how can we best stay connected in an effort to make it safer for all involved?

In its July 2021 study, “Health Impact of 5G”, the European Parliamentary Research Service reported that for longtime commonly used lower radiofrequency radiation frequencies (i.e., those below 6,000 megahertz), wireless emissions used in 5G and 4G infrastructure are “probably carcinogenic for humans, in particular related to gliomas and acoustic neuromas” and “clearly affect male fertility and possibly female fertility, too” with “possible adverse effects on the development of embryos, fetuses and newborns.”

A radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF EMF) reader is a good place to start. Understanding that which we don’t see entering our homes and our office buildings would allow us to understand how long we are standing inside this microwave oven. When the doctor said, “high blood pressure, stage 2 hypertension,” you agreed, but in your confusion, you never connected the dots. The oxidative stress at the cellular level due to the constant pulse of radiofrequency radiation changes the internal dynamics of a cell. Cancer cells are just cells that have gone rogue.

So now is the time to understand that no longer are we living in a physical world. There’s also a virtual one with frequencies passing through our homes, and offices, doing so in ways we can’t see or understand, most inadequately researched by our federal health agencies. At present, no agency measures or monitors the escalating radiation levels.

In 1996, the same year the telecommunications bill passed, Congress defunded the Environmental Protection Agency from researching the health effects of radiofrequency radiation. If you were to write a letter today to the FCC asking for clarification on radiofrequency radiation and its effects on health, you may be referred to the Food and Drug Administration. The reason the FDA would be involved at this point is it regulates food, so it also regulates microwave ovens, those radiation emitting appliances used in preparing food. However, they have no jurisdiction over telecommunications and its wireless infrastructure. The FDA will send you back to the FCC. And the FCC is not a health and safety agency, so there is no regulatory body presently reviewing all of the research on wireless non-ionizing radiation, now considered a new form of environmental air pollution.

The emissions presently being pushed out of a cell tower, or 5G small cell antenna, and its effects on our human biology are regulated by safety limits last reviewed in 1996. However, the FCC, after having been successfully sued by Environmental Health Trust, a scientific think tank, in August 2021 — has now been asked by the U.S. Court of Appeals – D.C. Circuit, to re-examine the scientific evidence as it relates to wireless technology and its impacts on the human biology.

Moves are being made. Courts are getting involved. However, the time to act is now.

EMF readers are available for purchase through various online distributors. Depending on their sophistication, costs can vary between $150-$400, but they are well worth the value. A California company, Tech Wellness, offers a variety of readers, research and consultants. Taking readings where your wireless routers are placed in your home and office make a difference. Awareness is the first step. Building our collective awareness will help implement better future choices, especially those that affect the next generation.

It is great to have immediate access in our mobile world, but at what cost? Should we “raise the roof” on this issue and “put it up to 11?” Certainly, that is what the WIA and the FCC are doing right now; and the longer we wait, the more we will see this infrastructure devalue our neighborhoods, homes and health. These electromagnetic fields will only grow in strength and frequency.

Earth is calling. Let’s make sure that we answer the call and consider in the days ahead, how technology and its wireless infrastructure will affect not only our virtual world, but our physical one as well. We are all connected.