Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center

Edge Wireless Pushes Again for Cell Tower
in Deetz / Hammond Ranch neighborhood
by Karen J. Rogers

Edge Wireless is trying once again to get a permit to install a 100' tall cell phone tower on pristine Dogwood Ridge, overlooking the Deetz and Hammond Ranch areas. Their plan is to erect the tower on a 96 acre ridge top parcel owned by Glenn and Corky Addcox. The structure would tower 30% higher than the tallest trees on the ridge, and at full build-out would hold antenna and panels from up to 4 different wireless providers.
This proposal is fraught with problems and much opposition, and brings up issues of cell tower proliferation, visual aesthetics, and private neighborhood rights, including utilizing private dirt road easements in residential areas for commercial purposes.
Edge's original application was 2 1/2 years ago. The public outcry was huge. Over 100 people wrote letters in opposition to this tower, and over 400 signed a petition against it. At the last minute, at the request of Edge, the application was “continued”, for unknown reasons. And over the years, it faded from our memory. It felt we had “won”.
On November 23, 2005, a Notice of Public Hearing was published, and citizens were given a scant 10 days notice of the re-hearing for Edge for the same project… interestingly, just before the start of the busy Thanksgiving holiday, and the first storms of the season. (This timing seems an almost deliberate attempt to thwart the public process, … after a 2 1/2 year continuance. Interestingly, their original application in 2003 was just before the Easter holidays.)
Still with only 10 days Notice as allowed by law, scores of people have written letters again, including the Hammond Ranch Landowners Association, in opposition to the tower. Many have questioned the legality of the notification process, claiming that they had requested to be individually notified of any actions regarding this project, as allowed by law, but were not notified.
The Siskiyou Co. Planning Commission hearing for this item, UP-02-24, is scheduled for December 7, 2005, before this newsletter will be printed. So the outcome will have occurred by the time you receive this.
The Planning Department staff has recommended the Use Permit be approved. They say that it “meets the requirements” of Siskiyou County Code Section 10-6.1518, Wireless Communications facilities.
I have reviewed their recommendations, and their Mitigated Negative Declaration, and am not in agreement that it meets the requirements of this Code. A number of their determinations are inaccurate, or subjective. For example they state that the visual impact is minor and can be mitigated. Hundreds of people that signed petitions do not agree, and feel the tower will be a visual blight on their natural and pristine viewshed. The planners state that the use is compatible with the surrounding land use, in a rural residential neighborhood. But the residents who live there don't think so.
The proposed road easement for this cell tower is Deer Creek Road., a private steep dirt road at the west end of Deetz, in a rural residential neighborhood. Most of the landowners with easements are opposed to the project, and have not agreed that their residential road include a commercial use on it. Edge is required by our Wireless Ordinance to demonstrate that they have a legal right to use the easement. An approval by the Planning Commission could force these landowners into a costly court battle with Edge and the Addcox's over the right to use the road.
If the Commissioners approve the permit, Edge is free to begin building -- unless citizens appeal the decision to the Board of Supervisors. An appeal must be filed within 10 days of the decision, and costs $750. If the Commissioners deny approval of the Permit, Edge will also have 10 days in which to appeal.
So, what's so objectionable about a cell tower ? If we want to use the technology, we need to accept the ugly reality of putting up with some towers, right?
Like most other things in life, it's a bit more complicated than that. The technology could and should be a whole lot safer. For example, Europeans enjoy cell phones, but have cell tower emission standards 1,000 times more stringent than ours in the U.S. !
Reputable studies are widespread that this technology causes serious health problems. Check out the article on our website “Health Effects from Cell Phone Tower Radiation”. It contains many websites and references that have excellent and updated information on this topic. http://www.mountshastaecology.org/17other01cellphones.html.
Personally, I do own a cell phone, and use it for emergencies and occasional convenience. The cell phones themselves, in my opinion, are NOT SAFE and should be used in extreme moderation. Some cell phone units emit far less radiation than others, but this information is extremely difficult to obtain or understand, and requires almost an engineering degree to decipher.
A key here is, we make the CHOICE about our use of cell phones, time we wish to expose ourselves to the radiation, and it is usually intermittent. We can try to buy a safer phone. But the cell phone towers are another story. Once they are up and producing emissions (they may look innocuous, but they are producing constant electromagnetic pollution that extends for miles around), we no longer have a choice. We, and our children, whose brains are extra sensitive, are being exposed to constant 24 hr-per-day radiation, that we cannot turn off or escape. We have no say in the safety of the techno-logy. Given that these cell towers are almost everywhere now, we're getting this radiation just about all the time.
Most of us think of emissions as a substance you can see, from the tailpipe of your car, or a smokestack, or effluent of some sort. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there, or that it isn't' dangerous. Just think of X-rays, and radiation … invisible energies that are harmful to the human body, if received to a too great degree.
Cellular equipment broadcast signals via electromagnetic waves and microwaves sent through the air, at various strengths, and at various frequencies or Hertz. The industry tells us it is “perfectly safe”, and goes so far as to say that health hazards are a “myth”. Well, didn't we hear that from the cigarette companies? The makers of Thalidomide? DDT? Premarin? Vioxx? We are the human guinea pigs, as the industry rakes in their billions in a frenzied competition for more coverage, and customers.
Fifteen years ago, before any of us had cell phones or could even imagine them, the industry knew it was coming, and began paving the way via the Telecommun-ications Act of 1996. This law streamlined the process, ensuring that cell tower networks could be erected quickly, before the public knew what had hit them. The Act enabled the companies to sue cities and counties that turned them down for the wrong reasons. Scientists that had discovered health problems with the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the equipment were silenced, fired, or discredited. The industry groomed their experts to tweak the studies in their favor, and voila, they were deemed “safe”, and our rights to oppose them based on health reasons are considered illegal.
The science of radio and microwave frequencies is incredibly complicated, and takes someone with an Engineering Degree or more technical expertise than most of us, to understand. We are not educated or trained to propose alternatives, or how to even respond to their complex analyses which justify their cell tower “needs”. It is the classic 'wolf guarding the hen house', when they tell us what their studies say they “need” in signal coverage.
Also, there are many different frequencies that can be used to send the signals. Some of these frequencies are known to be worse for human health, others are not so bad. But the frequency chosen has nothing to do with what may harm you or not, it is what the company de-cides for its convenience or profit, with no regard for health.
Many people, including myself, have appealed to the Board of Supervisors to place a Moratorium on further building of cell phone towers, until a full review with meaningful scientific and citizen input can be made of our Wireless Ordinance. We require time to fully study the issue, hire a professional consultant who can objectively advise us of our legal options and rights, and stop this willy nilly placement of cell towers on every last ridgeline. The Supervisors have not acted on this, and it is probably up to citizens to facilitate the process of getting this to a public vote, and make it law. There are a few independent consulting firms that have the legal and technological expertise to decipher the plans of the Wireless corporations, and make recommendations that are in the public's best interests, not the corporation's.
Last fall Edge placed a proposal before our Supervisors to weaken our existing Wireless Ordinance, to entirely skip the public process whenever they wanted to install what they call “stealth” equipment. These would be disguised antennae, so that as long as you didn't really know what it was, they did not have to go through any public notification process. Your neighbor could have one on their house that looked like a rooster, or a weathervane, but it would be emitting electromagnetic radiation. It could have been 15' away from your toddlers bedroom, and you wouldn't have even known about, nor have the right to KNOW about it. The Ecology Center, and several others voiced our objections, attended this meeting, and thankfully, the Board of Supervisors denied their request for this ordinance change. (Z-04-01, October 5, 2004)
Electromagnetic pollution is the new pollution; we're surrounded with it from multiple sources. Isn't it time we slowed this process down, and understand this cellular technology and stop giving the wireless companies license to erect their toxic equipment wherever they decide?
Cell phones are convenient, save lives, and are with us in our modern life. But just as we have SAFER autos over time, safer paints, safer just about everything, why stop with cell towers and equipment ? Do we wait 20 years until epidemiological studies confirm that this radiation has harmed us after all? Or do we pay heed to the hundreds of studies and doctors who are saying that these emissions are harmful, and that there are safer alternatives that still allow us to use this technology?
These cell tower applications will keep coming at us, and they will be built unless we are vigilant with each one, and with revising the county Wireless Ordinance. Please consider making a donation to the Ecology Center earmarked for our Wireless Communications Program, in which we will continue to make progress in this important area.

Karen J. Rogers is an environmental scientist, Board Member of the Ecology Center, Hammond Ranch resident for 21 years, lover of what is natural, wild and kind, and grandmother to 5 year old with a still-growing brain.