People want better cell-phone coverage - but at what cost?
By Bruce Barton, Town Crier Staff Writer
 PHOTO BY JOE HU Mountain View Parent Education operates amid the presence of a cellular phone antenna tower in the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District maintenance yard. |
The number of applications for cellular-phone antennas is on the rise, and so is the number of resident concerns. Los Altos already has 15 antenna sites, and that number promises to go up. The number of antenna towers nationwide is expected to double in five years.
As cell phone coverage providers such as Cingular and Verizon attempt to fill gaps in coverage, the companies are targeting residential areas and unleashing a raft of questions about health risks, noise impact and a potential loss in property values.
Two projects in Los Altos and Mountain View have recently heightened residents’ concerns: Verizon’s planned 45-foot monopole for property owned by the California Water Service Company at Giffin Road and Fremont Avenue; and a recently erected “stealth” antenna in the steeple of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Springer Road.
The lure of easy lease money proves tempting for neighborhood schools and churches, often short on cash and looking to fund one project or another. Curtis Church, pastor at the Central Seventh-day Adventist Church of Mountain View, said the $1,500 per month lease income from the cell-phone antenna will fund landscaping and church outreach projects. Last week, the Los Altos School District board of trustees were told of a standing offer by Cingular to erect an antenna at the Egan Junior High School campus. The wireless company offered $400,000 in lease income that district officials said could fund a new track at Egan. However, Randy Kenyon, superintendent of business services, said there has been no movement on the proposal since Cingular first inquired a year ago. Kenyon acknowledged the hesitancy in going forward has to do with anticipated negative resident reaction.
Last year, clergy at Los Altos Lutheran Church were pressured by nearby residents to ditch a plan to install a “stealth” antenna in the steeple of their church at Cuesta Drive and El Monte Avenue.
Property value question
Prompting resident concerns are inconclusive evidence that the antennas pose no health risk and the prospect that having antennas nearby could hurt property values.
Los Altos residents Jackie Wright and Christine Vieira Sellers expect a property value drop of 10 percent or more resulting from the Verizon monopole to be erected near their homes. They, along with neighbors Debra Moe and Christiane Creighton, said they would rather see the pole and its “horrible metallic hum” (Vieira Sellers) erected at the nearby Los Altos Civic Center complex at Hillview Avenue and San Antonio Road, where people would not be exposed to constant radiation by living within a few hundred feet of the tower.
“Putting it (the monopole) in a residential area is unforgivable,” Creighton said.
The council approved the pole in December, accepting staff findings that said, ironically, “the project protects and enhances real property values” and “the project conserves the city’s natural beauty.” Conditions are that the 45-foot-high pole will not go above the tree line and be painted dark green to blend in.
Such findings prompted horselaughs from the neighbors, but Zachary Carter, a planning consultant with Cingular, said people, conversely, may opt out of buying a home due to poor cell-phone coverage.
“It comes down to money. ‘It’s going to depreciate the value of my home,’” Carter said, repeating comments he has heard repeatedly as he has worked with neighborhoods across Silicon Valley about antenna placement. “But as time goes on, they have to have cell-phone service. They won’t buy the house without it.”
Health issues
Unresolved in many residents’ minds is the health risk. Wireless providers offer experts who virtually laugh off any claim that the low-level radiation from cell-phone antennas poses any health issue, even over 30 years. But Vieira Sellers, who has tirelessly researched the issue, said the issue is substantive enough to have prompted the World Health Organization to embark on a five-year study on the long-term risks. The findings will not be completed until 2007.
Kenneth Harker, a retired physicist who lives near the Central Seventh-day Adventist Church of Mountain View, said Federal Communications Commission regulations allow up to 1,000 microwatts per square centimeter of thermal energy from cell-phone antennas. The antenna at the SDA church emits 10.7 microwatts by comparison but still exceeds the 10-microwatt limit set by four other countries - China, Russia, Italy and Switzerland.
The United States has one of the highest acceptable radiation thresholds in the world, and the 1996 Telecommunications Act dictates that local governments cannot cite health risks as a reason for denying antennas as long as the radiation is within FCC limits.
However, some scientists and other experts fear even low-level radiation may be too much. Concerns draw from the nonthermal, or nonheating aspects of long-term exposure to antenna radiation.
Some experts say the Soviet Union purposely bombarded the U.S. Embassy in Moscow with low-level microwave radiation from 1953 to 1976 in an attempt to disorient officials. Two diplomats contracted leukemia.
Some studies have indicated a connection between prolonged exposure to nonthermal radiation and such issues as increased brain cancer cell growth (1997 FDA study), decreased memory (Latvian Academy of Sciences, 1996), increased blood pressure (The Lancet, British medical journal, 1998), headaches and adverse neurological changes (H. Lai, paper at IBC-UK Conference in Brussels, Belgium, 1997).
Such medical problems are not affirmed, because cell phones have not been around long enough to be subjected to a 25-year or 30-year study.
Still, just the discussion of the issue is enough to concern neighbors near cell-phone antennas.
“Cell-phone towers affect people’s perceptions,” said Bobbi Lynn Taylor, a resident near the SDA church. “There’s a perception that cell-phone towers cause cancer. As long as there’s a perception, our property is going to be less marketable and valuable.”
Residents in the Springer neighborhood have joined together with Fremont-Giffin residents to fight residential antennas, calling themselves Citizens for Antenna-free Neighborhoods.
Wireless response
Carter with Cingular doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. An average cell-phone tower, he said, emits about 400 watts, the same wattage as four 100-watt light bulbs.
“I could have a ham radio tower that puts out 10 times the power and it would be allowed as a matter of right, because it’s for me,” Carter said.
He added that people are constantly using cell phones, cupping phones to their ears for lengthy periods.
“It’s only going to get worse,” he said of the demand for cell phones and better coverage. “There’s more and more competition on phones. Most people carry it all the time. There are kids in seventh and eighth grade with phones.”
Cingular and other providers also use signal transmitters in small boxes, set inconspicuously on telephone poles. He said Cingular has employed “stealth” in the placement of their antennas - inside church steeples and, in the case of one antenna, behind the clock tower of a building in Los Altos’ Loyola Corners district.
“We’re driven by complaints,” Carter said. “Why would Cingular spend $150,000 to $250,000, turnkey, to build a site? They want to keep their customers.”
Residents say
Residents, however, said the issue comes down to wanting to have some control over whether or not they want a cell-phone antenna in their neighborhood.
“When you’re using a cell phone, you have a choice (to use it),” Harker said, and assume any health risks associated with cell-phone use. “We’re subjected to this chronically.”
Residents near the SDA church tower said approximately 50 residents from Los Altos living within 300 feet of the tower were not notified by the city of Mountain View about the tower, while 47 Mountain View residents were notified.
Approximately 80 neighbors signed a petition protesting the SDA church’s antenna, but pastor Church remains convinced the lease benefits to the church outweigh what he sees as unfounded concerns of some residents.
“How much do you cater toward misinformed people?” he asked. Church’s chief concern about the antenna installation is the health risk, but he said nothing has yet been proven.
“If science determines a risk factor, we’ll terminate (the lease) immediately,” he said.
The issue of notification failure also resonates with neighbors near the proposed Fremont-Giffin monopole. Vieira Sellers said she received word of one Los Altos hearing in a flier that arrived 11:30 p.m. the night before. Others do not recall receiving a notification.
“What if we just don’t want it?” Vieira Sellers said. “We are the ones who will have to live under this. … Given that we don’t know (the health risks), why not put it someplace where people are going to be exposed intermittently? All it takes is the political will to make this happen. We want them to be placed responsibly.”
Los Altos ordinance
Although wireless guidelines have been in place since 1997, Los Altos officials have in effect acknowledged resident concerns by forming a council subcommittee to look at the impact of cell-phone antennas. Councilmen David Casas and King Lear head the subcommittee.
“We’re trying to keep them (cell-phone towers) out of neighborhoods,” said James Walgren, the city’s community development director. “Part of the effort would be to take a site, like city hall, and proactively work to get first use (by antenna applicants) at city hall.”
Residents feel Verizon and other providers pushed the city around, and they’re worried about providers doing whatever they want to once city approvals are in. Vieira Sellers thinks the monopole will attract additional antennas and the providers will “crank up the power” along with the radiation. Walgren said the city will, in fact, be able to retain control and prevent such scenarios.
Lynn Taylor would like to see a moratorium on approval of any more antennas until an ordinance is in place.
Meanwhile, Verizon officials still need to appear before the planning commission for approval of a shed design. The approval is needed before the monopole project can begin, Walgren said.
