Portland’s next great neighborhood war has barely begun and already been lost.
You wouldn’t know the cause is hopeless from the signs dotting the leafy Northeast neighborhoods of Beaumont-Wilshire and Irvington, the ones defiantly asking, “Where are you when we need you, Amanda Fritz?” and insisting, “No Cell Towers in Residential Areas!”
But facts are facts. There are about 800 wireless antennas within city limits. Experts expect that to double in the next few years, with many going in residential neighborhoods.
Today, Sunnyside and Mount Tabor. Tomorrow, your neck of the woods. And there’s not much you can do.
“The bottom line is that these things make bad neighbors. They’re ugly. They’re noisy. Who knows what they do to your health?” said Colin O’Neill, an organizer of the anti-cell-tower group RespectPDX and a homeowner near a new antenna wireless provider Clearwire is installing in Beaumont-Wilshire.
You wouldn’t know the cause is hopeless from the signs dotting the leafy Northeast neighborhoods of Beaumont-Wilshire and Irvington, the ones defiantly asking, “Where are you when we need you, Amanda Fritz?” and insisting, “No Cell Towers in Residential Areas!”
But facts are facts. There are about 800 wireless antennas within city limits. Experts expect that to double in the next few years, with many going in residential neighborhoods.
Today, Sunnyside and Mount Tabor. Tomorrow, your neck of the woods. And there’s not much you can do.
“The bottom line is that these things make bad neighbors. They’re ugly. They’re noisy. Who knows what they do to your health?” said Colin O’Neill, an organizer of the anti-cell-tower group RespectPDX and a homeowner near a new antenna wireless provider Clearwire is installing in Beaumont-Wilshire.
Federal regulations bar local governments from blocking antennas over health concerns. Cities can use land-use laws to steer towers into commercial and industrial areas but have scant say over them in the public right-of-way — say, on utility poles outside your house.
A few years ago, Portland leaders decided that they’d rather have more, smaller antennas than a few giant old-fashioned cellular towers. So city regulations encourage smaller antennas above busy streets on existing structures such as church steeples and water towers.
The problem: There aren’t many of those in residential neighborhoods, where more and more of us rely on wireless.
For providers, utility poles are the easiest way to expand. That turns scary when you consider how many poles there are in Portland — 170,000 at last count — how close many sit to porch swings, dinner tables and baby cribs and how little we really know about the long-term health impact of all these wireless devices.
“I don’t want my family to be the test case,” said Steven Cole, who lives across the street from the proposed Irvington antenna. “Nobody does.”
We don’t have a choice. Under city policy, companies must warn neighbors that a new antenna is coming, must meet with them and let them vent. Venting, however, isn’t close to vetoing. By the time providers file the proper paperwork, they’ve spent months figuring out precisely where they need a new antenna. They’re not likely and certainly not required to change because a few homeowners grumble.
Last year City Council members asked Congress to kill the federal rule saying cities can’t use health concerns to block new towers. Earlier this year, they voted to join Arlington, Texas’, petition challenging the Federal Communication Commission’s authority. Those are largely symbolic gestures, not the full-fledged, full-throated legal challenge antenna opponents want.
“Basically, if the carrier says, ‘We want to be here,’ that’s what happens,” O’Neill said. “How is that possible? How can our elected officials possibly think that’s acceptable?”
City regulators say a lawsuit would be a waste of taxpayer money. City commissioners have opted for a more deliberative approach, using contracts with cell phone and wireless carriers who want to do business in Portland to impose some common sense restrictions on, for example, how tall antennas can be. The deals are up for renewal in two years. (Don’t think about how many more antennas are coming between now and then. You’ll just upset yourself.)
“Portland has done everything it can to make this as reasonable as possible under the limitations imposed by the federal government,” said David Soloos, the city’s antenna expert. “We are not allowed to regulate the wireless industry.”
Sadly, he’s probably right. At every step, providers have been ahead of federal regulators. The battle ended before it even started.
Welcome to the future. The cell phone reception is crystal clear, and you can check your email anywhere. Just watch out for the heartburn.
- Anna Griffin
Because schools are so poorly funded and desperate for money, they are now resorting to hiding cell phone towers on their premises. Almost everyone is familiar with the potential health peril of proximity to cell phone towers. Already, our children use cell phones for hours each day. Adding a proximity to radiation from towers can only increase those risks.
Parents and administrators often feel compelled to get more money for the school for their children’s education. Yet the same individuals may not be entirely aware of the significant risks these towers may pose to their children’s health.
And schools are not alone. Churches and hospitals are doing the same thing: permitting cell phone towers to be placed on their facilities in order to maintain enough financial “health” to remain operational. These public institutions are competing with each other for scarce funds, and therefore perhaps have turned a blind eye to the potential harmfulness of these towers.
Why are Schools Negotiating With Cell Phone Companies?
Many schools have found their ability to afford supplies on conventional budgets to be overly limited. They therefore have felt forced to make nontraditional deals to supplement their funds. In the case of deals with cell phone companies, schools under extreme financial pressure may have made such deals without completely evaluating the health risks to children.
Wireless technologies are already prevalent in children's homes, meaning continuous exposure during sleep time. Cell phone towers at school during the day add to potential risk.
A Dangerout Ignorance
Parents of school children have a lot to deal with. Already some parents are up from 7 in the morning to 1 AM at night every school day, just to manage their kids’ needs. Many parents of them do not feel the luxury of researching every potential health consequence befalling their children. But this potential peril is particularly troubling.
If not now, when?
Parents may not see the actual consequences that may ensure from this sort of problem until after many years down the road. It is therefore all the more important that they come together now to question the potential harmfulness of these school towers to the health of their children, and to determine whether there are other less perilous ways of supplementing school budgets.
It’s Time to Work Together
We must work together to find another way, not only in this area of the current microwaving of everyone's brains, but in health, food, sick buildings, and on the economy. We must create healthy communities with healthy businesses and governing bodies from the ground up, in which people inform each other and join together to make healthy decisions.