Dear Editor:
An application to Hoboken’s Planning Board for 12 cell phone antennas on the roof of a residential building at 78 Jefferson Street has focused attention on problems created by the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996. This law authorized the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to set danger thresholds for electromagnetic radiation and forbids state and local governments to regulate the placement of antenna sites on the basis of harmful environmental effects unless their radiation exceeds the FCC thresholds.
Current FCC thresholds are approximately 5000 times higher than those recommended by some experts in the field and allow radiation levels 100 times higher than those that have been shown to produce negative health effects, including cancer. That’s the bad news.
However, health risks from cell phone antennas can be reduced by reducing their power output and/or moving them away from residents. The number of antenna sites needed to serve 1000 users at a time in a mile-square city could vary from 40-45 low-power sites, each serving 20-25 phones, to 9 or 10 high-powered sites, each serving 100-115 phones. The low power antennas could be safely installed within 50 feet of neighbors, but the higher-powered sites would need to be about 250 feet – one short block – away. Unfortunately, the cell phone companies want to have it both ways: fewer antennas with plenty of power, as close to residents as possible.
You can find more information about radiation from cell phone antennas and the optimization of their placement at www.HobokenCitizens.org/CPA-index.html.
There is some good new: The same federal law that forbids municipalities to regulate antennas on the basis of radiation health effects allows them to regulate them in other ways, for other reasons, that can be useful in protecting health. Hoboken’s new ordinance — being applied for the first time in this application – states that in selecting antenna sites priority should be given to non-residential areas, with residential zones outside of the central business district being least favored. Since the current application is in the later category, the Planning Board should urge the applicant to find a more suitable site.
We urge Hoboken residents, particularly those who live in or near 78 Jefferson Street to attend the Planning Board hearing at 7 p.m. on Thursday, November 6, 2003, in the Conference Room at City Hall (Newark Street entrance), where the application will be decided.
Sincerely,
John Glasel
Daniel Tumpson