Subject: [NEXTEL-1] FCC Inspects Astoria Cell Tower After Months Of Tenant Protests

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 13:31:47 -0400

FCC Inspects Astoria Cell Tower After Months Of Tenant Protests

by Keach Hagey, Chronicle Reporter October 16, 2003

Residents called the FCC to inspect towers on the roof of their building at 32-42
33rd Street on Tuesday.

(photo courtesy of Pinnacle Telecom)

The Federal Communications Commission conducted its first inspection of a New York
City cell phone antenna atop an Astoria apartment building on Tuesday, a major
victory for residents who have been protesting the tower for months.
The residents claim that T-Mobile, the cell phone company that has been renting
roof space at 32-42 33rd Street since this past spring, improperly installed three
of the nine antennas, allowing people in a nearby building to be exposed to
radiation levels in excess of FCC guidelines.

“You could go right up to the face of the panels and touch them,” said John
Campos, a resident of a nearby building. He has been one of the leaders of the
group protesting the towers, which meets every Tuesday and recently formed a
non-profit organization called the Astoria Neighborhood Coalition.

Although the allegedly illegal antennas were removed during the summer shortly
after the problem was brought to the attention of a T-Mobile representative, the
residents filed the complaint on the grounds that the cell phone company knew all
along that it was potentially putting residents in harm’s way.

Campos knows what the cell phone company’s original plans were because they blew
off the building one night into his neighbor’s yard. They detailed the positioning
of the panels, showing one third of them directly facing the roof of the adjoining
building. Both buildings are owned by Nathan Katz, who signed the rental deal with
T-Mobile.

On the Fourth of July, dozens of residents gathered on the roof to watch the
fireworks, unaware that they were being exposed to microwave radiation at close
range.

According to FCC regulations, if a cell phone company has plans to install any
panels that might be directly accessible to the public, it must first conduct an
environmental assessment survey.

“The survey costs about a quarter of a million dollars, which of course they
didn’t do. They just took down the antenna to destroy the evidence,” said Evie
Hantzopoulos, another coalition leader, who lives across the street.

In response to the coalition’s efforts, T-Mobile sent community liaison Jane
Builder to inspect the antenna site in July. According to Campos, Builder
determined that the site was “unacceptable” and immediately had the station shut
down and the offending antennas removed from the roof. Now he feels that the
company is “trying to cover up a situation that was potentially hazardous.”

On October 8th, T-Mobile released a statement that the antennas were removed due
to “aesthetic modifications” and that a radio frequency survey it commissioned
indicated that the antenna operations are in compliance with the FCC.
“We took it down and put a sheath around it so that when people look at it, they
are not looking at something that looks like an antenna,” said T-Mobile
spokeswoman Laura Altschul, adding that the company was responding to neighbors’
concerns about having to stare at an antenna.

“To suggest that this antenna was removed for aesthetic purposes is disingenuous,”
Campos said. “We have photo documentation which shows how they were positioned and
the fact that people were able to stand in front of them, which according to the
FCC, is a potential violation of safety, not aesthetics.”

But, according to a September 24th report by the Pinnacle Telecom Group, an
independent engineering team hired by T-Mobile, the site is safe. Inspectors came
out to the site on September 18th to take readings of radio frequency radiation on
the roof, inside the building and at street level.

On the rooftop, they determined that the RF level was six percent of the maximum
limit allowed by the FCC. In the hallways and stairwells of the building, it was
two percent.

“Note that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has stated that continuous human
exposure to RF fields up to and including 100 percent of the FCC limits is
considered safe,” the report stated.

Pinnacle put the building’s reading into context by adding that “ambient
street-level exposure averages 1.6 percent of the FCC limit” and that the RF
energy levels in kitchens usually ranges between three and seven percent of the
limit, due to the energy emitted by common household appliances.

The report mentions that a third panel was removed prior to the survey, but does
not state the reason for its removal.
The coalition is not accepting the results of the survey. “This is basically a
shallow attempt by T-Mobile to cover up the fact that this site was potentially
out of compliance with the FCC regulations,” Campos said.

“The survey they conducted does nothing to address the long-term, non-thermal
effects of continuous, low level RF radiation and was not complete in measuring
the existing RF levels,” Hantzopoulos said.

In her presentation to Community Board 1 on September 16th, she complained of the
worrisome, “everything is safe” mantra of the telecommunications companies.

“They tell us that studies have shown that everything is fine. What they are not
saying is that they can prove that these things are safe. What they are not saying
is that scientists around the world are finding that indeed, we should be
concerned.”
She pointed to the example of Dr. George Carlo, who was hired by the
telecommunications lobby to head up a $25 million research project to prove cell
phone radiation is safe, but then quit after six years of research because he
found evidence of DNA damage and links to brain cancer.

“We’re behind the science on this,” Campos said. “The problem is that all the
research done in this country is funded by the telecommunications industry. It was
all done in the late ’80s and early ’90s.”

Because of the lack of convincing research proving that long-term exposure to RF
radiation is safe, the coalition argues that communities ought to be notified when
a tower is going up, and ought to be able to find out just how many antennas there
are in the neighborhood.

Until recently, these requests could have been granted by the community board.
According to Zoning Regulation 22-21 of the city charter, telecommunications
companies must apply to the Board of Standards and Appeals for a permit to build
in a residential neighborhood. That permit application requires a public hearing
with legal, consultant and architectural fees up to $75,000 per application.

However, in 1998, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings Richard Visconti issued a
technical memo allowing the telecommunications companies to bypass this long and
costly process.

“There is nothing in the city charter that allows a commissioner of the DOB to
nullify a zoning regulation with a technical memo. So what Visconti did was
illegal,” Hantzopoulos said.

Campos further argues that Visconti not only broke city law with his memo, but
also broke federal law by requiring the towers to be under six feet tall to bypass
zoning, while FCC regulations require that the towers be more that 6 feet off the
roof in order to be exempt from FCC scrutiny.

As a result of these blanket exemptions issued by the FCC, together with
Visconti’s technical memo, no government agency is keeping track of how many cell
phone base stations there are in the city.

Often the cell phone companies don’t even have a clear idea of how many of their
own towers they operate. “We don’t have a general map of it,” Altschul said,
adding that she couldn’t even estimate the number of antennas in the metropolitan
area.
This week, Senator Charles Schumer issued a report criticizing cell phone
companies for not fixing service in the city’s 65 “dead zones,” where cell phones
often fail, and calling for an inquiry into whether service gaps violate federal
law.
He cited a J.D. Power study that ranked New York City last in customer
satisfaction and call quality in the 27 largest markets. The major providers being
investigated are: Cingular, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint PCS.

Altschul said that T-Mobile supported Schumer’s concern. “We need to fill those
dead zones. There’s a security issue involving homeland security, and there’s a
911 issue.”

But Campos and the coalition believe that using private infrastructure to support
what is, in essence, a public utility is unacceptable. They are pushing for
legislation which will set up a monitoring and land use planning procedure to
insure that residents have a voice, and say they will sue the city if they need
to.

In response to residents’ concerns, Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. is planning to
submit four pieces of legislation to the City Council in the next two weeks that
would call for a council hearing on the issue, demand a city Health Department
study of the effects of exposure to radiation, mandate that the DOB keep track of
the towers and allow the city to begin regulating their placement.

Vallone said the last piece is proving the hardest to draft. According to
Altschul, the reason for this is clear: cell phones would not work if antenna
sites were limited to non-residential areas.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10330225&BRD=1865&PAG=461&dept_id=152944&rfi=6

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 15:23:26 -0400

Here is where the FCC needs to inspect!

Nextel Installs Antennas 10 Feet From Local Residents Bedroom (Yes 10FT See Pic)

Town Online , Needham, MA
By Deborah Eisner / Chronicle Staff
Wednesday, September 3, 2003

It is nearly impossible to walk down the street in
Cambridge and not realize the impact the cellular
telephone industry has had on day-to-day life. Cell
phones are everywhere - on the bus, in the grocery
store, in the hands of the driver in the next lane.

But Catherine Brady and Nancy Cole, who live on
Porter Park, need not leave their house to see the
industry's mark. They can look out their bedroom
window and seen four Nextel antennas within 10
feet of their bed.

Those same antennas are 10 feet from next-door
neighbor Pat Herrington's teenaged sons'
bedroom, and the Porter Park residents are crying
foul, fearing the antennas may be damaging to their
health.

The four antennas - plus eight more on the building
- were installed on the Masonic Temple, 1950
Mass. Ave., in December 2002 after the Board of
Zoning Appeal granted Nextel a special permit in
July 2001. Porter Park residents, whose properties
back up on the rear of the temple, say the permit
was granted illegally, an appeal that was denied by
the BZA on July 17, 2003.

Meanwhile, an attempt by Verizon to place
antennas atop 1648 Mass. Ave., a residential
apartment building with ground-floor retail space,
was denied by the BZA in June because the
location was too close to residences. Verizon is
appealing that case.

As cell phone use increases, companies are
battling for rights to site antennas throughout the
city to improve service. But the Cambridge City
Council now wants to take a step back and look at
what effect those antennas have on nearby
residents.

A City Council order adopted unanimously Aug. 4
asks City Manager Robert Healy and the law
department to propose language that would tighten
up the regulations guiding the placement of cell
phone antennas near residences.

"It is quite obvious that people in the city are being
surprised by where cell phone antennas can end
up," said Vice Mayor Henrietta Davis, who
introduced the order. "I know that we are hamstrung
by the federal government, but we should do as
much as we can within those regulations or within
those restraints."

Local authority was limited significantly by the Telecommunications Act of 1996,
in
which the federal government said cities and towns cannot prevent towers or
antennas
from being built based on anything but aesthetics. Health effects, or possible
health
effects of electromagnetic radiation exposure, cannot be taken into account at the
local
level, the Federal Communications Commission has ruled.

"The research hasn't been done ... The research hasn't been done to connect the
rest
of the dots because the industry is funding the studies," said Janet Newton,
president
of the EMR Policy Institute, a lobbyist group based in Vermont that is fighting
the cell
phone industry. EMR stands for electromagnetic radiation.

City Councilor Anthony Galluccio, who wrote a letter supporting the residents at
1648
Mass. Ave., said the city needs more information about health effects before it
can
make an informed decision.

"I think we need to get a handle on the level of risk involved with cell phone
towers in
proximity to residential dwellings. I don't know the answer to it, but clearly
residents
think there are health risks involved," he said.

Currently, antennas are allowed anywhere in the city not zoned as open space so
long
as "nonresidential uses predominate in the vicinity of the proposed facility's
location
and that the telecommunication facility is not inconsistent with the character
that does
prevail in the surrounding neighborhood," the zoning code says.

But Porter Park residents want to know how their neighborhood is not considered
predominantly residential.

"[The FCC] says 10 feet isn't too close, but I don't think they know enough to say
that,"
Brady said. "We'd like to see them removed and put someplace that's not so close
to
housing."

Possible health effects aside, Brady said she and her partner, Cole, have been
harmed
financially. Just months before the antennas went up, the two built a $100,000
addition
on their house, but they are convinced their property value has diminished as a
result of
the antennas.

Davis said that diminished property value is a valid concern.

The most alarming part for Brady and other Porter Park residents is the issue of
notification. Although the BZA file on the case has letter to abutters notifying
them of a
hearing in June 2001 and the subsequent decision approving the permit in July,
nine
abutters and neighborhood residents signed affidavits swearing they never received

such letters.

"The really frustrating thing here is had we been able to go to the original
hearing ... we
might have been able to stop this," Brady said.

Brady said she did not learn of the decision until she looked out her window just
before
Christmas last year and saw construction on the roof. Although that was well past
the
90-day appeal period, which ended in November 2001, Brady and her neighbors hired
a lawyer and appealed the decision. Their appeal was denied.

Inspectional Services Commissioner Robert Bersani testified at the appeal hearing
that his assistant said she sent them out. In a recent phone call to the
Chronicle, he
said he had nothing further to add on the notification issue.

Representatives from both Nextel and Verizon maintained the health effects are
insignificant and that the FCC has deemed the antennas safe for usage in
residential
neighborhoods.

Wireless companies pay rent, approximately $1,500 a month, to property owners who
agree to house antennas.

Contact Deborah Eisner at [email-masked].
http://www.townonline.com/cambridge/news/local_regional/cam_covcccellphonesms09032003.htm