Of course HEALTH should be a concern!

Finally, some local governments are coming to their senses and taking a closer look at that pesky little FCC ruling of 1996 that states that "health" cannot be a reason for local zoning officials to deny a tower application.  With these towers popping up everywhere these days, it is about time someone starting thinking about the cumulative radiation of so many towers. 

For example, the Margart Harris Academy, a DeKalb County school selected for a cell tower during the vote they held this past July, has 155 cell phone towers in a four mile radius of their school!  And, folks, we only have a total of 5 carriers in all of great Atlanta!  AND, they all must co-locate on each other's towers before they are permitted to build a new one. 

So, even when a company states it is "well below federal standards," you should not assume that this is the promise they will live with once their zoing is approved.  The application is usually for only one provider, the one building the tower usually.  But, as soon as it is up, you will notice more and more and more antennas being added.  These are all the new providers they are receiving nice sublease income from that likely offsets anything they had to pay for the tower in the first place.



Sadly, in DeKalb County, we have some strange laws in conflict that all of this does not really matter.  Apparantly, here we have a rule that the school board can do whatever it wants and our elected county commissioners and any other local officials cannot do anything but "rubber stamp" approvals on whatever they submit.  That is pretty scary since it is unlikely that our elected school board members are also RF radiation experts or even know much about microwave radiation at all.  When asked if he could explain the electromagnetic spectrum recently, District Co-Chair Paul Womack stated, "No, no I cannot." 

By the very nature of how cell phones work, the "cells" of radiation that are cast from the towers will overlapp.  That's how they can transfer your call from one tower to the next while you drive without dropping your call, unless you are near Lakeside High School, of course.  Apparantly, the 143 towers they have in a 4 mile radius has not helped them with dropped calls.  Maybe that's because the rich and famous in that area had their stocks tied up with Verizon Wireless and that kept AT&T and T-Mobile on the outside wanting in.  Well, they will get their chance soon since the school was approved for a new tower to add to the one they already put up without a permit at the entrace to Echo Lake.

It will be interesting to see where the PTAs at all our schools decide is the best location for the towers.  That's part of the priveledge they are getting, along with the ability to "direct" $25,000 in funds toward building improvements that probably should have been done 5 years ago.  Oh goodie!