The March of Cell Towers

Photo by Sparsh Karki

Recently Katie’s blog alerted me to the effect that HR-3557 would have across the country if it is passed since it would “effectively force cities to approve of wireless services without due diligence review.” This would mean “unrestricted proliferation of cell towers…near homes, schools and playgrounds” and “on any structure that could support an antenna.” The FCC will be given the power to “exempt environmental reviews and historical preservation review,” overturning a 2019 decision by the D.C. District Court of Appeals “that denied these exemptions.” Many entities such as The National League of Cities oppose this legislation.

On top of that, in California, “AT&T is petitioning the state’s Public Utilities Commission to phase out landlines,” an action, if approved that may be copied in other states.

As we all know from experience, landlines function during power outages which are becoming more and more frequent due to the storms brought on in greater severity by climate change. Cell phones can fail during wildfires, as happened in Maui, Hawaii, where out-of-control wildfires disrupted cell phone service making it impossible for inhabitants to call emergency services. And landlines are safer for the 10 percent of the U.S. population that has some kind of medical implant and for pregnant women, children and others “who may be harmed by exposure to electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobile devices and wireless infrastructure.”

If this alarms you, find out what your representatives in Congress are going to do about HR 3557.

I’ve had a little experience with this issue here in Santa Fe. A few years ago, I walked out of my front door to find trucks and men working to begin installation of a large cell tower at the edge of my garden. I explained that this is private property and that I had not been asked to approve the installation. They packed up and left. But if I had been away, would I have come home to find an enormous cell tower planted in my iris bed?

It has seemed to me since I acquired my first iPhone a year ago, unwillingly, because my flip phone doesn’t work abroad, that the device itself is poorly designed. When I slide it into or out of my pocket, it often turns off the ringer and I have to remind myself to turn it on again. The numbers and letters on the keypad are too small to be easily seen in poor light, and so close together that typos are inevitable as my finger slips off one key and onto another. We would not put up with a stove or a refrigerator that was so difficult to use, but because now “everybody” has one of these infernal machines, even I and others like me, resistant for a long time, sign on. I have only myself to blame if I leave my iPhone on and am interrupted by the ringing, or if I check it every twenty minutes—or every ten minutes—even though ninety percent of my missed calls are commercial offers I do not want to hear. But the weakness of the design itself and the still unanswered questions about the result of being exposed, day and night, to electromagnetic radiation leaves us all in the dark; the only reference to harm I’ve read advises not to sleep with the thing near your head.

Among all the things we worry about, even knowing that worrying is fruitless, this may seem just another burden; but as always in this country, once we have the information, we do know how to act.

In Politics