Santa Fe, NM Takes Up Wireless Siting June 9; Radio Interviews Cover Glendale’s Experience, Health Issues 2

A proposed Santa Fe, New Mexico ordinance addressing telecommunications facilities in the public right-of-way, including wireline and wireless, will be considered at the Wednesday, June 9 city council meeting. The ordinance requires applicants to (1) obtain a franchise to use the public ROW; (2) obtain Planning Commission approval for the build-out; and (3) obtain relevant permits, such as street-cut and electrical building permits.

Wireless telecommunications facilities outside the public right-of-way are regulated under the city’s Land Use Code.

The Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health and Safety called on elected officials to eliminate franchise agreements for wireless facilities, and to establish strong controls over when, where and in what density cell towers and antennas are installed.

Earlier in the debate over the ordinance, Santa Fe Public Radio aired an April 5 interview with Glendale Public Works Attorney Christina Sansone on the subject of Glendale’s new wireless ordinance, which was approved by city council April 6.

Also on April 5, Santa Fe Radio Cafe discussed potential health hazards of cell phones, wireless towers and antennas, and electro-magnetic fields, in an extended interview with David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment, State University of New York (Albany), and John McPhee, head of the Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health and Safety.

David Carpenter had a lot to say about the potential dangers of cell phones and cell towers. Excerpts:

When you have 70 percent of kids carrying phones with them in schools, that’s very significant exposure.

…The 1996 Telecom Act of the United States specifically bars health and safety considerations in the placement of cell towers…That act is just so grossly inconstitutional as to be incredible. It is a reflection of the power of the telecommunications industry and how they’ve funneled money to Congress to have an act passed that takes away a fundamental right of people to oppose the placement of a cell phone power on the basis of health effects…Its a problem because this industry has enormous power in the U.S.

…I certainly advocate precaution in placement of cell phone towers and in use of cell phones.

…Try to place the cell towers as far away from densely populated areas as possible…Simply inform the public of the debate. Most people think of this as some little far out thing for which there’s almost no evidence, and that really couldn’t be further from the truth. There are some postulated effects for which the evidence is not so strong…[but] there is every indication that excessive exposure to these fields is not good for you. Don’t put wireless in every school. Use landlines. I’m not advocating such rigid regulation because there’s still a lot that’s not known…[however] its likely that we are underestimating the risk.