By Alexa D’Amato
Westbury Village trustees continued an ongoing discussion at their March 6 meeting about the distance of electromagnetic radiation-emitting wireless boxes from residents’ homes. According to the village mayor, there is evidence to suggest EM radiation could harm human health.
The size of the utility boxes was increased to accommodate more Internet providers, bringing the boxes closer to the ground and to houses. Because of this, communications infrastructure company Crown Castle had to redo the measurements and confirm that each box and antenna is at least 14 feet away from any property, in accordance with village code.
The utility box, called a “cabinet,” is “getting larger,” said Lauren Berg, permitting supervisor for Crown Castle. “The antenna size is actually going to be the same.”
Based in Houston, Texas, Crown Castle owns and operates infrastructure for wireless carriers. The company previously presented incorrect and incomplete information to the village about the distance between utility boxes and the nearest structures.
The report presented to Westbury trustees in December by Berg listed addresses found in Hicksville, not Westbury. That meant Crown Castle had not compiled site-specific information about each utility box, but instead had lumped all information into one report.
Westbury Mayor Peter Cavallaro said, “They did not go to the trouble of creating site-specific information, which relates to the health and safety of the residents in our village, because we’re talking about radiation.”
The maximum amount of EM radiation that each utility box can release is set by the Federal Communications Commission. According to Cavallaro and FCC guidelines, each box must be approved by the municipality, but the level of EM radiation and the possible health concerns that it might pose cannot be part of a municipality’s deliberations.
“There’s a whole series of controversial court cases and regulations that talk about the municipalities’ inability to deny cell tower installations, when there’s scientific evidence that says there are adverse health effects from the radiation of these poles,” Cavallaro said. “The federal government has said that, conclusively, we are not allowed to take into consideration that there were negative health impacts.”
Exposure to high levels of EM radiation can cause fatigue, headache, decreased learning ability and cognitive impairment, according to a National Institutes of Health study.
Cell towers give off radio-frequency radiation, a specific type of EM radiation. High levels of cell phone radiation have been shown to cause tumors in rats, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. This radio-frequency radiation, however, is non-ionizing, which means it is low-level, compared with ionizing radiation, which is high-level. Examples of ionizing radiation include gamma rays, X-rays and cosmic rays, according to the National Cancer Institute.
As a safety measure, Westbury Village requires utility boxes and antennas to be at least 14 feet away from the nearest structure, whether it is a sidewalk or a house window.
Berg presented Crown Castle’s new information to the board, with photos that she said prove the distance is 14 feet. None of the images, though, included measurements, despite the antennas and utility boxes being in use for several months.
Crown Castle “can go back and look at the radiation that was already measured and tell us what the distance is here,” Board Trustee Pedro Quintanilla said.
The board raised concerns after seeing photos of the distance from the antennas and utility boxes. Some trustees said the distance between the boxes and the nearest surface appeared to be closer than 14 feet. After a testy exchange between Berg and the board, it was decided she would return for the next meeting with exact measurements, stamped by an engineer to confirm.
“I thought she was being a little bit obfuscating by saying, ‘What is it exactly you want?’ They do these hearings every night for a week in other municipalities,” Cavallaro said. “She knows what she was required to present to us.”
Ultimately, nothing was resolved by the end of the meeting, as more incomplete information was presented to the board. Crown Castle is expected to present a more thorough report at the next board meeting April 3.
“I’m not happy, and the board’s not happy, that they came here and gave us information that was not relevant to what they were asking us,” Cavallaro said. “It’s their obligation to submit to us information that the FCC requires, that the federal level requires them to give us, so we can make an intelligent decision as to whether or not what they’re proposing is going to cause cancer in somebody that’s living in a house next to one of these towers.”
