Cell tower follows woman from coast to desert
Lisa Anderson in Shelter Valley — Peggy Peattie
SHELTER VALLEY — Imagine moving from your home on the coast to escape a nasty neighbor only to have him move next door to your new home 70 miles away in the desert.
That’s pretty much what happened to Lisa Anderson. She had lived for years in Pacific Beach — two blocks from the ocean — “in the middle of paradise,” she said. But something, something she couldn’t at first put her finger on, was wrong.
“For years I was always saying to my husband ‘Let’s get out of town, let’s get out of town.’ I felt very uncomfortable there. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to be there.”
Then she learned they lived within 100 feet of a cellphone tower. Anderson became convinced that microwave radiation from the tower was harming her, as was her cellphone.
So the couple decided three years ago to move just about as far away from the city as they could in San Diego County.
They came to Shelter Valley, a tiny desert community of about 350 homes, many of which are not permanent residences, about 10 miles east of Julian down the Banner Grade. They bought a small house with a great view of a desert valley and surrounding mountains. It took only a few days for her to feel better, she says. And then ...
“I first heard about the tower from my well fix-it guy,” she said.
Folks in Shelter Valley have long wanted cellular service. The mountains made it impossible. When a cell tower construction company called Mobilitie about three years ago contacted members of a community group that owns land in town they were thrilled and eventually entered into a contract to rent the company a piece of land next to the fire station and community center, about 1,100 feet from Anderson’s new home, for the construction of a 45-foot 4G “wireless telecommunication facility.”
Anderson, who says she spends as much time in Shelter Valley as she can but still commutes to the city several days of the week for business, was livid and has spent the last couple of years trying to fight its installation. The battle is all but over and she has likely lost.
The county Planning Commission approved the plans in November, and Anderson’s appeal to the Board of Supervisors sometime next month, she concedes, is likely to fail.
The tower will provide communication to the Shelter Valley area where car crashes are common along State Route S2, and brush fires routinely threaten homes and lives.
Residents have to drive several miles to the Scissors Crossing area to make a cell call.
Resident Ed Genest, treasurer of the small Shelter Valley Citizen’s Corporation, a nonprofit company of some residents formed to better the community, told the Planning Commission in a letter that recently two emergencies requiring extensive communications happened in the area. “While our regular phones were working at the homes, we had no way to contact people as we were traveling through the community checking up on people that were housebound. Cellphone coverage would have been a valuable asset.” The most recent emergency was in October when the “Great fire” burned about 2,000 acres near Shelter Valley. The community was told to prepare to be evacuate but in never came to that.
Genest said the vast majority of residents favor the tower’s construction.
Federal law prohibits local planning boards from even considering health risks of cell towers because the preponderance of scientific evidence shows they do not threaten human or animal life.
But to many people, including Anderson. for every study saying everything is fine, they will argue that other findings suggest reason for concern. At the very least, many scientists and health professionals say, the topic needs further study.
“Can you feel the difference out here?” she asked while sitting in her living room on a sunny late-December desert day. “It’s a very different feeling out here. All of our friends who come out here, it takes them a few days to really notice that.”
Anderson is convinced radiation is harmful, but she says the communication companies and the government can’t be swayed.
The Federal Communications Commission regulates radiation emissions from towers. The county said the proposed Shelter Valley tower falls well within approved levels.
The tower will be built near numerous homes, some as close as 100 feet. Originally it was going to be disguised as a 68-foot-tall faux pine tree until someone pointed out that a pine tree on the desert floor would be more conspicuous that an a tower covered by antennas. Instead, it will be disguised as an old water tower. It will be twice as tall as any other structure in town and have up to 24 panel antennas, four Global Positioning System antennas, and one microwave dish. The area around the tower will be landscaped.
Dozens of signatures of residents and frequent visitors to the area were gathered by Anderson and others in opposition and submitted to the county, but they agree that most of the community favors the tower. Petitions in favor of the project, containing many more signatures, were also gathered.
Anderson’s appeal of the Planning Commission decision doesn’t concentrate on health issues since they can’t be legally considered. Instead she focuses on what she considers the inappropriateness of a cell tower in an area surrounded by a state park, the lowering of property values it might cause, and the possibility of bringing fiber optics underground from Julian into the community instead.
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park officials have not weighed in on the tower.
Verizon has contracted to use the tower, and there is room for another wireless carrier, as well, the county said.
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