Thorold residents vow to fight cell tower
Neighbours of a property where communications giant Bell Canada plans to build a 14-storey communications tower in Port Robinson say they’re not going to let the project proceed without a fight.
Bell says the 45-metre-tall tower is needed after drive tests and customer comments on “poor and non-existent” wireless service in the area showed a new antenna site in the Highway 406 and Port Robinson Road area is needed for wireless devices such as cell phones and Blackberries that virtually everyone is now carrying.
At the Aug. 28 meeting of city council, city staff recommended the proposal for the tower at 2200 Port Robinson Rd. be supported because the land is intended for future industrial development, and because such towers should be placed in industrial areas rather than in areas planned for residential development.
Senior city planner Eldon Darbyson said the information package sent to neighbours noted electromagnetic emissions from the tower are expected to be only one per cent to five per cent of Industry Canada’s standard known as Safety Code 6, which limits such emissions to Health Canada’s recommended human exposure to certain frequency ranges.
In an information package sent to neighbours, Sean Galbraith, the agent for Bell, noted wireless communications towers are federally regulated and that “as a result are not required to obtain municipal permits of any kind.” Industry Canada does require, however, that public consultation be obtained.
But George Domitrek, who lives 185 metres from what will be the base of the tower, said neighbours plan to show up at next Tuesday’s city council meeting to fight the tower.
Federal rules only require residents living within 135 metres of such towers to be notified of their planned construction. Domitrek said he only learned of the planned tower when he heard about it while watching the most recent city council meeting on television.
“The information was withheld from some neighbours,” he said. “The notification process has been compromised.”
He said allowing Bell to oversee that notification process is fundamentally flawed because it’s a conflict of interest.
“It’s the fox watching the henhouse,” he said.
Darbyson noted the city did receive one phone call from a woman living next to the tower site, who said she and her neighbours are opposed to the tower and that they don’t want to be “guinea pigs for exposure” to the tower’s transmissions.
Domitrek said the explosive growth in wireless technology and all the towers needed for that in recent years mean the long-term health effects of human exposure haven’t yet been determined.
“They (health effects) could be bigger than tobacco or asbestos 20 years from now,” he said. “There’s a lot of talk about health hazards.
“People could get barbecued by this.”
He noted some Canadian cities and towns are calling for exposure to electromagnetic radiation to be 100 times less than what’s spelled out in Industry Canada’s Section 6, to be on the safe side.
Domitrek hopes city council will support calls for the tower plan to be put on hold.
“It’s in council’s best interest to look after the interests of residents of Port Robinson, not Bell Canada,” he said.
Darbyson said in his recent report to city council that Bell’s tower will be designed to accommodate additional wireless carriers, which would reduce the need for other towers in the area in the future.
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