Battle over cellphone masts in Northcliff
26 JUL 2013 00:00 SARAH WILD
Northcliff residents are going to war over the towers littering their view and - they say - their bodies. Is the radiation strong enough to hurt them?
From the Northcliff water
tower, you have a 360-degree view of Johannesburg. On a clear day, you can see
all the way out to the Magaliesberg mountains. The skyline landmark teeters on
what was once called Aasvöelkop, the ridge where Matabeleland founder Mzilikazi
stood before he headed north to Zimbabwe. Today, the area is the Northcliff
Ecopark, a conservancy in the middle of the affluent suburb of Northcliff.
But go around the back of
the towering grey structure and you'll have another view of the place. There,
in the distance, is a cluster of red and grey toothpicks, standing like
sentinels on the boundary of the ecopark. Walk across the veld, and these toothpicks
grow taller and taller until they tower over you and you realise what you are
getting yourself into: a tiny forest of a half a dozen cellphone masts fitted
with 300 to 400 antennas, which are in the business of transmitting and
receiving voice and data signals from residents on the cliff and in the valleys
below.
In battle, armies struggle
for the high ground to gain the advantage over their enemies. But in the case
of Northcliff, the vista is a curse. The outcrop is an ideal location for
cellphone companies to expand their coverage area, but it is the placement of
those masts and their antennas that has pitted neighbour against neighbour.
Murray Hewlett is leading
the crusade against the spread of cellphone masts. He lives in a fortress just
behind the houses where the owners have leased space on their own properties
(many of which are adjacent the ecopark) to cellphone providers to put up their
toothpick towers.
From the outside, Hewlett's
home looks quite normal, albeit expansive, with a grand, sweeping, white
staircase ascending to a bright yellow double-storey house. But underneath its
cheery veneer Hewlett's home is encased in steel plates that cover every inch
of the exterior – expensive armour to fight off an invisible enemy:
electromagnetic radiation.
When I was told a man had
encased his home in R175 000 worth of steel to protect himself and his
family from radiation, I expected to meet someone wearing a tinfoil hat with
strategically placed antennas to ward off negative brainwave energy, with a collection
of crystals hanging from his neck.
But Hewlett disappoints. He
extends his hand, with a smile, and I can see my face reflected in his
expensive-looking dark glasses. The glasses match a dark suit and shiny black
shoes. Hewlett, a geneticist by training, is chief executive of an asset
management company.
Unapologetic
The microwave
radiation from these antennas, he says, is making residents sick and
"every third household is suffering from cancer, nausea and mood
swings". He has gained support for his anti-mast crusade, which has
polarised the community: those with towers versus those who believe that
radiation is affecting their health and reducing property values in a suburb
where an average home can fetch upwards of R2.5-million. He says that he has
the support of nearly 100 households, who have collectively raised about
R40 000 for legal fees so far.
"People are dying. It
is easy to get them to support [the legal battle], especially when they have no
hair, no wife, no stomach," he says, the latter referring to a man in the
area who has had part of his stomach removed along with the cancer that was in
it.
Hewlett says he has
complained to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa),
the cellphone companies and the City of Johannesburg, but has received "no
joy".
When the Mail &
Guardian contacted the city about an application by Yolande Woolford-Le
Roux to erect a cell-mast on her property, the planning department requested
more information because it "has received so many cell-mast application[s]
from Northcliff and unfortunately, they cannot be sure which one you are
referring to in this instance". They replied: "No approval exists nor
can our office recall any complaints referring to this site.".
"We have resorted to
[using] attorneys," says Hewlett. The attorneys have, in turn,
specifically targeted the residents who have towers. Woolford-Le Roux is one of
them. In fact, she appears to have become the target of a lot of the
anti-cellphone tower vitriol in the neighbourhood.
This 46-year-old mother is
unapologetic about trying to put a cellphone tower up on her property. At the
moment, her home has only a mast and no antennas because of the legal action
her neighbours have brought against her.
"It's not like I do it
for the money," says Woolford-Le Roux. "I get R2 000 a month for
this thing, and it takes up quite a lot of space." To be fair, one has to
put that R2 000 into the context of a Northcliff lifestyle. If you were to buy
a R2.5-million house with a 100% bond over 20 years at an interest rate of
8.5%, your repayments would be about R27 000 a month, so R2 000 translates into
chump change around here.
Besides, she says, she has a
good reason for putting the mast in her yard. Two years ago she, along with her
teenage children, was held up outside her home by five armed men.
"They held guns to my
head, to my children's heads," she says. "They were here for half an
hour … and we had no cellphone reception."
Radiation control
She wanted
to ensure she was never without reception again.
"People say there is
going to be a war, that no one will be friends with you … I've been living here
for 15 years and no one greets you anyway," she says.
Woolford-Le Roux works from
home and says she would not have tried to put a mast on her property if there
was a chance that it would hurt her or her children.
"I think people are
ignorant. I did my homework before I made a decision," she says, adding
that she did not take MTN's word for it and consulted specialists from
Stellenbosch about the matter. (Repeated attempts to contact MTN, which is
erecting the mast on Woolford-Le Roux's property, were unsuccessful.) The
specialists assured her that the masts would not be detrimental, which happens
to be the stance of the South African department of health as well as the World
Health Organisation (WHO). The official stance of the WHO, according to its
website, is that "to date, no adverse health effects have been established
as being caused by mobile phone usage".
This stance was reiterated
by the health department in a memo written March 2011 by the department's
deputy director for radiation control.
But what happens when you
multiply the numbers of masts and antennae?
Condemning antennas in
general, says Hewlett, "would be like saying sunshine is bad for you.
That's nonsense, but if it's magnified, it burns."
The licensing of cellphone
masts and base stations falls under Icasa, but its spokesperson, Paseka Maleka,
said that while the authority licenses cellular operators on a national scale,
it does not regulate the placement of towers. Numerous follow-up questions to
Maleka regarding the number of licences that have been awarded were not
answered.
But Marnus Van Wyk, the
director of EMSS Consulting, which assesses mast and antenna applications
across the country, says the issue is not the number of masts, or even the
number of antennas.
Cellphone-mast matters
"It's
the systems and the power of the transmitters," he says. "The number
of antennas is not indicative of exposure. Fifteen microwave dishes can
transmit less power than one television system," he says, noting that EMSS
has been involved in the majority of mast and antenna erection around the
country and "when we leave a site, we do everything to make sure it is
compliant".
Meanwhile, Denis Warren-Tangney,
the director of law firm Thomson Wilks in Sandton, who is acting for Hewlett
and the residents' association, says that this is one of two cellphone-mast
matters being dealt with by the firm; the other one is in Fourways, also in
Johannesburg.
"There is a lot of
information gathering, and it is a long and slow process because there's no
legal precedent in this country," Warren-Tangney says.
However, while health
concerns are the first thing residents mention, he is arguing the case on the
grounds of visual pollution and decreasing property values "because of
the expense in proving health issues".
"We have precedent
regarding visual pollution and decrease in [property] value," he says, and
arguing health effects would "cost a fortune because we'd have to get
medical specialists for each and every [resident blaming ill health on the
cellphone masts]".
While Vodacom is not
involved in this particular legal wrangle, its spokesperson, Richard Boorman,
agreed to speak to the M&G. He said that people had fixated on the
masts while cellphone devices create greater radiation exposure because they
are held closer to the body.
Boorman hit back at the
notion that the numerous masts and antennae could be causing sickness, noting
that if that were the case, Brixton residents who live in the shadow of the
237m high Sentech tower would be filling Johannesburg's hospitals because its
signals are substantially stronger.
Significant broadcaster
Van
Wyk explains it like this: radiation exposure depends on your position relative
to the structure. So, because Sentech is a significant broadcaster, with a
signal radius of more than 100km, its reach is much wider than cellphone
antennas. His company's 2009 information sheet on electromagnetic radiation
from mobile phone base stations indicates that the "main beam" of
radiation is perpendicular to the antenna and "typically points in the
direction of the horizon".
"The result is that
only a very small percentage of the radiated energy will be present in the
regions outside the main beam," it reads. What that means in terms of the
Sentech tower is that the "main beam" of radiation would be aimed at
the horizon, rather than on the people below.
People in Northcliff are
genuinely scared. But this seems to be a community that has been dogged by fear
for years. A spate of violent crime has also terrorised the community. It was
Hewlett, who now leases the area around the Northcliff water tower for the
ecopark, who got the surrounding roads boomed off, including erecting big
fences with only one entrance, making it more difficult for criminals to move
around the area undetected.
Despite the antipathy
between them, Woolford-Le Roux gives Hewlett credit for making the suburb
safer: "Murray succeeded in closing off the area, and I'm thankful."
Many residents are finding a
sense of community in the crusade against cellphone towers.
Alex Rutte, who lives in
Louie Avenue, says that while he does not "know a lot about cell-mast
technology … the aesthetics of such a structure are definitely an issue,
especially in an area where homes are expensive." He also points to the
"serious health concerns", but, like most in the area, he does not
give specifics.
Are the health concerns
regarding cellphone radiation well founded?
In 2011 the International Agency
for Research on Cancer, a unit of the WHO, classified cellphone radiation as
"group 2B", which means it is "possibly carcinogenic".
Critics read this as "cellphones cause cancer" and proponents read it
as "cellphones don't harm people". But it's difficult to read this
carcinogen as a real threat. After all, substances included in "group
2B" also to include coffee, pickled vegetables and titanium dioxide, which
is found in toothpaste.
Accepted science
A Danish
study in 2004 conducted by the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in the Danish
Cancer Society and which was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the
National Cancer Institute in 2006, assessed incidences of cancer among
cellphone users. For 21 years the research followed more than 420 000
people who took out cellphone subscriptions between 1982 and 1995 – making it
the largest study to date. It found no increased risk of cancer.
The Interphone project, a
collaboration among 13 nations made up of 21 scientists and commissioned by the
WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer, had similar results. It
found no link between cellphone usage and brain tumours.
Of the project's
€19.2-million funding, about €5.5-million came from industry sources, the WHO
noted upon the release of the findings of the study, which involved more than
5000 brain cancer patients. Similar studies have been undertaken in Britain,
Sweden and Germany – producing similar results.
But Hewlett is dissatisfied
with the accepted science, and points to a group called BioInitiative and its
2013 report. According to its website, the report "has been done
independent of governments, existing bodies and industry professional societies
that have clung to old standards" and was compiled by "29 authors
from 10 countries, 10 holding medical degrees, 21 PhDs and three [master's
degrees]". Their research has found that electromagnetic radiation causes
neurological and gene damage, is a risk factor for Alzheimer's Disease, can
damage sperm and impair foetal development and can cause cancer.
Hewlett stands by the
BioInitiative report rather than those of government health authorities, saying
that governments are swayed by industry. Without disclosing names, he shows me
50 survey responses from residents as proof that people in the community are
ill. Some of the responses tick every ailment – from headaches to nausea to
insomnia – while others report no complaints at all. A cursory glance through
the responses does not reveal anything conclusive and it is not possible to say
whether the majority of residents believe they are sick.
Hewlett has a machine that
measures the strength of the electric field, a Geiger counter for microwave
radiation. These devices, called microwave power meters, are usually used in
industry to detect microwave radiation leakage in operations, or by consumers
to check whether their microwave is faulty. It is yellow and looks like a thick
scientific calculator.
He maintains that "some
first-world countries" have a minimum radiation level of 20 millivolts per
metre (mV/m)in urban areas. Outside his house the counter spikes into the
thousands, peaking at 16000mV/m. Inside the steel-clad walls and behind the
reflective windows, the reading drops to about 600mV/m. I am suitably horrified
and want to leave the area as soon as possible.
But back at my desk I looked
up standard limits for radiation-exposure levels. The guidelines of the
International Commission for Non-Ionising Radiation Protection – a non-profit
scientific organisation based in Germany – which South Africa adheres to, say
the maximum radiation is 87 000mV/m, meaning that, at 16000mV/m, if Hewlett's
machine is right, the Northcliff area is well below the international standard.
Home improvements
This
guideline, as laid out in a 1998 report on non-ionising radiation, stipulates
these numbers because at higher radiation levels, the body's temperature
increases. The maximum threshold of 87 000mV/m is when the radiation
raises the body's temperature by more than a degree, which is dangerous
to the normal function of health and cells.
But Hewlett is not convinced
by official platitudes, studies or some doctor telling him it's all going to be
okay. He says that big business is putting pressure on regulators and research
bodies. In fact, he says, as soon as the case was brought against Woolford-Le
Roux, MTN's lawyers stepped in, something which she herself admits.
"You'll never win
against cellphone companies," he says, likening it to fighting tobacco
companies. A case against a cellphone company about the possibly damaging
effects of radiation has not gone to court in South Africa, it is always
settled out of court beforehand, so there is no legal precedent, something
which is echoed by his lawyer, Warren-Tangney.
Vodacom's Boorman also says
that, to his knowledge, there has been no case of this nature against a
cellphone company. Cell C said: "While we have had some objections [or]
complaints, there has been no litigation."
To date, no personal injury
lawsuits against cellphone providers have been won in the United States,
although a number have been brought before the court.
Hewlett will not be deterred
from his mission. "I spend enough money to make myself and my family
safe," he says.
His bill has already topped
R350 000 and, without breaking the amount into specifics, his fortress is
not yet complete. A coating of specialised paint from Germany will be the final
finish on the house's armour. When asked whether his home improvements have
made a difference, he says he is living proof.
"We had headaches,
nausea, insomnia, our two-day old baby started to pop out teeth at the same
time as I discovered two precancerous moles on my arm," he says, rubbing
the area to show where they were. "The instant I put up the shielding,
they were gone."
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-07-26-00-firstworldproblems-battle-over-cellphone-masts-in-northcliff
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