Friday, June 21, 2013
NOIDA TO RELOCATE 300 MOBILE TOWERS
NOIDA TO RELOCATE 300 MOBILE TOWERS
Friday, 14 June 2013 | Anup Verma | Noida
In the wake of health risk posed by mobile phone towers, the Noida Authority has decided to relocate all such antennas from residential areas of the city. The authority will identify locations in isolated places — far from residential colonies — where they will be relocated.
There are over 300 such towers that need to be relocated. The recent move of the authority has been initiated after court's direction to allocate mobile towers at isolated locations rather than sealing them.
The officials of the Noida Authority said that earlier they had planned to seal illegal towers, but they are working now on the guidelines of Allahabad High Court, which has ordered to shift all such towers from residential sectors to other places.
"We have ordered the officials to conduct a detailed survey and figure out alternate locations so we could ask mobile tower operators to shift their existing towers to those places. We have also ordered to get rid of the towers from institutional and hospital structures with immediate effect and shift them to other places," said PK Agarwal, Additional CEO of Noida Authority.
In a meeting of senior officials of the Noida Authority recently, the officials planned to shift these towers either to community centers at various sectors or at sparse places so radiation from these towers could not affect the local people.
The officials also decided to stop mobile tower operators from installing more towers in residential areas as city already has around 600 mobile towers for the population of seven lakh. During the meeting, it was also planned to eliminate towers installed atop hospital and institutional buildings.
According to the survey conducted by the Noida authority and city police last year, it was found that out of 600 mobile towers, 300 towers were illegally installed on the roofs of residential units. Twenty per cent of the towers have been illegally installed over institutional and hospital buildings.
In a 2010 sealing drive initiated by the authority, 200 towers were sealed from residential areas. Meanwhile, the Federation of Noida Residents Welfare Association (FoNRWA) has also written to Noida authority seeking removal of mobile towers from the roofs of residential units.
“As residents are suffering from various health disorders due to high radiation from these towers, we have urged the competent authority to take penal action against the companies responsible for their wrongdoing,” said NP Singh, president of FoNRWA.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/city/noida-to-relocate-300-mobile-towers.html
Childhood disease costs $76 billion a year
Childhood disease costs $76 billion a year
Published: May 4, 2011 at 9:54 PM
NEW YORK, May 4 (UPI) -- The childhood healthcare cost of treating U.S. children with lead poisoning dwarfs the cost of childhood cancer or autism, researchers calculated.
Leonardo Trasande of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York says U.S. childhood disease and medical conditions add more than $76 billion in annual U.S. healthcare costs.
Trasande and colleagues focused on the cost of lead poisoning, childhood cancer and chronic conditions, including asthma, intellectual disability, autism and attention deficit disorder -- conditions linked to environmental toxins and pollutants in the air, food, water, soil and homes.
The study, published in the May issue of Health Affairs also found childhood healthcare costs include:
-- Lead poisoning, $50.9 billion.
-- Autism, $7.9 billion.
-- Intellectual disability, $5.4 billion.
-- Exposure to mercury, $5.1 billion.
-- Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, $5 billion.
-- Asthma, $2.2 billion.
-- Childhood cancer,t $95 million.
"Left unchecked, these preventable environmental factors will continue to harm the health of our children and push up healthcare costs," Trasande says. "By updating environmental regulations and laws aimed at protecting the public's health, we can reduce the toll taken by such factors on children's health and the economy."
Leonardo Trasande of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York says U.S. childhood disease and medical conditions add more than $76 billion in annual U.S. healthcare costs.
Trasande and colleagues focused on the cost of lead poisoning, childhood cancer and chronic conditions, including asthma, intellectual disability, autism and attention deficit disorder -- conditions linked to environmental toxins and pollutants in the air, food, water, soil and homes.
The study, published in the May issue of Health Affairs also found childhood healthcare costs include:
-- Lead poisoning, $50.9 billion.
-- Autism, $7.9 billion.
-- Intellectual disability, $5.4 billion.
-- Exposure to mercury, $5.1 billion.
-- Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, $5 billion.
-- Asthma, $2.2 billion.
-- Childhood cancer,t $95 million.
"Left unchecked, these preventable environmental factors will continue to harm the health of our children and push up healthcare costs," Trasande says. "By updating environmental regulations and laws aimed at protecting the public's health, we can reduce the toll taken by such factors on children's health and the economy."
© 2011 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/05/04/Childhood-disease-costs-76-billion-a-year/UPI-34971304560462/#ixzz2Wv7fYU7w
June 20, 2013 Update - Take Action to Oppose Thomas E. Wheeler for FCC Chairman
June 20, 2013 Update - Take Action to Oppose Thomas E. Wheeler for FCC Chairman
The Wheeler confirmation hearing for FCC Chairman at the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation was held on June 18th. View the archived Wheeler hearing webcast.
As of June 20th, no date has been set for the Committee vote on the Wheeler nomination. You can call the Commerce Committee at 202-224-0411 to ask when the vote will be.
Take these steps NOW to oppose the Wheeler nomination. Even if you already have, you can send your messages again if you so choose.
The contact e-mail addresses were updated on June 20, 2013. Staff turnover is a regular event in Congress, so a few of these e-mail addresses have changed.
First Step - Send an e-mail NOW to all the Members of the Senate Commerce Committee to voice your opposition to the Wheeler nomination. Your e-mail should be sent to the Telecommunications staff person for each Committee member. This Commerce Committee e-mail list provides all the information you will need.
Your message can be as simple as this. You are free to use this example:
I request that you vote to oppose the nomination of Thomas Wheeler for Chairman of the FCC. Mr. Wheeler’s actions in his twelve years as President of the Cellular Telephone and Internet Association (CTIA) present too great a conflict of interest for him to be responsible for regulating the wireless industry after being its chief lobbyist from 1992-2004.
Cell phone health effects research is one key example of Mr. Wheeler’s conflict of interest. While President of the CTIA Mr. Wheeler’s actions regarding the CTIA-sponsored cell phone health effects research program were strongly criticized by FDA’s Elizabeth Jacobson. As reported byRCR Wireless News
Ms. Jacobson criticized Wheeler in a July 1993 letter for making press statements about industry-funded cellular cancer research that displayed “an unwarranted confidence that these products will be found to be absolutely safe.”
Jacobson also said in that letter that readers of CTIA press material might “wonder how impartial the research can be when its stated goal is ‘a determination to reassure consumers,’ and when the research sponsors predict in advance that ‘we expect the new research to reach the same conclusion, that cellular phones are safe.”‘
This history makes Mr. Wheeler the wrong choice to oversee the FCC’s current rulemaking to update its radiofrequency radiation human exposure policy.
See The EMRadiation Policy Institute’s opposition letter for Mr. Wheeler’s history as the principal lobbyist for the wireless industry from 1992-2004 and the influence he had on provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Scientists from the BioInitiative Working Group have sent a letter to the members of Commerce Committee asking them to reject Mr. Wheeler’s nomination.
Second Step – Send an e-mail NOW to all 100 Senators’ Telecommunications Staff person. Use the same message that you sent to the Commerce Committee Members. Should Mr. Wheeler’s nomination be approved by the Commerce Committee, it must then be approved by the entire Senate. This can transpire with very short notice. This e-mail list of all Senators’ telecom staffprovides all of those e-mail addresses.
Should you prefer to call the Senate offices, this list provides the telephone number for each Senator’s office in Washington DC.
Thank you for taking action now.
http://www.emrpolicy.org/news/action/index.htm
U.S. Hopes Court Ruling, New Studies Will Break Impasse on MUOS Station
U.S. Hopes Court Ruling, New Studies Will Break Impasse on MUOS Station
WASHINGTON — U.S. government officials hope an Italian appeals court ruling and results from a pair of health studies, all expected within a month, will help break an impasse that has halted work on a critical U.S. military satellite ground station in Sicily.
Construction of the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) ground station in Niscemi, Italy, was halted in April following months of protests sparked by concerns about harmful electromagnetic radiation that might be emitted from the site. The station is one of four being built for MUOS, a U.S. Navy satellite system intended to serve mobile forces.
U.S. officials say the Sicilian ground station remains on schedule for now, but that every day construction crews are idle will make the deadline for completion more difficult to meet. Crews will need 14 months to complete the project once the work resumes, leaving little room for additional delays given that MUOS is planned to be fully operational by 2015.
The multibillion-dollar MUOS system consists of four geostationary-orbiting satellites plus one on-orbit spare, and four ground stations, and is designed to provide cellphone-like communications to mobile forces. The Niscemi station is about 60 kilometers inland from the U.S. Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily. The other ground stations are located in western Australia, southeast Virginia and Hawaii.
According to U.S. State Department briefing documents, written in Italian and dated May 17, all MUOS ground stations with the exception of the Niscemi site are operational. All four ground stations, along with associated terminals, must be in service for MUOS to be considered fully operational, said Mark Lewis, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, the satellite’s prime contractor.
The first of the MUOS satellites was launched in February 2012; the second is expected to follow as early as July 19. .
In Sicily, locals have protested the construction of the ground station, claiming the antennas would create dangerous levels of electromagnetic emissions and possibly lead to higher rates of leukemia and other forms of cancer. In response, the Sicilian governor revoked the U.S. Navy’s permission to continue building there.
U.S. State Department and Navy officials point to a series of upcoming events that they believe will help keep the project on time. Key among them is a ruling, expected in early July, from an Italian appeals court that could allow construction on the ground station to resume. U.S. officials are hoping the court will temporarily negate a revocation notice from the Sicilian government that halted construction. The Italian Ministry of Defense appealed the revocation, saying the action strained Italian-U.S. relations.
The health effects studies, meanwhile, follow up on earlier research conducted by the Navy that seemingly exonerated the ground station but failed to convince thousands of protesters who have campaigned against the project.
The Navy is hoping the first of the new studies, being conducted by the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., will prove more persuasive, according to talking points distributed by the Navy to reporters. The study’s results are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Preliminary findings say that a passerby 200 meters from a cell phone tower, or 1 kilometer from a television broadcast antenna, is exposed to greater electromagnetic-emission levels than at the nearest point in the perimeter fence surrounding the Niscemi ground station. The exposure levels near the cell and TV towers are well below the health limits set by the Italian government, according to the talking points.
Preliminary results from a second study, this one by Italy’s Istituto Superiore di Sanità, or National Institute of Health, are expected within weeks, according to the U.S. State Department. U.S. officials are hopeful that this study, too, will help convince Sicilians that the MUOS station poses no health hazard.
The second satellite in the constellation, MUOS-2, has been delivered by Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Sunnyvale, Calif., to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., in preparation for its upcoming launch. Two on-orbit satellites are needed to test out the new MUOS wave form that is expected to bring out the most advanced capabilities of the system.
MUOS-3 is expected to launch sometime during fiscal year 2014, which begins this October.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/military-space/35921us-hopes-court-ruling-new-studies-will-break-impasse-on-muos-station#.UcUzjBZQSoV
Naples parents protest cell phone tower at elementary school
Naples parents protest cell phone tower at elementary school
| Published: | Jun 17, 2013 9:06 PM EDT |
| Updated: | Jun 17, 2013 10:43 PM EDT |
NORTH NAPLES, Fla - Controversy over cell phone towers at school. A group of parents at Naples Park Elementary are fighting to keep the tower off school property and away from their kids.
"I was shocked," says parent Kimberly Dunn of learning a cell phone tower may go up at her son's school.
Stephanie Lucarelli will have two kids at Naples Park next school year. Afraid of the health effects a cell phone tower could have on her children she started an online petition.
"We feel we don't know enough about the radiation coming from a cell phone tower to know whether or not 10-20 years from now our kids are going to see any health effects from this," says Lucarelli.
Currently the School District has three cell phone towers. One at Lely High School and two at Naples High School. Together the district receives more than $58,000 from the three towers.
"There's no monetary amount you could give us to expose our children to the chance of getting some childhood illness," says Lucarelli.
According to the FCC, "there is no reason to believe that such towers could constitute a potential health hazard to nearby residents or students.
Still, Kimberly Dunn isn't taking any chances. For her, this fight is personal and one she plans to continue until her voice is heard.
"Spreading the word, spreading the information. It's going to be tough during the summer because school is out, says Dunn. "I feel it's going to be an uphill battle, but the more we speak up. It's our children."
A district spokesperson says staff will meet with parents in the fall to receive additional input before deciding on how to proceed.
"I was shocked," says parent Kimberly Dunn of learning a cell phone tower may go up at her son's school.
Stephanie Lucarelli will have two kids at Naples Park next school year. Afraid of the health effects a cell phone tower could have on her children she started an online petition.
"We feel we don't know enough about the radiation coming from a cell phone tower to know whether or not 10-20 years from now our kids are going to see any health effects from this," says Lucarelli.
Currently the School District has three cell phone towers. One at Lely High School and two at Naples High School. Together the district receives more than $58,000 from the three towers.
"There's no monetary amount you could give us to expose our children to the chance of getting some childhood illness," says Lucarelli.
According to the FCC, "there is no reason to believe that such towers could constitute a potential health hazard to nearby residents or students.
Still, Kimberly Dunn isn't taking any chances. For her, this fight is personal and one she plans to continue until her voice is heard.
"Spreading the word, spreading the information. It's going to be tough during the summer because school is out, says Dunn. "I feel it's going to be an uphill battle, but the more we speak up. It's our children."
A district spokesperson says staff will meet with parents in the fall to receive additional input before deciding on how to proceed.
http://www.winknews.com/Local-Florida/2013-06-17/Naples-parents-protest-cell-phone-tower-at-elementary-school#.UcUzeBZQSoV
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