From: "Doug Loranger"
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 9:19 PM
Subject: Important Antenna Victory in Los Angeles
Residents of the View Park/Windsor Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles won an important victory at the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission on February 18 (see article from LA Daily News below). While T-Mobile can still appeal to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors the 3-2 vote to deny a permit for a wireless facility proposed for the rooftop garage on a building hosting a CVS pharmacy, the victory is particularly significant because it marks the debut of a regional Southern California coalition, Residents Engaged Against Cell Towers (REACT), who successfully mobilized for the Feb. 18 hearing.
Organizations involved in this regional coalition include residents from Los Angeles, San Diego, Glendale, Pasadena, Tarzana, Burbank, Mar Vista, Altadena, Baldwin Hills Estates, Sherman Oaks, Ladera Heights, Scripps Ranch, Hacienda Heights, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Rancho, Santa Fe, and Escondido.
Along with the Coalition to Regulate Antennae Siting
(www.safeantenna.org) in New York City, Southern California is one of the current hotbeds of activity on this issue working to take the fight to the national level.
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_11770802
Cellular towers become talk of towns
By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer
Updated: 02/23/2009 11:42:41 PM PST
The only notice Glendale resident John McMahon got that T-Mobile USA planned to erect a 34-foot tall cellular telephone tower in front of his home was a slip of paper that looked like a flier advertizing pizza.
It said the company planned to construct the tower on a right-of-way strip of grass between the road and the sidewalk in front of his house.
When McMahon realized what was about to happen, he and several of his neighbors contacted the city to complain.
"I was horrified," said McMahon, 38. "Aside from the health risks ... it could affect my ability to sell my house."
The Glendale City Council in January placed a moratorium on the construction of cell phone towers while city officials studied the issue. About two weeks ago, T-Mobile withdrew its application to build the tower in front of McMahon's home.
The incident is just the latest in a growing national fight to restrict the proliferation of towers near homes, schools, churches and other locations. Alarmed by the spread of the towers in hundreds of locations throughout Los Angeles County, a coalition of grass-roots groups - Residents Engaged Against Cell Towers (REACT) - are pushing for a moratorium on new construction in the county.
Activists say the towers - often disguised as trees - are a neighborhood blight, reduce property values and place residents at undue health risk.
A number of them spoke last week in opposition to a T-Mobile application to build a cell tower on the roof of a CVS Pharmacy in Windsor Hills. The Regional Planning Commission denied the conditional use permit.
"We've joined forces with people who have spearheaded efforts in their own communities because we've found countless other areas are fighting T-Mobile too," said Sally Hampton, a Windsor Hills resident and founding member of REACT.
Residents from Glendale, Escondido, San Diego, Mission Viejo, Burbank and beyond attended the meeting.
In a prepared statement, T-Mobile spokesman Steven Caplan said the company plans to appeal the planning commisions' denial to the Board of Supervisors.
Caplan noted that nearly 20 percent of homes only have wireless phones and nearly half of the 911 calls made in the United States come from cell phones.
"T-Mobile and the rest of America's wireless industry are working to respond to an unprecedented demand for mobile services in their homes," Caplan said. He added that locating towers is a rigorous process based on scientific analysis and modeling and customer input.
"Commercial, industrial and non-residential areas are considered first, but because our customers are increasingly using their wireless devices at home, it's also necessary for us to place wireless facilities in and around residential neighborhoods."
While many are concerned that cell phone radiation may cause cancer or other health problems, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says the weight of scientific evidence has not linked cell phones with any health problems.
The Federal Communications Commission regulates cell phone base stations, which operate at higher power than cell phones. The radio frequency exposures people experience from base stations are typically much lower than from cell phones because the antennas are mounted on towers and buildings and are further away from people, according to the FDA.
Still, in response to growing consumer concerns, Dan Rosenfeld, senior deputy for economic development for county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, said the supervisor's office is working with the Department of Public Works and County Counsel's Office to craft a policy to address the height, appearance, number, location and the approval process for cell towers.
"It only makes sense that any neighborhood would be concerned about what gets built there," Rosenfeld said. "These towers can be large, can have a visual impact as well as potentially an economic impact on property values."
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Hi All
This story may make you consider giving up milk altogether. The story mentions 'using clean electrical energy from the grid', well good luck with that far fetched idea! There would also be a big question mark about the cleanliness of the energy as it leaves the site, and a very good chance that dangerous high frequency pollution will be caused around the farm. We know that microwaving food damages the quality and goodness, what will it do to
the milk?
Martin
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Macrowave bulk pasteurization system
By Food in Canada staff | February 23, 2009
Radio Frequency Company's New Macrowave Pasteurization System uses a high-frequency electric field to effectively control pathogens. It's an alternative to noxious gas or carbon producing thermal techniques. Using clean electrical energy from the grid, the material to be treated is conveyed through a high-frequency electrode array where the alternating electrical energy causes the material to heat rapidly and uniformly throughout the product thickness. Radio Frequency (RF) heating is a highly efficient, direct form of heating such that no energy is wasted heating large volumes of air or preheating the system itself. The technology is "instant-on, instant-off" using energy only during the treatment process.
The company has developed a line of Macrowave Pasteurization Systems that operate at 40MHz where the depth of penetration and uniformity of heating are optimized, thereby ensuring effective microbe kill and avoiding the deleterious effects on product quality from prolonged exposure to high temperatures. These systems are available in conveyorized or batch configurations.
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Wi-Fi in School
Friends,
I had a conversation with the parent representative to the French school board (CSF) today - a fellow parent at my children's school - she told me that the CSF was going to ask Health Canada and the BC Worker's Compensation Board to do some of it's own research on EMR from Wi-Fi. We had an exchange - she said that it was not the CSF's job to set safety limits.
Below is my response to an email she sent out earlier this evening.
By the way, she is a doctor.
CK
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From: Carl Katz
Date: 2009/2/25
Subject: Re: Parents Ordi-Santé et Principe de Précaution.
To:
XXXXXXXXX, I do appreciate your proactive activity around this.
With respect to your comment this afternoon, you are absolutely correct that it is not CSF's job to establish safety limits, but it should be its first priority to ensure the safety of all of the children in its care. And ANY doubt should be decided for the benefit of the students.
Health Canada has NEVER effectively responded to an emerging health threat - tobacco? asbestos?. If you watched the BBC Panorama show (Wi-Fi: A Warning Signal), you would have heard Sir William Stewart, U.K.'s top scientist saying the the WHO (OSM) is wrong - that the whole basis of their safety
limits are inadequate to protect the population, especially our children.
Same for the German government who has warned all citizens not to use Wi-Fi. Is that not telling? Or Gerd Oberfeld and Henry Lai, who are world reknowned for their research into electromagnetic radiation and biological effects - they both said they would pull their children out of any school that had
Wi-Fi. And Olle Johansson of the Karolinska institute in Sweden has found biological effects at radiation levels lower than Wi-Fi. If you have not watched it, here is the link to the show:
http://www.mastsanity.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=132&Itemid=113
In 2002, Lloyds of London and the entire insurance industry excluded health effects from electromagnetic radiation from all liability policies for the wireless industry. This was in response to the work that Dr. George Carlo did with the Wireless Telecommunications Research program from 1993 to 1999 (300 scientists, 28.5 million dollars). Interestingly, the insurance industry has known about and responded to emerging health threats in exactly this manner. They did exactly the same thing for the tobacco industry while tobacco execs continued to say there were no health effects from smoking.
We do not need any more short term epidemiological studies. A two or three year study will not answer the question of what may or will happen after ten or fifteen years - the time it takes for cancerous tumours to present. We now know with certainty, that radiation from Wi-Fi, cellular and cordless home phones cause leakage in the blood brain barrier, breakage of DNA, interruption of intra-cellular communication, and changes in cognitive function (the Stewart Report, 2000). This is not a "maybe, we need more data" situation. If you don't believe me, please look at the truly "independent" double blind, peer reviewed research (in other words, not funded by the wireless industry).
We MUST apply the precautionary principle because there is so much evidence (not doubt, evidence). In my opinion, anything less is absolutely reckless.
Respectfully,
Carl Katz
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Cancer Causes Control.
2009 Feb 18. [Epub ahead of print]
Maternal occupational exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields and the risk of brain cancer in the offspring.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19224378
Li P, McLaughlin J, Infante-Rivard C.
Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, 1110 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, QC, H3A 1A3, Canada.
OBJECTIVES: To examine the contribution of maternal occupational exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) shortly before and during pregnancy on the incidence of childhood brain tumors.
METHODS: A total of 548 incident cases and 760 healthy controls recruited between 1980 and 2002 from two Canadian provinces (Qu?bec and Ontario) were included in this study, and their mothers were interviewed. Quantitative occupational ELF-MF exposure in microTesla units was estimated using individual exposure estimations or a job exposure matrix. We used three metrics to analyze exposure: cumulative, average, and maximum level attained.
RESULTS: Using the average exposure metric measured before conception, an increased risk was observed for astroglial tumors (OR = 1.5, 95% CI = 1.0-2.4). During the entire pregnancy period, a significantly increased risk was observed for astroglial tumors as well as for all childhood brain tumors with the average metric (OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.1-2.5 and OR = 1.5, 95% CI = 1.1-2.2, respectively).
Based on job titles, a twofold risk increase was observed for astroglial tumors (OR = 2.3, 95% CI = 0.8-6.3) and for all childhood brain tumors (OR = 2.3, 95% CI = 1.0-5.4) among sewing machine operators.
CONCLUSIONS: Results are suggestive of a possible association between maternal occupational ELF-MF exposure and certain brain tumors in their offspring.
PMID: 19224378 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
