Forget CAO, cell towers are the real problem | Letter
Published 4:28 pm Monday, April 30, 2012
A lot of angst has been generated by the county’s CAO ordinance, and rightly so, but a much bigger “taking” is being planned right now in secret by county officials and industry technocrats. It’s the new telecommunications/wireless ordinance. The stated goal of which is to wipe out all the protection from RF radiation, uglyfication, and property devaluation that SJC residents fought so hard for in the 1990s and to make SJC a free-fire zone for the wireless industry.
This 70-plus page ordinance changes every part of the SJC Development Code. It allows massive 150-foot tall towers with emergency communication and broadband antennas, plus as many as three sets of cellular antennas, plus equipment sheds with 24-7 buzzing inverters, roaring cooling blowers and emergency diesel generators. All this is permitted outright with NO recourse to the surrounding residents in ALL county right of ways and in any easements OPALCO may have on private property!
Visit the Lopez Airport to see what ugly monsters we are talking about here. This one is only about 60-foot tall and has only one set of cellular antennas on it. Imagine it over twice as tall and with 4 times more antennas!
These things will cause massive property devaluation in whole sections of the county. People don’t buy land and houses here to enjoy the sight and sound of industrial facilities – or to get cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has designated electromagnetic fields in the RF range as a Group 2B “possible human carcinogen” along with Chlordane, DDT, lead, and others. When Coke and Pepsi found out recently that their caramel ingredient was in this category – they took it out immediately!
2012 is the 200th anniversary of the Luddite Rebellion. If that taught us anything, it is that technological progress is only desirable if the benefits are greater than the harm.
The public hearing is May 22. Contact your councilmember and OPALCO’s CEO.
Steve Ludwig
Lopez Island
