While most of our community has been busy reorganizing our
lives the last number of months due to COVID-19, Baltimore City and Verizon
have been partnering together and posting notices on utility poles and street
lamps throughout our residential neighborhoods, giving notice for installation
of Verizon’s 5G small cell antennas at those locations.
The benefits of 5G over 4G for
wireless communications are undeniable. Download speeds will increase to up to
10 gigabits per second. Also, network latency will be greatly reduced. This
will make for an enhanced experience for streaming videos and multiplayer
games, and it can bring the possibility of self-driving cars from theory to
reality.
Unlike 4G which utilizes
traditional cell towers, 5G technology requires its small cell antennas to be
in our neighborhoods, close to each other as its radio-waves cannot travel far
and get blocked easily. This means that some of us will have these antennas
right next to our homes. This leads us to the big question: Is it safe?
This article will bring out
concerns from a discussion I had with Sara Callahan, a Verizon representative,
whom Baltimore City Department of Planning officials directed to respond to
concerns I had on this topic as well as summarize a recent community meeting
with Verizon on this matter.
Sara told me, “Verizon Wireless
takes matters of RF [radio frequency] safety very seriously and has
comprehensive programs in place to ensure that we are in compliance with all
applicable laws and regulations. These safety standards are set by the federal
government, and we strictly adhere to them. In fact, the RF exposure due to
Verizon’s equipment is well below the FCC (Federal Communications Commission)
safety limit.”
Government Health and Safety
Guidance Can Be Faulty
This response concerned me as Verizon’s carefully worded
response never actually said it is safe. Instead they are pegging their RF
emissions to FCC standards. There is still valid reason for concern as,
unfortunately, government agencies that we rely on for our health and safety
fail the people too often.
When COVID-19 hit us in March, the
official guidance from the Centers of Disease Control (CDC), the Surgeon
General, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Disease, was that face masks did not work and regular
people should not be wearing them, and we needed to reserve them for our
frontline medical workers.
This guidance was not reversed until
April. How many people in New York/New Jersey would still be alive today if
people had started wearing masks in March instead of in April?
In March 2019 the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) grounded the Boeing 737 MAX after two of them crashed, costing
346 people their lives. It turns out that a little-known software addition was
causing the planes to override the pilot’s manual controls and pointed the
planes to the ground. The U.S. House Transportation Committee called the FAA’s
certification review of the 737 MAX “grossly insufficient” and said the agency
had failed in its duty to identify key safety problems.
In 2014 and 2015, the people of
Flint, Michigan were drinking contaminated water. Twelve people lost their
lives and thousands of children suffered neurological damage. In this case, the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actually knew there was a problem but
didn’t tell the people about it.
With regard to the FCC and the
telecommunication industry itself, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)
recently exposed them as not taking potential 5G health concerns seriously.
Wireless industry leaders conceded they are not aware of any independent
scientific studies on safety of 5G technologies. At the end of an exchange at a
Senate commerce committee hearing, the senator said, “So there really is no
research ongoing. We’re kind of flying
blind here, as far as health and safety is concerned.”
No FCC or Independent Third Party
Oversight over 5G cell Antennas Radiation Emissions
Sara also directed me to Radio Frequency Emissions (RFE)
Compliance reports on Baltimore City Department of Transportation's website: (transportation.baltimorecity.gov/distributed-antenna-system-das). These reports start out with,
“Verizon Wireless has contracted EnviroBusiness Inc. (dba EBI Consulting) to
conduct a Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Compliance assessment” and concludes
with certifying Verizon’s small cell antennas. This is quite interesting as the
company, EnviroBusiness, which is certifying compliance is being paid by
Verizon. This is hardly an objective third party. What incentive does
EnviroBusiness have to alert the public and/or Baltimore City officials that
the 5G antennas are not compliant?
In addition, where were the FCC
certification reports? One would expect reports both on initial
installation/power up as well as continued oversight in the form of unannounced
spot checks to make sure Verizon doesn’t increase the power level while no one
is looking. Where were these?
Sara’s response was underwhelming: “While the FCC does not routinely
monitor exposure levels, they do investigate when there are reasonable
expectations that exposure limits may be exceeded. The RFE reports Verizon had
prepared for these sites in Baltimore demonstrate that our designed power
levels are substantially below the FCC safe guidelines.”
So, apparently, we are supposed to
believe that these 5G small cell antennas are FCC compliant – because Verizon says they are.
5G Small Cell Antennas Are
Dangerous
Looking closer at one of these reports, it says, “On the
pole, predicted MPE (maximum permissible exposure) levels will not exceed the
FCC General Population limits beyond 4 feet of the antennas horizontally and 3
feet of the antennas vertically.”
So, Verizon’s own documentation
implies they are dangerous within 3 feet of the antenna. So now, the discussion isn’t are they
dangerous or not but rather how far away should our home be so that we won’t be
harmed.
At this point, I was sufficiently
concerned that I pushed Sara to have Verizon issue a statement that their 5G
small cell antennas are categorically safe.
As of the time of this writing, I have not received a response.
What Can Be Done
I reached out to our councilman, Yitzy Schleifer, to see
what our options were. Councilman Schleifer advised me that our options are
limited. He said that Verizon is protected by federal law from being turned away due to
resident’s health concerns alone. As
long as they represent themselves as being compliant with FCC radiation
emission limits, there is nothing that can be done on a local level.
That being said, he said that
residents can protest based on aesthetics. Fortunately for those who have
concerns, the small cell antennas do not look pretty. They look like three air
conditioning window units hanging vertically on the side of a utility
pole/street lamp. This is besides the supporting unsightly metal boxes and
wiring that litter the street pole.
Councilman Schleifer also informed
me that Verizon is here due to a business arrangement that the mayor made with
them that allows them to install their 5G equipment in our neighborhoods. So
only the mayor has the power to tell them to back away.
I emailed the mayor and the
response was, “Thank you for your email. Please excuse any delay in my response
as I am actively working to address new developments in the COVID-19 pandemic.”
As of this writing there has been no follow up.
A Significant Meeting
All this being said, as residents, we have been making
ourselves heard. Strong community pushback has resulted in Baltimore City
agreeing to a virtual meeting with them and Verizon to discuss residents’
concerns. The meeting took place on July 22, and to their credit, Baltimore
City did try to allow every one of the many attendees to ask a question.
The meeting turned out to be an
infomercial for Verizon, though. Verizon presented their 5G product, and then
there was a Q&A session. The Q&A format was that a resident presented a
concern followed by the Baltimore City official and/or a Verizon official de-legitimizing
the concern. As they were the hosts of the virtual meeting, they always had the
last word.
One particularly memorable exchange
was when a local resident discussed her own severe reactions to living near a
cell installation and related that she even had to move to a new home to escape
the dangerous emissions she was being exposed to.
Verizon representative Paul Dugan
responded that he is aware of a school with a cell installation on top of it
where some of the students got cancer. The cell installation was blamed for
being the cause of the cancer and was removed. Ultimately, it was discovered
that contaminated drinking water was the cause of the illnesses. It is therefore
incorrect for someone to assume the cause of a particular health concern. The
implication was that one should not be concerned about living near cell
installations, and Mr. Dugan pointed out that he has worked near cell
installations for many years and he feels fine. In general, the residents were
subjected to responses such as this throughout the Q&A session.
The meeting closed with a
discussion of locations in our community for Verizon’s cell installations with
the opportunity for the community weigh in on alternate sites for some of the
locations. The alternate sites were just a block or two away from the original
spots and would just be shifting the concern to being near other community
members. To our community’s great credit, residents did not take the bait to
turn on each other, and many let the Baltimore City moderator know that they
were just saying no.
At this time, it looks like 5G
small cell installations are coming to our neighborhoods. Nevertheless, the
moderator was surprised with the large turnout at the meeting and seemed on the
defensive during much of the meeting.
Concerned residents should contact
Baltimore City Department of Planning officials: Matthew DeSantis (matthew.desantis@baltimorecity.gov or
410-396-5622) and Kaliel Barmer (kaliel.barmer@baltimorecity.gov 410-396-1224).
I recommend CC-ing our councilman,
Yitzy Schleifer, as well: Isaac.Schleifer@baltimorecity.gov. Our councilman does not have
authority to tell Verizon to not install here, but it is important for him to
know the level of community concern, in case other opportunities present
themselves to help with this situation.
Finally, there is a group of local
concerned residents who are getting together to make themselves heard on this topic.
Contact info@FindOutFirst5G.org for more information.
The author may be reached at nshiman@yahoo.com.
