After six-month study, task force to offer recommendations for tower construction

      A six-month Town of Hempstead moratorium on construction of cell-phone towers is to end on Wednesday, October 11. The temporary ban followed a series of cantankerous fights this year between cellular providers and town residents.       
      On the one side, the providers said they needed to build more towers in local neighborhoods to fill "service gaps." On the other, residents said they wanted the towers erected elsewhere, as they feared the radio-frequency radiation given off by the towers might cause cancer. (To date, no study has linked cellular technology to cancer. See shaded box for further details.)
      The moratorium was intended to give the town's recently impaneled Cell Phone Task Force time to study the towers' potential effects upon residents. Task force members plan to offer their findings in the coming weeks.
      Four task force members, Vicki DeJong, Ed Grilli, Gary Hudes and Vicky Rosenberg, spoke with the Herald recently and offered a look at the six-member panel's "exhaustive" study. Their first conclusion: Cell towers are here to stay, and they will only grow more numerous.

'Scary' predictions

      "The predictions are somewhat scary," said Mr. Grilli, a Merrick resident who is spokesman for Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon.
      Right now, about 45 cell towers are spread throughout the Town of Hempstead. One industry analyst said that that figure could jump significantly over time, to the point that towers fall within a mile of one another. Cellular devices are expected to proliferate exponentially as demand for the wireless Internet grows. With more cellular devices come more cell towers.
      The providers, however, are careful to note that they cannot give even a rough estimate of how many cell towers they will need in the coming years.
      "It's a little hard to say," said Larry McDonnell, spokesman for Sprint PCS, one of the area's largest cellular providers. "As the build-out of our nationwide network continues, I would anticipate we would need additional sites in and around the Town of Hempstead and Long Island."
      Task force members say a policy of containment -- rather than one of eradication, as some residents might wish -- is most prudent. That is, the objective of providers and residents should be to find "the least intrusive" sites for cell towers, which often measure 100 feet tall.
      "[Cell towers] are not going to go away, so we have to find the best way to accommodate everybody," said Ms. DeJong, president of the Citizens Committee for Civic Action and a Town Council candidate in addition to serving on the task force.

'Least intrusive' sites

      Finding the "least intrusive" site, however, is easier said than done in the populous, suburban Town of Hempstead.
      Mr. McDonnell of Sprint said, "When we come into any town or community, we very much want to get residents' sense of where a site might fit best." Providers and residents, however, often think on different wavelengths.
      In Merrick, for example, Sprint is seeking to erect a 100-foot cell tower across from Chatterton Elementary School. Residents have cried foul, saying that, because cell towers may pose an increased cancer risk, they do not belong across from schools -- or in any residential neighborhood, for that matter. The Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, however, bars municipalities from denying building permits for cell towers because of "perceived" health risks.
      At least some Merrick residents have called for the tower to be built at the old Merrick landfill, now the town's Norman J. Levy Park and Preserve. Mr. McDonnell said Sprint would place it at the former landfill, except "we don't need it at the dump because we don't need the coverage there."
      A proposal to place the Merrick tower atop a 100-foot Metropolitan Transit Authority electrical pole near the railroad station seems to have quelled residents' concerns and satisfied Sprint's needs. That plan, though, is pending MTA approval.
      "If that avenue can be opened, all along the Babylon Branch [of the Long Island Rail Road] are those 100-foot towers," said Mr. Grilli.
      Although in this case, a task force member is suggesting a cell-phone tower site, Mr. Grilli noted that the task force's intention is to provide "general guidelines" for placement of tower sites, not specific locations.      
      The task force, for example, will recommend placing cell-phone antennae atop "existing structures," such as tall buildings and water towers. The panel will also recommend that cellular providers share towers to cut down on their numbers.
      "We're not going to micromanage the zoning board about where cell towers should be," said Mr. Grilli.

Cooperation name of the game

      Still, task force member Vicky Rosenberg, president of the Wantagh-Seaford Homeowners Association, said she hopes the task force and cellular providers can work together to identify tower sites.
      "We know the neighborhoods better than you do. ... Use us as a resource," Ms. Rosenberg implored the cell-phone companies.
She added that task force members plan to continue their work after the tower moratorium ends. And Mr. McDonnell said Sprint will cooperate with the task force after the moratorium. "Absolutely, we will continue to work with them," he said. "Our game plan is always, first, cooperation with the local community."
      Ms. Rosenberg said she would like to see the moratorium remain in place awhile longer, either through the cell providers continuing it voluntarily, or if needed, the town ordering a continuance.
      Mr. McDonnell said he would have to check with Sprint's "legal team" about prolonging the moratorium. He also questioned why the ban would be extended.
      Ms. Rosenberg added that residents should not be quick to condemn cellular technology. A cell phone, after all, can be a lifeline for anyone stranded in a remote location in desperate need of help.
       "Someone in your family uses a cell phone," said Ms. Rosenberg. "Therefore, you cannot demonize the technology."
      Mr. Hudes, a Bellmore businessman who is running for Hempstead Town Council against Ms. DeJong, said that task force members have learned to get along well with the cell phone providers. "Probably one of the most important things we've seen come out of this is a cooperative, rather than adversarial position," he said.

Cell phones, unsafe? Uncertainty lingers

      Are cell phones safe? That's the question on many folks' minds of late. For years, reports have swirled connecting cell phone use with increased rates of brain cancer.
      As more and more people sign on to the cellular revolution - at a rate of 30,000 new U.S. users a day for an estimated total of 80 million so far - concern mounts about the long-term health hazards that may be associated with cell phone use.
      Cellular providers say the technology is entirely safe. Larry McDonnell, spokesman for Sprint PCS, one of the nation's largest cellular providers, said, "This technology has been studied for many, many years. It poses no health threat to anyone."
      Then along comes an expert like Dr. George Carlo, who headed the cell phone industry's multi-million-dollar research program. In a recent interview with ABC News' 20/20 program, Dr. Carlo said, "The [cellular] industry had come out and said that there were thousands of studies that proved that wireless phones are safe, and the fact was that there were no studies that were directly relevant."
      Dr. Carlo never said cell phones were proven unsafe, simply that they could not be called completely safe.
      Cell phones operate on the same principle as Citizen Band radios. Mobile phones are, in fact, high-powered two-way radios. However, while a CB radio transmits on just 40 frequencies, the cell phone can beam its signal on 1,664 frequencies.
      During operation, a mobile phone emits low levels of "radio-frequency energy," also known as "radio-frequency radiation." According to studies, when the cell phone, specifically the antenna, is held against the head, RF energy penetrates the brain, as deep as an inch and a half. The brain then absorbs up to 60 percent of that energy.
      No one can say with certainty whether long-term exposure to low doses of RF energy, such as that given off by cell phones, causes brain tumors. Only time will tell, it seems.
      The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, puts it this way: "It is well known that high levels of RF can produce biological damage through heating effects (this is how your microwave oven is able to cook food).
      "However, it is not known whether, to what extent, or through what mechanism, lower levels of RF might cause adverse health effects as well. Although some research has been done to address these questions, no clear picture of the biological effects of this type of radiation has emerged to date."
      For those concerned about the potential health risks of RF exposure, the FDA recommends keeping cell phones away from the head during operation with an extension cord and ear piece, or switching to a conventional line for longer conversations.
      The FDA also states: "Scientific data do not demonstrate that mobile phones are harmful."