By: LARRY MAIER
Health concerns communicated
A Baldwin woman was upset when she received a letter from the Town of Hempstead about a month ago informing her that Nextel Communications planned to install twelve cellular antennas on an existing one hundred foot tall pole on the Fireman's Field across from her home. After all, AT&T Wireless already had an array of nine antennas mounted on the pole.
I thought Oh great, here comes some more of them', said the Yale Place resident, who did not want her name published.
The woman also has health concerns about living so close to the antennas, for her and for the elderly residents who live in the senior housing next to the field. Some of them must have pace-makers, she said. I'm not a medical expert but I just don't know if living near those antennas is good.
Oceanside resident Dennis Schmidt, who lives across the canal from the field and in the shadow of the cellular tower, said he was not informed of Nextel's plans but was not surprised that more antennas might be added to the pole. Schmidt said he was also caught unaware when AT&T first erected the cellular pole in the spring of 1999.
Schmidt too is worried about the potential health risks of living so close to the antennas. I don't know what the risks are, Schmidt said. No one ever came to us to provide information.
Both residents' health concerns are shared by many people who live in close proximity to the growing number of cellular antennas that are popping up across the country. However, according to the United States Government, their concerns are not good enough reasons to prevent the antennas from being placed in their neighborhood or in anyone else's.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 limits the power of local zoning boards to prevent cell phone providers from placing antennas in residential areas based on health related concerns because the federal government has determined that cellular technology has not been proven to be a health hazard.
Vicky Rosenberg, a member of the Town of Hempstead Cellular Task Force, which was created last April to help manage the growing demand for space from cell phone providers, finds the law troubling. [The government] has said that there is no proof that this technology is harmful, not that it isn't harmful, Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg and the task force are not sold on the long-term safety of cellular technology. However, because of the public's demand for cell phones and the protection afforded to their providers by federal law, the Town of Hempstead has little choice but to allow Nextel and other cell phone providers to install their antennas.
Part of the job of the task force then, said Rosenberg, is to work with the cell phone providers to find sites for their technology that are away from schools, hospitals, and highly residential areas.
With that goal in mind, Rosenberg attended the March 7 public hearing held at Hempstead's Town Hall in support of Nextel's request to place their antennas on the pole in Baldwin. Rosenberg told the board that co-location
