Tuesday, January 31, 2012

WALMER UPROAR OVER CELL PHONE TOWER


WALMER residents, businesses, schools and a church are rallying in a bid to stop the Cell C cellular company from erecting a signal tower in this prestige neighbourhood.

The proposed tower will be erected in Water Road, behind the Walmer Town Hall, adjacent to the Library and opposite the St John the Baptist Anglican Church on the Walmer Bowling Club grounds.

This past Monday an urgent public meeting was held in the Clarendon Park Primary School hall so that Walmer residents and business owners could raise their concerns. A petition has also been drawn up.

One of the campaigners against the erection of the tower is Tanya Wyatt, a nutrition and lifestyle coach, whose children go to school in Walmer.

“The metro should seriously look at changing the policy around this situation. They are following outdated regulations.”

Wyatt said these towers have a huge impact on a person’s health. “There are massive health implications regarding the towers.”

She said the municipality is obliged to protect residents of the metro. “They are responsible for keeping the environment safe.”

Wyatt added that the World Health organisation had retracted its previous “no harm to human health” statement and declared electromagnetic fields (EMF’s), produced by cell towers, are a “possible carcinogen” and have been categorised alongside DDT and lead. “It means EMFs are a possible cause of cancer. Apparently children are harder hit than adults by the radiation produced, due to thinner skulls,” said Wyatt.

Prof Reinhardt Botha, a Professor of Information Technology at the Institute for ICT Advancement & School of ICT, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, warned against such "comments without a comprehensive study of the evidence".

"Studies like this can easily be flawed as the variables are difficult to control, making hard and fast conclusions very difficult. As far as I can see from media statements from the WHO, they did not make such an announcement, at least not with the exact claim.

"What they did do is state that 'the International Agency for Research on Cancer as possibly carcinogenic to humans' and that the WHO will conduct a formal risk assessment in 2012," Botha explained.

He further pointed out that there are also many studies that claim to find no relationship (that cell phone towers may cause cancer). "Making a claim just on selected evidence is cherry-picking the evidence and extremely unscientific," he said.

In the meantime, Brian Meyer, chairman of the Walmer Bowling Club, said no lease has been signed yet. “It is now all in the hands of Cell C. They are in the process of following all the necessary regulations.”
Meyer said the initial lease will be for 10 years.

Earlier the PE Express learned that an Environment Impact Study of the ground was done and given the green light. The metro is now busy with the permit process.

Apparently the Cell C tower will eventually be camouflaged as a yellow-wood tree.

UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE!

Monday’s meeting was well attended (about 300 attended) and positively received. The concerns of erecting the Cell C tower were raised during the meeting. According to Wyatt their greatest defence to use against this move, is to use the precautionary principle. 

“The precautionary principle applies where scientific evidence is insufficient, inconclusive or uncertain and preliminary scientific evaluation indicates that there are reasonable grounds for concern that the potentially dangerous effects on the environment, human, animal or plant health may be inconsistent with the high level of protection chosen.”  

Essentially, the municipality will receive all the objections and forward them to Cell C, who will be required to answer every one.  “Robert Martindale, our attorney, has asked the municipality for an extension on the deadline for objections. They had originally set it for December 19, but of course almost no-one got their objections in on time for this,” Wyatt said. 

“In addition, we only know of about three residents who were notified via the municipality of this proposal.  He (their attorney) made it very, very clear that we have total control over the environment in which we live...that our destiny is firmly in our hands with this sort of issue and he strongly encouraged every single person present to send in a letter of objection (no matter what the reason – aesthetics, health concerns, devaluation of property, etc.).” 

They also discussed the possibility of attempting to change national policy regarding cell masts. “We can’t, with good conscience, make this a localised fight and then watch as Cell C (and others) go and put their masts in other less economically ‘healthy’ areas." 

http://www.pe-express.co.za/12330/news/article/walmer-uproar-over-cell-phone-tower

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