A Higher Calling

Cell Phone Provider Finds Ingenious Way to Hide Tower in OMGC’s Bell Tower: But Is It Safe?

The new cell tower during construction. Photo: Andrew Lasky

LOS FELIZ—Recently, Our Mother of Good Counsel (OMGC) church’s bell tower has been encased in scaffolding. The work being done is not for repairs, but rather to hide a cell phone tower along the church’s structure.

Cell phone users locally and elsewhere, demand strong coverage. But homeowners groups complain heartily about the unsightly towers cell providers must erect to provide strong signals.

The church’s new cell tower, according to Father Jim Mott, is to provide better cell reception for all in the area and more importantly, those at Our Mother of Counsel church, which previously had poor reception.

“I feel wonderful about it,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a great help to our community. The reception around here is very bad and we keep getting dropped calls so this will facilitate people using their cell phones.”

However, some are concerned that the cell tower could increase the risk of cancer or other health issues of OMGC students and neighbors.

“I’d be concerned for the children at the school and for people within a block radius,” said Andrew Lasky who lives near OMGC. “It’s like sleeping within close proximity to a microwave.”

But according to the American Cancer Society, there is little evidence that the radiofrequency waves (RF) emitted by a cell tower base are harmful. According to the organization’s website, the energy level of a cell tower’s RF waves is low compared to other types of radiation; the lengths of RF waves are long creating a situation where they are not concentrated enough to affect individual body cells and the level of RF waves at ground level is very low and are not significantly different than the levels of radiation from other sources, such as those from radio and television broadcast stations.

“For these reasons, most scientists agree that cell phone antennas or towers are unlikely to cause cancer,” the site states.

Father Mott said he feels comfortable the cell tower is completely safe.

“When the public hearing was held, there was only one or two people that even came to voice a concern and evidently it’s not a problem,” he said.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 8:23 am and is filed under Front Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.