Comments:
Detailed version:
A grant of the application
would be prima facie inconsistent with the greater public interest. The
radio station does not broadcast in the English but in a language spoken by less
than 5% of the local community. The target
audience is not even US based.
The towers are in blatant
violation of local zoning height restrictions for structures in:
Rural
Residential (20.32.400) – 35 foot height restriction
Point
Roberts Transitional Zone District (20.37.400)
- 25 foot height restriction.
Point
Roberts Special District (20.72) – maximum 45 foot height w/ restrictions.
Proposed setbacks don’t
even match zoning that does allow for increased height (such as industrial),
where setbacks must be increased one foot for each foot of height above 35
feet.
This ‘conditional use
permit’ is linked with 20.82 Public Utilities (again, what public service is being provided?) which does not over-ride the
above height restrictions and offers no siting priorities. It is not associated
with 20.13 personal wireless communications which does offer siting
priorities:
Siting Priorities. Listed
in descending order with the highest priority first:
(a) Collocated
attached antennas on nonresidential buildings and structures including existing
wireless communications towers in nonresidential related districts.
(b) Collocated
attached antennas on nonresidential buildings and structures including existing
wireless communications towers in residential related districts on property not
used exclusively for residential purposes.
(c) Attached
antennas on nonresidential buildings and structures in nonresidential related
districts.
(d) New
support structures at remote, low visual impact locations in resource and
industrial districts.
(e) Attached
antennas on nonresidential buildings and structures in residential related
zones on property not used exclusively for residential purposes.
(f) New
support structures at low visual impact locations in commercial districts.
(g) Locations
other than those listed above.
Notice, using residential land should be considered
only after exhausting the first four options for siting communication towers.
The FCC Commission regulations
are designed to encourage transmitter sites to be located in rural areas, away
from concentrated population areas – our Canadian neighbors to the north have a
major urban area just 1,000 feet away.
There are hundreds of homes in the area around the proposed antennas.
The FCC’s obligations do
not require federal agencies to consider socio-economic factors, such as diminished property values, in
cases where there is no requirement for environmental impact analysis (as the
current Adapt Engineering July 2010 study has determined).
These
radio towers will be the most prominent feature you see as you wait in
line at the border to enter Point Roberts - completely out of character for our
return-to-nature refuge from the city. I do not wish to have my community's resort image
debased and devalued due to a project being allowed that does not service ANY
community needs.
Onsite backup generators
create noise and would most likely violate the 45dB limit and are not
compatible with residential zoning.
Antenna-support structures
are inherently a attractive nuisance that is dangerous and attracts children to
climb it. Anti-climbing attempts such as large fencing and razor wire do not fit
into the rural character of Point Roberts.
Typical zoning requirements
for radio towers require at least 3
TIMES the height of the tower distance away from single-family or residential
units as well as vacant residentially zoned platted land – the proposed layout fails to address these typical requirements.
It is believed that the antenna
transmitter would cause exposure of the
general public to levels of radio frequency (RF) radiation in excess of set
guidelines and requires an Environmental Assessment.
Exposure to radio
frequency (RF) radiation and Electro-Magnetic Fields (EMF) is very dependent on
the distance from the source (radio tower) represented in the inverse-square
distance law (by which the
electromagnetic field of the
transmitted signal decreases as the inverse of the square of the distance).
RF causes interference to radio
and non-radio devices, slows down cable modems and DSL systems
by adding noise to the signals, induces feedback in computer speakers,
interferes with cable television, satellite systems, cordless phones, cell
phones and just about any other wireless device.
The location of the
proposed antennas is adjacent to the power lines feeding Point Roberts and the elevated magnetic fields could result in
elevated powerline harmonics that would cause interference in all homes.
Whatcom county cannot even debate interference
based arguments due to a controlling
and preemptive federal statute (47 USC § 302a(f)(2) that states that municipalities have
no authority to act with respect to interference from radio towers:
Southwestern
Bell Wireless, Inc. v. Johnson County Board of County Commissioners , 199 F. 3d 1185
(10th
Cir. 1999); cert. denied, 530 U.S. 1204 (2000)
The
court found that there was complete federal preemption of the field. Allowing
local zoning authorities to condition construction and use permits on any
requirement to eliminate or remedy interference “ stands as an obstacle to the
accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress. .
. .
In
Broyde v. Gotham Tower , 13 F. 3d 994 (6th Cir. 1994),
The
neighbors of a commercial radio tower sued the operator and the station
tenants, claiming common-law nuisance by interference with all manner of radio,
TV, telephone, garage-door opener, and other home electronic devices. The case was dismissed as the complaint had
not stated a claim upon which relief could be granted.
THESE INABILITIES TO COMPLAIN MEANS THAT YOU CANNOT
STOP THE PROBLEMS ONCE THEY ARE HERE IN
POINT ROBERTS.
The towers could negatively impact aircraft radio or
navigation equipment operations or aircraft instrument guidance systems.
The proposed towers are
higher than 20 feet above the surrounding trees and are closer than 20k feet
(3.8 miles) to the Point Roberts airport.
They will need to be lit according to FAA policy. How could this application overlook this
fact?
Illuminated towers do not fit into the character of the Point Roberts Special District and significantly increase the chance of bird strikes which
would necessitate an environmental assessment study be performed.
It’s doubtful that the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service were consulted in the planning of these
towers which are located in a major migratory bird pathway and most likely do not comply with the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
A Biological Assessment was done in June 2010 and
found no endangered species or critical habitat. In the
past few years I have regularly seen bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus - Endangered), as well as frogs and salamanders (Rhyacotriton – Threatened)
near my property adjacent to the proposed site.
A cell phone tower’s power
output varies with low power ones, typically used on top of buildings, at
around 100mW. Higher power ones may be as much as 10W to 80W in some rural
areas. There have been documented observable biological effects at these
radiation levels – all FAR BELOW the planned 50,000 watts of these radio
towers.
The Federal Telecommunications
Act exempts radiation exposure for personal wireless (cell) communication from
being a permitting consideration (BUT NOT radio towers!!! This
is a valid argument!!!)
Current
FCC emission limits (Specific
Absorption Rate/SAR) for radiation is 0.08W/kg.
These limits would most likely be
exceeded for more community members than the number of local listeners to the
radio station. Recent studies show
radiation levels of 0.001 W/kg allows toxins to cross the blood-brain barrier
(increasing brain cancer risk), levels of 0.04 W/kg reduce sperm count, levels
of 0.09 W/kg damages DNA and DNA repair ability.
Children and pregnant women are even more vulnerable. http://www.bioinitiative.org/conclusions/
Being a
property owner within a thousand feet of the proposed towers, this issue affects
me deeply. I urge the decision to
outright deny conditional use permitting due to all of the issues mentioned
above. A public utility exemption that
doesn’t service the local community simply should not be allowed under any
circumstance. This extremely flawed
proposal, at the very minimum, requires an environmental assessment to expose
the numerous errors and misjudgments made in consideration of the 50,000 watt
AM radio towers being built upon this particular piece of property.
