Published: 12:15PM Tuesday May 11, 2010

By Vicki Wilkinson-Baker

Source: ONE New

There are a few things that make me really anxious: Teenagers out drinking and driving. Phone calls in the middle of the night. and the fear of coming home one day to find a cellphone tower standing tall and proud next to our house.It happened to an Auckland couple last year. They arrived back from holiday to find a 2degrees cellphone tower next to their house in Torbay. They never had a chance to have a say. Nearly a year on, the cellphone tower is still there. They're still unhappy.

Source: Reuters

Maine's state Legislature could soon vote on a bill making the Northeast US state the first to require that cellular phones carry warnings of a possible link between mobile phone radiation and brain cancer.

Dozens of studies on the issue have shown no link, but have not ended the debate. Any requirement for warning labels could be a headache for cell phone manufacturers.

Maine's bill, the Children's Wireless Protection Act, was the subject of emotional testimony on Tuesday in the joint House-Senate Health and Human Services Committee in Augusta, the state capital.

The committee will next schedule one or more work sessions that could kill the bill outright, or advance it to debate by the state's House and Senate. Votes in the full Democratic-controlled state House and Senate could come as early this month, a legislative aide said.

The state's Democratic governor, John Baldacci, has not commented on the measure.

Representative Andrea Boland, a Democrat, introduced the bill after her concerns were raised by a 2006 study by the Swedish National Institute for Working Life showing a correlation between brain tumors and heavy cell phone use.

Numerous other studies have shown no such link. More research is under way.

If passed, cell phone companies selling in Maine would need to put prominent labels on phones and packaging, warning of the potential for brain cancer associated with electromagnetic radiation from the devices.

The warnings would recommend that users, especially children and pregnant women, keep the devices away from their heads and bodies.

San Francisco is also considering warning labels on cell phones. Mayor Gavin Newsom has suggested that packaging show radiation absorption levels for each phone "in a font at least as large as the price."

About 89% of the US population used a wireless phone in June 2009, according to the CTIA, the international wireless trade association. Twenty percent of US households had dispensed with land lines to go "wireless only

Auckland City mayor John Banks is backing calls for wider community consultation by telcos in the wake of new Waiheke Island protests.

The mayor has confirmed his support for a group of Surfdale residents that want Vodafone to halt its plans to install cell masts above the bowling club.

Nearby residents have received letters from Vodafone saying masts planned for Marama Avenue will go up next month.

Legislation by the last government has enabled telecommunication companies to erect masts without resource consent notification.

Surfdale group Andrew Crawford, Stephanie Honeychurch and Dr Stuart Reuben have been fighting for Vodafone to consult with residents for the past 18 months.

They say the company is going ahead with its plans and has ignored pleas to talk to neighbours living within range of the emissions, including schools.

Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye and Auckland City's Hauraki Gulf islands' councillor Denise Roche have been supporting their cries.

Their backing has drawn the interest of mayor John Banks and Auckland City Council councillor Aaron Bhatnager ? city development committee chairman.

Mayor Banks says telecommunication companies are using non-notification, opposed by council but sanctioned by government, to do what they want.

"Vodafone is putting towers up right across our beautiful city. At the very least, we would expect comprehensive consultation."

But Vodafone national site acquisition manager Justin Rae says the company has consulted Surfdale residents.

He says he and company representatives addressed around 30 people at a Waiheke public forum specifically about telecommunication activities, held in April 2009.

"The majority of the evening was spent discussing the Surfdale Bowling Club site. We ran through the history of the site, the technical requirements, and Vodafone set out the alternatives we had considered.

"There was quite a bit of Q & A, so it was quite interactive."

Mr Rae says he followed up enquiries after the event and the company's community relations unit had been in frequent touch with Mr Crawford a year or so ago.

Since then, he says, the company had received infrequent enquiries but he had responded to letters this January from Mr Crawford, Ms Honeychurch, and Dr Reuben.

Mr Rae says letters sent to neighbours this month about the construction of the cell mast site had enclosed further information.

Residents say the further information focused more on cell phone use than the sites themselves.

Ms Kaye and Mr Bhatnager are both keen to see concerns resolved.

Ms Kaye is a member of the environment and local government select committee engaged in hearings on government's third supercity bill but says she will get leave to attend a meeting over the cell site issue.

She says Vodafone is arranging a meeting this week with members of the Surfdale group, herself, Mr Bhatnager and, possibly, council's utilities manager.

Ms Kaye says Mr Bhatnager pushed for the meeting to happen and she is confident it will provide a chance to resolve issues.

Mr Bhatnager has already asked Vodafone to delay putting up the mast, to consult with the community, and to try and find another location for its cell site.

The councillor met with Mr Rae last week and says discussions were constructive.

Mr Bhatnager says he was happy to facilitate the meeting now being planned and sympathises with Mr Crawford's concerns over emission health risks to his family.

Group member Dr Reuben says he has scientific proof of health risks from mast emissions, which he says has been so far ignored by government.

He told a meeting of around 30 people on Saturday how government's inter-agency committee on health had just one medical professional sitting on it, Dr David Black.

Dr Reuben said nearly all the other members came from industry.

"We're soon going to have a telecommunications industry that's as big as tobacco."

Labour list MP Jacinda Ardern ? the party's potential Auckland Central candidate ? was also at the meeting and says communities have a right to be heard.

She believes the situation highlights the need for a strong community voice in both the Resource Management Act reforms and the supercity.

Surfdale group member Andrew Crawford is determined to give neighbours a voice.

He and other group members are urging people to erect "Shame on You, Vodafone" banners outside their homes and speak out if they do not want the masts to go up.

"The bottom line is we have to mobilise ourselves now to look out for our home patch."

The government's response to the LG&E Report of 24 November 2009 is available from the link below.  It is unbelievably arrogant and simply abysmal!

Where on earth did "the government" get its advice? Where is the transparency and accountability? Who bears the costs of resulting harm- no doubt the communities who asked for more responsibly in the first place.

Whatever happened to listening to the communities who are affected.

The government's response completely ignores the serious uncertainties in the NZS2772:1 1999 and that many European states have adopted a far more a precautionary approach with standards up to 1000 times more stringent than New Zealand. It ignored the warnings that are now widespread about unnecessary EMR exposures especially for children.

What influences have affected our government's assessment of the risk of EMR and made them so different from the far more considered assessment of the EU, and many individual European states?

How did "Big Brother" come to know more than the Select Committee members who listened to the people?

This is simply bizarre.

Sue

Please find attached for your information a link to the Government's response to the Local Government and Environment Committee's recommendations on the cellphone tower petitions:

Photo: John Borren. Roly Hammond says a cellphone tower
was "sneakily" erected in his street.

Residents in one of Matua's poshest streets are outraged after a 20m-high cellphone tower was erected right under their noses without warning.

They say property values will plummet and are worried about the possible effects of radiation.

Roly Hammond, whose sweeping harbour view has been obstructed by the tower, behind the Matua community shops, said he knew nothing about the "colossal" structure until two cranes pulled into the street early Wednesday morning.

"It was done in one day and no one was consulted ... we had no chance at all to object," Mr Hammond said.

"I have had a number of irate callers. They are all very, very agitated. Some of the older ones are very concerned about radiation. It is in the best part of Matua. It's not on. It shouldn't happen in a subdivision like Matua or for that matter in any other suburb."

Mr Hammond said the value of his $500,000 property had dropped "thousands" overnight.

John Buckley, who lives directly opposite the tower, said he and his wife would never have bought their property if they knew it was going to look on to a cellphone tower.

Read the full story in the Bay of Plenty Times