Letter to Takoma Park Neighbors

Dear Neighbors,

Can you imagine a refrigerator sized box (5G Cell Antennas/Towers and related power supply cabinets full of nickel cadmium or lithium ion batteries) in front of or very near each of our homes, permanently, emitting greatly increased and never before used 5G Electromagnetic (EM) and Millimeter Wave (MMW) frequencies  24/7 right into your homes? (See 3GPP declares first 5G NR spec complete -  Dec. 2017 and Santa Rosa, CA City Council public comment by Electrical Engineer Tom Sawyer, in which he explains that if a car were to strike a lithium ion battery backup box (which are on the ground next to the pole on which the antenna is mounted) it could cause a short followed by an explosion that would send out molten metal within a radius of 30-50 feet. Also see “Cities are violating their own building codes by granting misguided exemptions to these Close Proximity Microwave Radiation Antennas (CPMRAs).”

Guess what, we are about to have them installed on our telephone poles, and other locations, by the telecom industry, with limited say unless we get motivated to learn a bit more and come up with ideas our City Council members can incorporate into the revised Right-Of-Way Ordinance that is being updated right now, with a lot of urgency, because we only have until the end of the year to do so! (Montgomery County Council members need to hear from you as well because some of our concerns need to be addressed at the county level.)

Takoma Park is known for its active engaged residents and now is the time to continue to live up to such a reputation! This issue has health, environmental, social justice, property value, data security, and privacy issues - so something for everyone!

It is time to be engaged….because once January 1, 2019 arrives, so will the telecom trucks, outside your home.

So, what can you do to have a voice?

1. Write to the City Council members with your thoughts and concerns as soon as possible (link to the online form for sending a comment to the entire city government).
2. Come to the City Council Meeting, Wednesday, November 28, 2018 at 7:30pm
3. Come to a town-wide teach-in Q&A meeting that will be scheduled and announced here.
4. Write to the Montgomery County Council members with your thoughts and concerns as soon as possible, ideally over the next few days. Emails: county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov, Councilmember.Elrich@montgomerycountymd.gov
5. Meet with your Montgomery County Council member or request to speak at a session. (See other Montgomery County citizens speaking out for inspiration. Link to video)
6. Join your Montgomery County neighbors in fighting the zoning laws that allow antennas on utility poles and buildings near houses and schools.
7. Contact Congressman Jamie Raskin with your thoughts and concerns.

We are not alone. Cities across the country are scrambling to do the same by the deadline of December 31, 2018. This is all while other countries, like Sweden and the EU as a whole, are way ahead of us in protecting their citizens from the 5G risks. Montgomery County citizens have put this effort on the front burner, and last Wednesday night Mayor Stewart said that the county may be pursuing a legal challenge on the health angle. (Link to city council work session video.)

We are seeking a citizen-friendly ordinance and believe our City Council members are too. But, they need our input to ensure citizens’ concerns are factored in as well as their need to protect the city from lawsuits. We have a great amount of expertise in our community and now is the time to put it to use!

The FCC has passed industry-friendly laws (heavily lobbied by the telecom industry) but we can set forth standards of care, specific expectations and rights, distance requirements, and accountability requirements, in order to provide the city legal authority to hold the companies accountable and to give citizens the ability to seek remedy. (We cannot forget that this effort must also happen at the county, state, and federal levels.)

This is not your run of the mill type of radiation, like from your cell phone. It runs at a much higher frequency. In fact, doctors and scientists in Europe have already urged governments to place a moratorium on this development until it has been deemed safe.  

Conversely, the FCC is working off of science from 1986 (more than 30 yrs. ago) to support the telecom companies with their growth strategic plans. Of course, as we look into the future, the health risks that we will be exposed to are still unknown, since the technology is just now being deployed, without full assessment of the risk to human health, trees/plants, wildlife, etc. Telecom companies are warning their shareholders of risks, but not their customers or residents. It is not a stretch to wonder if we could be denied our home and renters insurance coverage or health coverage if we live, work, or attend schools within “close-range” of 5G towers.

If you are not worried about your health or possible loss of insurance coverage, then you might be concerned about a decrease in your property value -- and we expect our city and county will not like a reduction in revenue streams from decreased property taxes due to real estate losing value. We have the ability to express ideas in order to preserve the values of our homes. Perhaps telecom companies can be held liable for our decreased property values.

And, if you are not worried about your health or property value, then perhaps your privacy, data security, or environmental concerns are important enough to take action. (See “5G and 6G wireless technologies have security issues”.) One aspect of the environmental issue in particular relates to other key Takoma Park ordinances, specifically our beloved tree canopy and our designation as a Tree City. We ask that the City Council look into the industry-stated concerns about the problems trees pose to the functionality of 5G technology, while also investigating possible conflicts with the City’s Tree Code. We need your expertise in these areas to ensure protections are incorporated into the revised Takoma Park Ordinance. We need to bring our concerns to the county as well. We need to do it now.

If you are new to this topic, we would particularly recommend the following two resources, which are also linked to in various places in the text above:

• The Environmental Health Trust website (a nonprofit organization that carries out research on environmental health hazards and educates citizens and local communities on how to mitigate these hazards); and
• The Last Tree Laws website (a coalition of citizens, public officials, labor unions, businesses, nonprofit and advocacy organizations working with the core goal of environmental safety, responsibility, and accountability), and which provides excellent resources on what citizens and local governments can do to protect themselves, including sample ordinance language for local governments and concrete suggestions for actions that can be taken by citizens.

Please act now before it is too late.

This is an attempt by regular citizens to help spread awareness about this issue. We are not experts and we encourage each individual taking action on the matter to seek and verify all sources of information to their best ability.