Subject:  Cell tower/church steeple controversy (Jonsson).. 
Date:     Sun, 3 Oct 1999 042540 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" 
To:       emfguru 
--------------------------------------------------



........Following received from Suzanne Jonsson, of Lexington, MA....

It seems regretable that the most important issue is not being
investigated here.  The "shouting match" and the threat by the 
telecom company to sue the church of all its possessions (and the
board members) is drowning out the importance of SOMEONE calling
forth qualified testimony about the REAL RISKS (to health) which
may exist ... and deserve to be looked into.....

Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at: 
EMF-L archives can be found at: 
..................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS..................

From:  Suzanne Jonsson 


[ The local ABC affiliate, WCVB TV did a nice piece for the 11 o'clock
news tonight. It will surely run again tomorrow in the Boston area, and
other TV news will be at the protest tomorrow. -Suzanne}

A high-minded protest

School, others in Lexington protest plan for microwave tower in steeple

By Caroline Louise Cole, Globe Correspondent, 10/02/99

LEXINGTON - On its white and wood shake steeple, there is no visible sign
that construction on a controversial microwave antenna project has
begun at the Follen Community Church. But on the side of a construction
dumpster sitting by the church's driveway someone scrawled an angry
message: ''Blood money.''

The message exemplifies the intense animosity the project has
engendered, causing some members to leave the church and
souring relations between Follen and its neighbors.
'The level of anger this has stirred up has just stunned us,''
said the Reverend Lucinda Duncan, pastor of Follen, a Unitarian
Universalist church whose founder was among the first to speak
against slavery in the early 19th century. ''We can't say
enough how sad it is that we have alienated good people who are
our friends, neighbors, and church members.''

Duncan said at least five people have left the church over the
antenna issue. And officials of the neighboring Waldorf School
reported last week that students from as many as two dozen families
would leave the school due to health concerns if the antennas are
installed.

Using church steeples to hide microwave antennas has become, in
recent years, a popular way for church congregations to
make easy money and communications companies to site equipment
without blemishing the New England landscape.
But what started out 21 months ago as a seemingly innocuous
revenue-raising endeavor for the 160-year-old congregation
has turned into a nightmare for the church and its leaders.

It has led to picketing by parents of students from the Waldorf
School and people living in the East Lexington community
who fear the antennas will create a serious health hazard. It has
brought officials of the school to the point of suing the
church and the town of Lexington.

It has left church leaders powerless to renege on their antenna
agreement with Nextel Communications, which refuses to stop
the project despite the animosity it has engendered.

It has pitted two of the town's most liberal institutions against
each other, rattling the peace of what has been a quiet,
close-knit section of this historic town.

When Nextel approached the church's parish council with an offer
to pay $27,600 a year to lease the spire for 20 years,
Duncan said the discussion centered on ''whether our little church
should get involved with big business.''

The church approved the lease overwhelmingly in April 1998 and
then the town followed, granting Nextel a special permit
that June.

The public hearings the town held prior to issuing its permit
were the first time the church learned it had done something its
neighbors didn't like, Duncan said. That's when residents and
parents aired their concerns that their children's health would
suffer from microwaves coming from the antennas.

''I think these antennas are extremely dangerous to health,''
George Eastman, a spokesman for the Waldorf School board of
directors, said this week, expressing fears that have been part
of the debate since it inception.

Eastman, who has two children at the school, said the antennas
''emit a low-frequency radio wave which penetrates the fluid
organs ... the brain, kidney and spleen,'' and can cause cancer.
After these fears were presented to the church leadership, the
parish council asked Nextel twice to release it from its 20-year
contract.

''They told us politely, `No,''' Duncan said, noting that even
in the face of the controversy, a majority of the church's 320
members ''are comfortable with the safety of this technology.''
''But it is important to us to be good neighbors, so on that basis,
we asked to be released from the contract,'' Duncan said,
adding that the church ''has a high number of physicists, scientists,
and engineers who are comfortable with the technology.''

Patricia McSweeney, a spokeswoman for Nextel, which has a regional
office in Lexington, said this week that the company cannot find
another suitable location.  McSweeney said the vast amount of studies on
the emissions that would come from the antennas show there are no hazards.
''Nextel would not do anything to endanger the children at Waldorf
School,'' McSweeney said, noting the antennas are focused away from the
school.

Still the issue has been so divisive, Duncan said, the church's
lawyer pored over the contract to see if he could find a loophole
that would let the church out of its agreement with Nextel.
''He concluded there was no possible way for us to break it and
that if we did not honor it, each elected lay officer could be
sued individually along with the church,'' Duncan said. ''The
idea that the church and our other assets could be lost is too
high a price to pay, given the church's heritage.''

Waldorf School officials say they have not exhausted their legal
options and plan to ask a judge to block the project, arguing
the building permit was issued illegally.  But in the end, they are hoping
the church stops the project on its own.

..........END............

This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 10/02/99.
Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.






Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com