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Tamarindo Residents Enlist the Cooperation of the Municipality on Cell Site Issues

06 August, 2011 03:48:00 Marisol Arias

Photo By Marisol Arias

• They say business permits issued to Claro Phone Company breach building regulations and affect their health. • Ministry of Health rejects versions of towers being a health hazard if they comply with regulations. On August 4, a group of neighbors in Tamarindo will demand that the Municipality Council of Santa Cruz not built cell towers on the community’s residential sites. Carrying banners, this group of residents will attend the hearing granted by the Municipality of Santa Cruz to publicize the reasons why they are upset with the location of these sites in residential areas inhabited by a large number of families. The group has issued a note that is going to be sent to the President of the Republic, Laura Chinchilla, the Mayor of Santa Cruz, Jorge Chavarría, the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (SETENA) as well as to other agencies, in which they request in their statement and a for response to what they consider is affecting their health, natural beauty of the sites and their patrimony. With the idea of going all the way through the last instances of not allowing the construction of the towers, residents have sent a formal request by email and other means to have enough support and gather together the signatures of other neighbors in order to stop this process of locating the towers. As reported by Natalie Lynn, local resident and promoter of this movement, they currently have more than 260 signatures and hope to have more support from neighbors. Lynn said she has sent a lot of emails and made calls to SETENA denouncing the company Claro for not having conducted a public hearing with the community, as required by law. "There are no responses from the authorities; they would only acknowledge receipt of the letter with signatures and the study," she said. One objection that concerns people is that some scholars have suggested that close exposure to electromagnetic waves can lead to health problems, pollute the scenic beauty, affect tourism, which Tamarindo depends on to survive, lower property values, and generate further risks after seismic events, among others. Allan Astorga, geologist and professor at the University of Costa Rica and Mauricio Ordoñez, an architect and professor at the Technological Institute of Costa Rica are two of the experts who have pointed out the "cons" in the permit processes to place a tower or cell site in a community. As far as what they have said, the Ministry of Health adopted a regulation that controls the electromagnetic radiation of thermal effect in public areas, but neglects the biological effect. "Having a 4.25 W/m2 (40 V / m) for 850 MHz or 9W/m2 (58 V / m) for 1800 MHz, the equivalent of living cooking with an antenna 4 to 6 m away, is still acceptable. However, this exposure is 42 times higher than the Italian (0.1 W/m2), 100 times more than the Swiss (0.043 and 0.1 W/m2), about 200 times than that of Sweden (0.02 W/m2) and Russia (0024 W/m2), and 4250 times more than in Salzburg (0.001 W/m2), responsible countries where mobile telephony works without problems, even when the antennas are removed up to 400m of houses,” they mentioned in an article recently published in the newspaper La Nación. Ordoñez and Astorga state that numerous studies associate exposure to radiation with biological effects such as decreased in melatonin (insomnia), headaches, depression, behavioral problems, impaired immune and nervous systems, loss of fertility in men, reduction of amniotic epithelium, disruption of the blood-brain barrier, cell micronucleus formation (aberrant DNA), increased incidence of leukemia and other cancers, and so on. For its part, the Ministry of Health adopted Regulation 36-324-S as of February 4, 2011, published in the Official Gazette on February 14, 2011, which regulates exposure to electromagnetic fields of non-ionizing radiations emitted by wireless systems of up to 300 GHz frequencies. "Electromagnetic radiation, unlike ionized radiations, does not have enough energy to ionize atoms. It is very difficult to identify the effects of this," said Orlando Rodriguez, from the Standards Unit of the Ministry of Health. "So far, the latest study by WHO do not indicate any effects on health. These telecommunications towers do produce a psychological effect due to how invasive they are. People do not want to have them around so they do not pollute their landscape," he said. Carolina Mora, press officer of SUTEL (Telecommunications Superintendence) explained that the granting of permits to install towers is an issue of municipal autonomy. "If communities feel there is a tower that may cause harm, SUTEL can go and review the frequency, its ranges and distances.” "This is a municipal matter. It is up to them to define the locations and where to place the towers, such as in a tall building, where visibility is not affected." Natalie Lynn and all of those against the towers will explain their reasons to the Municipality Council on August 4. They will try to persuade the council to follow the European model, which among other things has strong regulations to protect the health of the communities.

According to the document that has been shared, the objective of their request is to “stop the construction of cell sites until having applied a viable regulation as to environmental, health, and visual pollution aspects in Tamarindo.”