Open Letter to the City Petaluma, CA Council Members

July 16, 2018

To:  Mayor David Glass mayordavidglass@gmail.com
        Vice Mayor Mike Healy mthealy@sbcglobal.net
        Council Member Chris Albertson councilman.albertson@gmail.com
        Council Member Teresa Barrett teresa4petaluma@comcast.net
        Council Member Gabe Kearney councilmemberkearney@me.com
        Council Member Dave King, davekingpcc@gmail.com
        Council Member Kathy Miller kathleencmilleroffice@gmail.com

cc: City Manager John Brown citymgr@ci.petaluma.ca.us
        Scott Brodhun sbrodhun@ci.petaluma.ca.us
        Ingrid Alverde ialverde@ci.petaluma.ca.us
        Lisa Tennenbaum ltennenbaum@ci.petaluma.ca.us

Re: 7/16/18 Public Comment for Ordinance Making Amendments to the City of Petaluma Municipal Code and Implementing Zoning Ordinance — Regulating Small Cell Facilities

To the Petaluma City Council Members,

Thank you for the opportunity to enter into the public record my public comment on this important Ordinance that will regulate Close Proximity Microwave Radiation Antenna – Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (CPMRA-WTFs), aka so-called "Small Cell" facilities — in Petaluma.

This letter/email, the information linked to from this letter/email presents substantial written evidence in the public record that the City of Petaluma staff and Council members may use in making their final decisions on the number and magnitude of changes to Petaluma’s current — and outdated — Municipal Wireless Code and Implementing Zoning Ordinance.

I have read and quantitatively evaluated many peer-reviewed Supreme Court, Daubert-rule admissible, scientific studies that conclude direct damages to humans and other living organisms from pulsed, data-modulated, Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR). I am not writing about issues of concern, worry or risk, but about established biological hazards from RF-EMR exposures. I attest and affirm my statements in this letter/email are true, accurate and within my personal knowledge.

We understand that City Council members handle many important issues and have limits of how much information each can consider when making their decisions. If possible, I strongly recommend reading the information at the following three very recent web posts/pages that have accurate, substantial information that can frame the discussion of tonight’s Agenda item 4.A: "Ordinance Making Amendments to the City of Petaluma Municipal Code and Implementing Zoning Ordinance — Regulating Small Cell Facilities".

1. http://scientists4wiredtech.com/2018/07/4g-5g-wireless-telecommunications-expansion-public-health-and-environmental-implications/
2. http://scientists4wiredtech.com/2018/07/the-inconvenient-truth-about-cancer-and-mobile-phones/
3. http://mystreetmychoice.com/press.html#tca — a comparison of two versions of Federal Telecommunications Act (TCA), which shows that the regulation of the operations of Wireless Telecommunications Facilities was never preempted from local zoning authority (also included at the bottom of this letter/email).

Overview

There has been a long-term game plan pursued by the Telecom companies over the last eight or so years aiming for 4G/5G densification. This plans has been supported by hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying directed at our Federal and State elected officials, the FCC and the CPUC. Whatever the Telecom companies cannot get by force at the Federal or State levels, they are attempting to get by agreement at the local level. I communicated these points and the extreme energy-inefficiency of transmitting video wirelessly at the 6/12/18 Planning Commission hearing, which you can view here:

1. The Telecoms wish to avoid being considered a Title-II regulated State Telecom Utility, which limits business freedom and forces the Telecoms to serve all customers at reasonable prices, while making only reasonable profits. This is the main reason for their Wireless-only broadband strategies: the Telecoms don’t want any public utility obligations and want to deploy the cheapest construction possible, which you can see in the photos here: http://mystreetmychoice.com/

2. The Telecoms have done this by gutting the State Telecom Utility Companies (Verizon-NY or AT&T California, for example). The Telecoms have stopped maintaining the State Utility copper Wireline assets, fraudulently shifted large expenses from their other (private) subsidiaries onto the State Telecom Utility’s books (making the State Telecom Utilities look unprofitable) and have told everyone that the future is Wireless only (hiding the fact that all Wireless depends on the State Telecom Utility fiber and copper wireline networks).

3. Next, the Telecoms "convinced" the Public Utility Commissions to treat their private Wireless Companies as "Telephone Companies", which gave them access to the public rights-of-way. This needs to be challenged. See CPUC Rulemaking 14-05-001: Decision Regarding The Applicability Of The Commission’s Right -Of-Way Rules To Commercial Mobile Radio Service Carriers — http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M158/K118/158118757.PDF

4. Verizon and AT&T want to expand in the public rights-of-way on Utility poles, light poles and other street furniture because it is the cheapest way to build a cell tower. Full stop. Petaluma residents deserve much better.

5. Verizon wants to sell a Wireless video subscription to compete against Comcast. They will aggregate the bandwidth from their 700 MHz, 2100 MHz, 28,000 MHz and 39,000 MHz frequencies to spray HD/4k video data somewhere near your home. AT&T wish to do the same with their 37,000 MHz and other frequencies. Wireless video is hugely energy-inefficient. Listen to this 6/12/18 public comment, which starts at 3:09:56 in the first video on this page: http://mystreetmychoice.com/petaluma.html

Wireless technology consumes far more energy than wired technologies.

Kris De Decker:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-10-21/why-we-need-a-speed-limit-for-the-internet/

"A wired connection (fiber, coaxial, copper) is the most energy efficient method to access the network. Wireless access through Wi-Fi increases the energy use, but only slightly. However, if wireless access is made through a cellular network tower, energy use soars. Wireless traffic through 3G uses 15 times more energy than Wi-Fi [and by extension slightly more than this when compared to using a wired connection at the premises], while 4G consumes 23 times more [again, by extension slightly more than this when compared to using a wired connection at the premises]."

Energy Consumption in Wired and Wireless Access Networks:
https://ceet.unimelb.edu.au/publications/ceet-white-paper-wireless-cloud.pdf

“Wireless access networks are clearly the biggest and most inefficient consumer of energy in the cloud environment.”

Recommendations

The challenge of regulating Close Proximity Microwave Radiation Antenna – Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (CPMRA-WTFs) can be addressed at the local level by changing Petaluma’s Municipal Wireless Code and Implementing Zoning Ordinance in the strongest possible ways.

What the City Council is considering tonight is a good start, but is not nearly strong enough. The Telecom experts at My Street My Choice! recommend that the City Council do the following tonight.

1. Recognize that Petaluma City staff’s setback options are not based on substantial evidence, only what they have heard “other cities are doing”. Doing this could disadvantage the City Municipal code, if it gets challenged in court. It would be far better to consider that distance/power matrix, discussed below, to make final changes to the Municipal code. Nevetheless, it is in Petalum’s best interest to select three key distances tonight and then place the item back on the Planning Commission agenda for next month to add even stronger provisions, based on accurate analyses of the allowable matrix of maximum power output from CPMRA-WTFs and more specific setback distances from CPMRA-WTFs. For tonight, we recommend that the City Council do the following:

   • Adopt 3,000 feet as the minimum between distance between any two Close Proximity Microwave Radiation Antenna – Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (CPMRA-WTFs) (aka Small Cells).

   • Adopt 1,500 feet as a setback distance from any Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (WTF) — of any type — and any part of a residential zone.

   • Adopt 250 feet as a setback distance from any CPMRA-WTF and a residence in a industrial, commercial or mixed use zone.

2. Amend the code tonight to ensure that every CPMRA-WTF application is treated as a discretionary permit, not as a ministerial permit so that the public has full participation in the public process to determine how best to adopt CPMRA-WTFs into Petaluma.

3. Please direct the City staff and the City Attorney to engage with the Petaluma residents who founded My Street, My Choice! and who are subject matter experts in these Telecom matters with the goal of further strengthening Petaluma’s Municipal Wireless Code. We have attempted to engage the City Attorney in this process, but after an initial meeting on 2/1/18 at City Hall (attended by three experts from My Street, My Choice! and six City staff members), we have not been part of the development of these regulations. We have analyzed examples of Municipal Wireless code from other cities (Hercules, Burlingame, Palos Verdes and others) and have original ideas to contribute about the critically-important local maximum-power output regulations that are needed.

Critical Issue: Regulate CPMRA-WTFs Maximum Power Output

Four studies I will introduce into the public record today supplement over 100 studies that are already in the public record at the CA Assembly about adverse bio-effects from RF-EMR exposures at many thousands of times lower than current Federal RF-EMR exposure guidelines — studies that we entered into the public record in July 2015 in opposition to Assembly Bill 57 as one can view on Youtube here and here.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8Q3tifo-3o | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ58zMLN4OA

In June 2018, Cece Doucette addressed the Ashland, MA Board of Health re; pulsed, data-modulated, Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR) Exposures

View: https://youtu.be/4TA_rB3qC4M?t=2m20s

• Link to Harvard Ethics Paper on the FCC: Captured Agency by Norm Alster from https://ethics.harvard.edu/
• Link to 2018 National Toxicology Program Study
• Link to 2018 Ramazzini Institute Study
• Link to 2018 Martin Pall Study: Wi-Fi is an important threat to human health
• Link to 3/29/18 article in The Nation— How Big Wireless Duped the World re: the Hazards of RF Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR)
• Link to Understanding RF-EMR: Science
• Link to Understanding RF-EMR: Cancers

I propose that the term CPMRA-WTFs is a much more accurate one for the kinds of Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (WTFs) that have been installed in other Northern California cities in 2018. As you can clearly see from the photos of the CPMRA-WTFs being installed in Santa Rosa in 2018 (http://mystreetmychoice.com/) and from the maximum input/power specs of these WTFs (http://scientists4wiredtech.com/santa-rosa/cell-tower-specs/), there is nothing small about these very powerful 4G/5G cell phone towers:

• Amphenol CUUT360X12Antenna System Specs: (cylinder: 14.6 in. diameter x 48.0 in. –> 4.66 cubic feet) the multiple antennas hidden behind this cylindrical shroud are rated to collectively accept 2,200 Watts of input power; with 3 dB of headroom (common on antennas like this), which means the Antenna System can accept 4,400 Watts of input power, with an antenna gain of 12.0 dBi (which means multiply by 12).

• Amphenol CUUT360X06 Antenna System Specs: (cylinder: 14.6 in. diameter x 24.0 in. –> 2.33 cubic feet) the multiple antennas hidden behind this cylindrical shroud are rated to collectively accept 2,200 Watts of input power; with 3 dB of headroom (common on antennas like this), which means the Antenna System can accept 4,400 Watts of input power, with an antenna gain of 9.6 dBi (which means multiply by 9.6).

View: https://amphenol-antennas.com/product/cuut360x12fxyz0 | https://amphenol-antennas.com/product/cuut360x06fxyz0/

Don’t let the relatively small physical size of these Antenna Systems fool you. The truth is printed right in the maximum input/output power specifications for the Antenna Systems and other ancillary equipment specified for these cell phone towers in the very plans the cities must require of Wireless Carriers before Petaluma should approves the placement construction of modification of any of these CPMRA-WTFs. The Antenna Systems, referenced above, are much too powerful to be placed just 25 to 50 feet off the ground; these antennas are much more appropriate for installation on WTFs that are between 100 and 200 feet off the ground.

Therefore, it is critically important that Petaluma regulate the operations of CPMRA-WTFs in Petaluma, to —

• Limit the total energy consumption allowed per 24 hours

• Limit the maximum input/output power allowed as a function of distance from the ground and distance from residences

• Limit the hours of operations for CPMRA-WTFs. These WTFs do not need to run over night, since they are only assisting the macro towers, according to Verizon and other Wireless carriers.

Norm Alster: "Insurance is where the rubber hits the road on risk. So it is interesting to note that the rating agency A.M. Best, which advises insurers on risk, in 2013 placed RF-EMR exposures at top of its list of emerging technology-based hazards:"

“Dangers to the estimated 250,000 workers per year who come in close contact with cell phone antennas are now more clearly established. [The adverse] effects of the cellular antennas at close range include eye damage, sterility and cognitive impairments. While workers of cellular companies are well trained on the dangers [of pulsed, data-modulated, Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR) ], other workers exposed to the antennas are often unaware of the health risks. The continued exponential growth of cellular towers will significantly increase exposure of these workers and others coming into close contact with high-energy cell phone antenna radiation,” A.M. Best wrote in Best‘s Briefing, ― Emerging Technologies Pose Significant Risks with Possible Long-Tail Losses, February 11, 2013, http://www.ambest.com/directories/bestconnect/EmergingRisks.pdf.

Wall Street Journal: http://scientists4wiredtech.com/2014/10/wsj-cellphone-boom-spurs-antenna-safety-worries/

Norm Alster: on the revolving door between the FCC and the Wireless Industry

"The entire system is greased by the free flow of executive leadership between the FCC and the industries it presumably oversees. [Once] presiding over the FCC was Tom Wheeler, a man who has led the two most powerful industry lobbying groups: CTIA and NCTA. It is Wheeler who once supervised a $25 million industry-funded research effort on wireless health effects. But when handpicked research leader George Carlo concluded that wireless radiation did raise the risk of brain tumors, Wheeler‘s CTIA allegedly rushed to muffle the message. ―You do the science. I‘ll take care of the politics,, Carlo recalls Wheeler saying . . . ). . . The infrastructure of 300,000 or more cellular base stations and antenna sites has its own lobbying group: PCIA, the Wireless Infrastructure Association. The President and CEO of PCIA is Jonathan Adelstein, another former FCC commissioner. Meanwhile, the cable industry‘s NCTA employs former FCC chairman Michael Powell as its president and CEO. Cozy, isn‘t it? . . . The CTIA Wireless Association is now run by a former FCC commissioner, Meredith Atwell Baker"

Verizon’s June 2018 Admission

The Stark Reality is Communicated by Santa Rosa resident, Alex Krohn, 36-years old

Krohn addressed the Santa Rosa City Council on June 5, 2018 during a City Council Study Session to consider whether or not to allow Verizon and Mobilitie Close Proximity Microwave Radiation Antenna – Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (CPMRA-WTFs) on City-owned light poles and other street furniture (note: the City Council voted to not lift the pause) :

View: https://youtu.be/3z7eaR5TQtI?t=1h44m54s

"It wasn’t easy for me to come her today, but I think it is important for me to share my own personal story. Earlier this year, I noticed a growth on my neck about the time I found out about these small cells [in Santa Rosa]. It turns out that I had cancer called a malignant schwanomma . . . it was removed on April 4th at Stanford, but, statistically, the prognosis is not good for me. I’m 36-years old.

Two of the largest studies ever completed on cellular radiation were conducted and released this year. After [nearly] twenty years, the National Toxicology Program released its data and the strongest finding was that male rats developed tumors called malignant schwanommas [at an elevated rate] — the same tumor that I had.

. . . increases were also observed for lymphoma, cancers of the prostate, lung, liver and brain . . . Dr. David Carpenter: ‘this is clear evidence showing that these RF fields increase occurrence of all kinds of cancers. Malignant schwannomas have been detected in previous human studies.‘ I have been talking on my cell phone on speaker for 20 years, , right here, with the antenna being very close to where the tumor was.

Also, in Italy, the second largest study was released in March of this year . . . also showed an increase in malignant malignant schwanommas . . . the study from Italy was for exposures like you would get from the [wireless base] station antennas. Both studies reported an incidence in the increase of tumors of brain and heart. These tumors are the same histotype of those observed in human epidemiological studies on cell phone users.

So let me be your canary in the coal mine here today. It takes years for these things to show up on epidemiological records . . . this is a worldwide problem."

In 2018, we are living in a field of propaganda and distortion about the supposed benefits of the 4G/5G densification being pushed on local communities by the US Congress, the FCC, uninformed State Legislatures and Public Utility Commissions — all heavily-influenced by the Telecom company lobbyists’ hundreds of millions of dollars "invested" in our public officials to curry these favors. These so-called leaders, however, are not considering the downsides of such an unnecessary and massive 4G/5G Wireless densification because even these higher frequencies (24,000–90,000 MHz) have been shown to transmit data out 3,000 feet or farther:

View: No Cell Antennas Needed in Residential Areas (https://youtu.be/FwAsr1pC13Q)

Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon:

"When [Verizon] went out in these 11 [5G test] markets, we tested for well over a year, so we could see every part of foliage and every storm that went through. We have now busted the myth that [5G frequencies] have to be line-of-sight — they do not. We busted the myth that foliage will shut [5G] down . . . that does not happen. And the 200 feet from a home? We are now designing the network for over 2,000 feet from transmitter to receiver, which has a huge impact on our capital need going forward. Those myths have disappeared."

Jason L., Verizon Field Engineer:

"[Verizon 5G] is really high frequency [28,000 MHz and 39,000 MHz], so everybody thinks it doesn’t go very far, but it’s a really big pipe and so that’s what allows you to gain the super-fast speeds . . . We’re 3,000 feet away from our radio node. the cool thing about this is that we did not move the radio node. It’s pointing down to serve the customers in that area " . . . here even 3,000 feet away, we’re still getting 1,000 [Megabits per second] speeds . . . So now we’ve driven about 1/3 of a mile away [1,760 feet] from the radio node. we are still getting very good speeds even though we have foliage in between [800 Megabits per second]."

Petaluma Legal Authority

Compare Versions of Federal Telecommunications Act (TCA)

Conclusion: regulation of the operations of Wireless Telecommunications Facilities
was never preempted from local zoning authority.