SF Appeal 18WR-0171

Appeal of Cheryl Lea Hogan Of 3535 Sacramento Street

Against the Granting of Application No.: 18WR-0171 for

Installation of A Personal Wireless Facility Site At 3529 Sacramento Street

Separately Object to and Appeal From the Granting of Any Such Densified 4G or 5G
so-called Small Cell’ Sites Within The City And County Of San Francisco
for The Reasons Set Forth Herein

June 19, 2019 San Francisco Board of Appeals

Original signed appeal here.

 

This Appeal differs from every other Appeal which has ever been heard by your Board in at least the following seven respects:

  1. First, new scientific evidence from the government of the United States, issued in final form long after this permit application was filed has proved that cellular telephone radiation causes cancer, while other high level scientific sources, such as from Harvard and the UC School of Medicine demonstrate that many other disease conditions are caused and worsened by close proximity microwave exposure, and:

  2. Contrary to what many responsible people, including within the Telecom industry had believed, the results of the $30 million, 19-year series of studies completed by our National Institutes of Health has also proved that the mechanism of harm to living tissue is non-thermal, which governmental finding is important because the outdated FCC safety regulations for cellular radiation are entirely based on the incorrect assumption that the sole mechanism for tissue damage is heating of tissue and the resultant behavioral effects observed in test animals, and:

  3. A vast body of science data, including as submitted to you in the two and quarter inch thick body of data accompanying this Appeal and as readily available to each member of your Board through resources including those from the epidemiologist Dr. Devra Davis at https://ehtrust.org show that due to factors including the cartilaginous nature of children’s skulls, particularly in early childhood, kids are more susceptible to the effects of this radiation than adults, and:

  4. Since the Telecom industry has for many years been denied insurance coverage for injuries resulting from close proximity microwave exposures, your allowance of mass distribution of dense 4G and 56 antenna deployment in residential zones will place The City and County of San Francisco, and other utility pole owners and operators, in the position of standing as insurers for the Telecom industry for these injuries, and:

  5. The limitations in Federal law which are alleged by industry to limit abilities to stop this slaughter only come into play as needed for adequate cellular coverage for personal wireless servicses (the ability to make calls), which limitations do not apply in The City as you can prove to yourself by making a call from your own cell phone, and:

  6. Because of the extreme expense of litigation to stop this dense 4G/5G deployment, ‘the buck stops with the Board of Appeals, so that:

  7. Never in the past, and never again will the individual members of this Board have the opportunity to do anywhere near as much good, by granting this Appeal, or as much harm, including to those whom you love, by denying it, so that in addition to any formal legal consequences, each of you individual members of the Board of Appeals, as well as the Board as an institution, will forever bear the karmic Grace or burden resulting from the effect of your decision on this Appeal for all residents of the City and County of San Francisco.

As mentioned above, I have supplied you with more than two inches of documents supporting the points raised above, in addition to which a massive amount of scientific data from the most reputable of sources is at your Internet fingertips. The remainder of this Appeal provides summarizing narrative and specific reference to authorities which support the seven core points presented above.

Scientific References

On May 27, 2016 the National Toxicology Program (NTP) of the U. S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the results of its $25 million 30-month study whether cellular telephone radiation caused cancer. The NTP experimental study proved that cellular telephone radiation caused the formation of glioma cells which are the seed cells of the deadly brain cancer, Glioblastoma. The study also confirmed the finding that cellular radiation caused the formation of Schwannoma cancer cells which in humans cause Acoustic Neuroma.

On March 28, 2018, after almost two years of further peer review of the NTP’s findings, the NTP panel made a further announcement at the end of a peer review conference at Research Triangle, North Carolina, stating that there is "clear evidence" that cellular radiation is carcinogenic.

Finally, on or about November 2, 2018, the NTP issued its final report on its experimental investigation of this question, concurring with the initial findings that cellular telephone radiation is carcinogenic. It is impractical to attach the entire NTP report, but the final report is readily available to anyone who would like to read it and can be found on the Internet linkage: niehs. https://nih.gov/results/areas/cellphones/index.html>.

Dr. Martha Herbert of the Harvard Medical School also practices her medical specialty as a Pediatric Neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. In many letters to school districts, including the Petaluma district in California, and in her letter to the Los Angeles district as far back as early 2013, Dr. Herbert references her own approximate 60-page meta—study, in turn locating and referencing hundreds of professional sources concurring with the position that living things are subject to damage of many sorts, including neurological damages from Wi-Fi microwave exposure.

Please see the August 18, 2017 letter submitted in opposition to telecom’s SB.649, a Bill to put densified 4G and 5G on every block in California from Dr. Beatrice Alexandria Golomb, a Professor of Medicine at the University of California School of Medicine, San Diego Campus. In addition to the scientific citations and positions stated in her letter itself, her attached scientific references include 360 separate peer reviewed scientific studies confirming negative physiological effect from telecommunications microwave radiation. Much of these scientific data have been obscured far from the mainstream public view until recently as a result of public relations efforts by industry. Those careful efforts are described in a March 29, 2019 edition of Mother Jones titled "How Big Wireless Convinced Us That Cell Phones Are Safe". For further examples of specific suppression of science on this issue conduct a search for "Dr. Henry Lai Seattle Magazine."

The Failure Of The Thermal Standard

The fact that damage occurs by non-thermal means is now clear beyond a reasonable doubt and that is sufficient for the public policy decisions that the Board now faces, all as the NTP study shows. A University of Maryland interferometer study showed that the addition of a 7.43 percent constituent of DNA into plain water (from DNA salts put into the resulting solution level of said 7.43 percent), caused a 24 fold (meaning 24 times) increase in Specific Absorption Rate (how much energy the fluid absorbed), the changes in energy absorbed was determined to be not ionic, but rather ‘acoustic’. Dr. Henry Lai’s findings from the University of Washington School of Medicine proved that DNA strand is broken by exposure to cellular signal’s non-ionizing radiation.. There are solid reasons for respecting the calcium ion analysis from Dr. Martin Pall, of Washington State University: Please see a 15 minute video of his 2015 presentation at The Commonwealth Club event organized by EMF safety expert
Camilla Rees, https://vimeo.com/132870272. Dr. Pall is a credentialed scientist, I am not. I respectfully agree Dr. Pall’s calcium ion conclusions, hardly surprising that tissue damage is multi-axial with DNA strand breakage and calcium ion cell damage both taking place. For compact access to Dr. Pall’s scientific studies on the effects of EMF: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780531/ . The above are consistent with the NTP conclusion that the mechanism of cancer formation is non-thermal, whereas the safety standards employed by the FCC are based on the conclusion that the only mechanism of harm would be from heating of tissue.

Densified 4G/5G Would Result In Child Endangerment

It is beyond any rational dispute that a child’s skulls is thinner and more pliant and that we humans literally get harder in the head, as we age. It is also beyond rational dispute that due to this frailty, a child’s kids brains are more at risk from non-ionizing radiation. This factor has been widely recognized including expressions of concern about cellular exposure from the American Academy of Pediatrics, as can be seen at the following link: <https://ehtrust.org/public-service-announcement-american-academy-pediatrics-reco mmendations-reduce-cell-phone-radiation-exposure/>. This is consistent with other scientific findings showing that kids are more at risk, for example as shown at the following link: https https://ehtrust.org/stop-untested-microwave-radiation-childrens-brains-eyes-virtual-reality-eht-scientists-urge-google/.

Allowance of dense urban distribution of 4G/5G antennas cannot avoid the placement of these towers immediately adjacent, as is the case where I live, to people’s sleeping quarters, including children. One site specifically known to me will put a ‘small cell’ tower within perhaps 12 feet of a youngster’s bedroom. Respectfully, and including as to the use of the penal statute as a template for The City’s civil liability, such placement, if children are based on the science placed at risk, appears to violate the spirit and intent and likely the letter of the law of California Penal Code 273a.

CA Code, PEN § 273a (a) Any person who, under circumstances or conditions likely to produce great bodily harm or death, willfully causes or permits any child to suffer, or inflicts thereon unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or having the care or custody of any child, willfully causes or permits the person or health of that child to be injured, or willfully causes or permits that child to be placed in a situation where his or her person or health is endangered, shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison for two, four, or six years

Civil Liability Exposure for The City and County

Once the involved cellular antenna box is attached to the involved governmental utility pole, for several reasons including the Doctrine of Fixtures as often used in tenancy situations, a melding takes place, and plaintiffs counsel will allege, as is consistent with the law, that the melded unit as a whole is Public Property.

Though plaintiffs can’t sue The City for negligence or other Common Law causes of action, under our Government Code suit can be brought for Dangerous Condition of Public Property. Whoever owns those poles and then leases them to telecom is thus in a relationship of lessor to lessee. In addition, San Francisco faces potential joint venture liability.

These public utility poles are demonstrably Dangerous within the meaning of Government Code 835, because the radiation they emit has been scientifically proven to be carcinogenic, and the radiation is damaging to the human biological system. While the granting of this Appeal, if sustained by the Board of Supervisors, would likely result in a few major and resource consumptive suits from industry, our city has a very capable staff of attorneys and likely an insurance pool upon which to rely for defense. Much more importantly, if injuries are sustained, and disabilities worsened, it is inevitable that suits based on ADA violations will and the scope of this litigation potential, with no end in sight, is vastly greater in terms of both legal resource drain and unpredictable capital exposure than any few single lawsuits from industry could ever be.

Our Board of Appeals is presented with a chance to do very great good, or to be active participants in allowing very great harm. Over very many months I have pursued this issue, since a tower is bing planned right in front of my home. However, this is the great sadness of it, the hazard is not just mine, it is yours, it is shared by all of us. Please kindly sustain this Appeal, not only in the name of the law, but in the name of justice.

Respectfull by,

Cheryl Lea Hogan M.A.
3535 Sacramento Street
San Francisco, CA 94118