DEATH TOWERS?

Schools may not allow students to utilize their phones during schools, but they can’t deny the benefits this new technology brings them. R. Nelson Snider High School is just one of many schools enjoying the revenue of having a cell phone tower on campus. T-mobile owns the one concealed by the track field lighting here at Snider.
Surprisingly there is no information on what snider actually receives by the tower, or what department is receiving the adjacent funds. However, some schools have posted on their web sights that this form of fundraiser has produced record proceeds.
Wrapped in an oversized flag pole is a cell tower that has brought Chiaramonte about $31,000 annually in lease payments, and has enabled the school's teachers to buy supplies they long had gone without. Even in the best of times, Chiaramonte's PTA raised, at most, $10,000 in one year, Valenti said.
"Anything my people need, we're able to buy it now," Principal Marie Valenti said.
Some report the microwaves produced by cell towers can harm people in close vicinities. No studies have shown conclusive evidence that radio-frequency emissions, a form of electromagnetic radiation (EMR), from cell towers are harmful. Nor have any studies been conducted. However, Dr. Bruce Hocking in Australia found that children living near three TV and FM broadcast towers in Sydney had more than twice the rate of leukemia than children living more than seven miles away.
More schools are planning to allow cell tower construction on their properties as a fundraiser. South Tampa schools have plans in January to erect a cell tower on its campus. Although, opponents have amassed support from parents at several schools who say they don't reject cell towers - just cell towers on school grounds.
February 10th, 2009. Dr. Thomas Rau, Medical Director of the world renowned Paracelsus Clinic in Lustmühle, Switzerland says he is convinced ‘electromagnetic loads’ lead to cancer, concentration problems, ADD, tinnitus, migraines, insomnia, arrhythmia, Parkinson’s and even back pain.
Some say the new bill to convert to digital will help dramatically with electro magnetic pollution. This could be why school officials at snider decided to allow the tower to be placed on snider’s track field.
The Ossining School Board voted to allow placement of a PCS Base Station atop the Ossining High School on the basis of a "Safety Analysis" which claimed to report the health effects of the radiation emitted from such antennas. Instead, it suppressed current areas of controversy and uncertainty and claimed falsely that this technology is, in effect, universally considered safe. The School Board was told that concerns about health effects from exposure to magnetic fields from electric power distribution lines or the use of hand held cell phones are based on fear, not fact. The Board was not told that a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences panel this year designated power frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) as "possible human carcinogens."
The increases of cell phone usage is causing telecomunication companies to put up more towers, but are they really safe for schools, for children? We know administrators here at snider wont allow cell phones to be used in school, so why allow a tower be built on snider’s field? Can we not ask the community before we try new things, when the potential to cause harm to those around us is the greatest.