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Long Island Town Enacts Tough Cell Tower Limits
crimeandpunishment writes "They're getting tougher on towers on Long Island. The town of Hempstead, NY has imposed some of the toughest cell phone tower restrictions in the country. The ordinance prohibits wireless equipment within 1,500 feet of homes, schools, day care centers, and houses of worship, unless the company can prove absolute need. A spokesman for Verizon says, 'It's not unheard of for towns to have issues, but this is extreme,' and says this makes 95 percent of the town off limits to future antenna construction." With internet access by 3G, 4G and WiMax getting ever more common, I suspect that not everyone in the town will appreciate blocking out the companies that provide it.
I'm moving there - it'll save me a fortune in tin foil hats. Plus "hemp" + "stead" = a town that grows dope ? Great ! :-)
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
Dang, did I just get first post? The frosty-drink troll guy must be trying to use his Android from Hempstead.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Um, they have to spread them out so that the coverage is as close to 100% as possible. Limiting the land they can build in means the optimum coverage is likely far less...
Fact is that your mobile phone will send a stronger signal if it notices that the cell tower is far away, so that the signal can be received there. So if you vary the distance from the cell tower, radiation from the tower will get less when you move further away, but radiation from your phone will get more. There is an optimal spot in between where the total radiation hitting you is minimised.
I would assume that this optimal point is less than 1500 feet from the tower. If that is the case, then anyone using their phone in these "protected" places will receive more radiation.
I don't understand the purpose of these regulations at all. What difference does it make how close a tower is to a day care center or place of worship? Within 1,500 feet of homes? How do they expect to get cellular service at home, then? Hm.
I have two guesses which aren't mutually exclusive. The first is that someone has bought into the hysteria that cell phones cause radiation damage and hence wants them far away from places where people gather or live. Second, that this is a sly attempt to create a monopoly for a provider. It'd be interesting to see if someone already satisfies these regulations. If we start seeing more extremely restrictive regulations like this, that would be an indication that someone is organizing local monopolies.
Assuming signal strength is somehow harmful, they're doing the exactly wrong thing to deal with it.
By imposing those limits, they force towers to be further apart. To cover the area anyway they'll have to bring the power way up. The schools, daycare centers and so on will probably get about the same amount of RF as before, but whatever is near that tower will get cooked. And for those who protest the aesthetics, it's going to be a big ugly one as well.
What they should be doing instead is peppering the area with a weak tower on every roof. Then they can have coverage without strong emitters anywhere.
About 15 years ago my rural dwelling brother law was a leading light in a somewhat successful local campaign against the "radiation masts" that were sprouting up around the country side. As a city dweller who lived even then in a veritable sea of electromagnetic waves I was pretty sceptical of their protests and today , 15 years later, I am amused at his constant complaints that he cannot get a decent phone or internet signal.
>>>If we impose the 1,500 foot blackout... there is what, maybe ONE place to put a tower?
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my art teacher. I said the US Congress has banned incandescent bulbs effective 2012. He immediately pointed out that the law doesn't directly ban incandescents. It requires a 50% reduction in energy usage. I replied that's the same effect as a direct ban because no incandescent can meet that standard, so what's the difference? None.
Same with this celltower law. It doesn't directly ban the towers, but the 1500 foot limit has the same effect, which I bet was the politicians' plan all along. "We did not ban celltowers in Hempstead." Yeah. Accept that you did because now no towers can be built.
Aside -
I consider Edison's incandescent bulbs to be a superior technology to CFLs. Fast turnon, can be used in cold/hot areas (or enclosed fixtures), cost consumers 1/10th to buy, use fewer materials, easy to recycle, and no mercury vapor.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
There are often times when I wish to be less connected. However, nice of you to make the decision as to where and when for everyone around you, too.
You know those blasted scientists and the American Cancer Society, definitely in the pocket of "Big Cell Phone"
"Radio signal strength decays exponentially. "
No, it decays geometrically.
Exponential decay would be of the form P=An^d, where "d" is the distance, and A and n are constants.
The formula for free space losses is of the form P=Ad^2 - a geometrical loss.
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So then did the companies with existing towers lobby heavily for this so they can leverage their newly-created prime real estate?
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
It's not a dictatorship, people voted in place the officials that made this happen, it's what most of them want.
1. Don't local elections tend to have really lousy turnout? It's hard to say "most" people want this, if most people don't bother to vote.
2. If people do think they want this, do they understand the (obvious) implications of what they agreed to?
This sort of legislation is due to the "OMFG I KIN FEEL IT IN MY BWAIN!!!" tinfoil hat crowd, saying "RADIASION IZ KILLIN DE BEEZ!"
And since the vast majority of people don't see fit to have an opinion on this, the vocal moronity - err, minority - are all that is heard, and the politicians will bow to the herd to get votes.
The right answer IMHO would be for all the carriers to say "OK, fine - since you are too sensitive for our signals, we will remove them." Let us see what happens when Joe Ranknfile finds his precccisouuuussss cellphone doesn't work, and it is due to the tinfoil hat brigade and the spineless political hacks who covet their votes. Suddenly it won't be JUST the tinfoilers who are making themselves heard.
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We at Evil Co. sympathise with the town's wish not to be bombarded with EM radiation. A it is clearly the will of the people that they not have these signals directed in their vicinity, we wish to respect their wishes, even at the cost of some profit. Unfortunately, complying with these new laws would require significantly increasing the power output of other towers to compensate, and so we are unable to continue to offer service without violating the intent and spirit, if not the letter, of this law. As we can not provide a service in this town, we are willing to waive early termination fees for any customers in the affected area, as a gesture of good will. We hope that they will enjoy their relaxed lifestyle, free from the burdens of modern technology.
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Yeah, well, if they're that upset about radiation, maybe we don't give them television, radio, ban the 2-ways in the police, fire, and ambulance, nobody can own a cell phone or any other 2-way communications, no more wireless computer networks, wi-fi, etc. Landline phones only, no remote car door unlockers or garage door raisers... its fun to take it to an extreme... but this is already an extreme...
Its dumb as a box of rocks. All they're saying is, "We don't want ANYTHING to change, anywhere, anytime, for any reason."
People I love to hate...
He's a late entrant into the 'most stupid Slashdot poster of 2010' but he seems to be closing in on commodore64_love's early lead.
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Who cares? The people affected by this are the very people who voted for it. If their desire for better cellphone reception outweighs their dislike of ugly cell towers in a couple years, then they can vote differently next time. The decision to NOT build the towers is much more easily reversible than the decision to allow them.
"Homes, schools, day care centers, and houses of worship"? This sounds like they've confused cell towers with liquor stores.
These kinds of distance-based restrictions are usually used as a way of banning something de facto when a higher law doesn't allow banning it de jure. Like a local law which bans past sex offenders from residing within 1000 feet of a school. Which has the (unintended?) side effect of preventing them from using the city's homeless shelters, all of which fall within that range.
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TFA mentions another city that tried similar restrictions and was overturned by a federal court. There is a proposed Wi-Max tower half a block from my house and the neighborhood is doing everything they can to stop it. The city has made it clear they have no say in the matter as tower placement is governed by the state and feds. So... IMHO Hempstead will be in court the next time a carrier proposes a new tower, and while it may delay the tower being built Hempstead spend a lot of money and lose. Also, cell towers are a source of revenue and in my part of town they are primarily on school buildings (the building itself or their chimneys), churches, watertowers, one in a graveyard, etc. We have very few stand-alone towers which may be part of the NIMBY here.
Same with this celltower law. It doesn't directly ban the towers, but the 1500 foot limit has the same effect, which I bet was the politicians' plan all along. "We did not ban celltowers in Hempstead." Yeah. Accept that you did because now no towers can be built.
Had the same issue with power plants in Arizona. During the summer...they can't produce enough power to run the AC...but heaven forbid you want to build more plants or ship in more expensive power from out of state. When you get outages and brownouts...these same people bitch/moan that more power is needed without the plants or raising their electric bills. When the solutions are there in plain view...not in my backyard and you better not obstruct my views either.
The funniest part of this is the ones crying the loudest about the lack of service are the ones who don't want the plants/towers where they can be seen...even from Pluto.
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles M. Schulz
There's a big difference.
The reason why the law makes an efficiency requirement is because it's not the bulbs themselves that are the concern, but the energy they use. Banning incandescent light bulbs specifically would allow them to be replaced with something even less efficient, if there's an alternative that's cheap and isn't technically an "incandescent light bulb". If that happened, the law would have had the opposite of the desired effect.
By writing the law that way you don't mandate or exclude any technology. If an incandescent light bulb can be made to be efficient enough, that's just fine.
Asshole
No that is included in the cost of the product. And since you save money with CFLs the tradeoff is pretty clear. You really should try the new ones, they have them working outdoors and in enclosed fixtures now.
Honestly, this all comes down to how dumb people are. I'll give an example from where I grew up
It was a relatively small town, but within 10-20 minutes of large cities here in New York. There is literally NO cell phone reception around the entire radius of the town. You have to drive at least 10-15 minutes to get cell reception. So Verizon (and at that time, CellularOne who was recently bought out by AT&T) wanted to put up a tower right in the middle of the town behind some barns and silos. Not visible from the road but if you tried hard enough you could see it.
The town, who I knew from experience hated not having cell service, was concerned about property values dropping and how "bad the tower would look" when driving by...so Verizon proposed using one of the "camouflage" towers that looks like a pine tree. The town reviewed it, and STILL said no because it "didn't look enough like a tree". So Verizon came back and said "ok we will build the tower inside a silo. You won't be able to see it AT ALL. The reception will be reduced slightly because of it being enclosed, but you will still have service". Instead of approving it, they put it up for a vote, and the tower STILL voted it down over concerns of "radiation".
Weeks later I remember hanging out with friends, whose fathers and mothers were on the town board, and others who had voted no, and hearing them and their kids bitch about the fact that there still wasn't cell reception, and blaming the cell companies for NOT PROVIDING A FEASIBLE SOLUTION!
I think this happens more often than not around the country, where stupid backwards people who don't really know what they are talking about, wind up shooting town technological advances in favor of "oh that looks bad" or "oh i heard it does _______ which is bad" without knowing the facts, or understanding how important technology can be, especially in rural areas that have been without it. In this case, lack of cell phone reception and broadband internet kept many businesses and other things important for growth of a town or city out of the area because of the lack of available technology.
It really amazes me at how resistant people are. I'd rather have my property value go down a little than be without cell reception or internet service in this day in age. It hurts more not to have it than it would to just grin and bear it for the good of advancement.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
I consider Edison's incandescent bulbs to be a superior technology to CFLs. Fast turnon, can be used in cold/hot areas (or enclosed fixtures), cost consumers 1/10th to buy, use fewer materials, easy to recycle, and no mercury vapor.
.
Somewhat off topic I know but I can't resist.
Let's examine those points you made:
A few indisputable advantages of incandescents:
A few indisputable disadvantages of incandescents:
In short, your assertion that incandescents are "a superior technology" is only true for specific applications. For most commercial buildings and residences, CFLs are a better choice much of the time for many many applications.
Wow, where do I start... Let's keep it short.
First, this country is not a democracy, even though we espouse the democratic concepts. It's something called a representative republic. If your school failed to teach you that, or you failed high school civics, then go look it up, I'm sure wikipedia has an article on it.
Second, no town or person can do "whatever they want". If they could, it would be an anarchy and there would be no town ordinances in the first place. Don't forget that they have to follow rules as well (state & federal), and if you let people do whatever they want, they will eventually do stupid or unfair things that just hurt themselves or other people. (Remember slavery? It's an extreme example, but totally valid to represent what happens when you let the 'majority' do what they want.)
Third is the communist thing. We'll ignore the original utopian concept that communism was meant to be and go with the more modern variant based on the old Soviet Union and the current China. Hmmm, a government setting a restrictive rule that limits both corporate endeavors and public access to communication utilities/resources. Yep, that qualifies as modern communism. But that's the opposite of your declaration... Yeah, speaking of failing high school civics, I think we've got your number.
Just a small note on utopias. There are many different utopian theories, and they are all interesting but fatally flawed. I don't believe in the possiblity of any form of utopia existing until after all of humanities basic psyche has been severely altered, and that isn't happening any time soon, if ever.
And nothing of value will be lost.
Maybe, just maybe, the city fathers are crazy like a fox. Eventually, Hempstead (? home of marijuana) will become a bastion of civility and quiet. Drivers will actually pay attention to the road. Teenagers won't have their thumbs in splints.
And maybe they're just batshit insane. My money is on the latter.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"The ordinance prohibits wireless equipment within 1,500 feet of homes, schools, day care centers, and houses of worship, unless the company can prove absolute need."
Note the last part of that sentence from the summary. In essence, it seems to imply that their just requiring special building permits approved on a case-by-case basis for any new cell tower built in a potentially concerning place. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
At the very least, if the process for requesting permits for new towers becomes more cumbersome, perhaps the providers will look more closely at re-using/sharing existing towers in more elaborate ways. If not, we'll have cell towers on every block sooner or later (which isn't good for anybody).
...to visualise [sic]...
FYI: in the English (as opposed to American)-speaking world, it is typical (though no longer obligatory) to use "s" rather than "z" in such a case.
Taking your comment another way...
So what if the cell phone company chooses not to set up shop in your town because it's not profitable?
Are you going to be adolescent and call them names too for not making it less possible for people to die?
Oh... what about my right to not have electromagnetic radiation involuntarily pulsed through my body for your convenience?
(For the record, I don't have a problem with being subject to radio tower emissions, but some people do).
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
>>>The energy is the issue
Yeah but how much energy is saved when I have to make a special trip in my Car to carry the Burned-Out CFL to a special recycling center (due to mercury content). Benjamin Franklin has a saying: "Penny wise and pound foolish." This is the same deal where you're saving a few watts of power and then burning-up kilowatts on disposal costs.
The incandescent would save more energy overall, because it can just be tossed with all the other garbage and doesnt need special (read: energy expensive) handling.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Say what??? CFLs cost about ten times more than the Edison incadescent bulb. Also in my experience, almost none of them have lasted longer than the incandescents. They keep dying within 1-2 times the span of a regular bulb, thereby actually costing me MORE money to use, not less.
Of course I know why they die so fast. I have enclosed fixtures.
Am I supposed to go out and spend hundreds of dollars changing my home's fixtures from closed to open, just so I can save a few pennies with CFLs? That's bass-backwards. I have a better idea: Let's keep the incandescents because they aren't so damn fragile.
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