In September, Peyton resident Bob Joly learned that Verizon Wireless has asked the county for permission to build a high power microwave transmission tower on the parcel that borders Joly’s property on Peyton Highway.Since then, Joly has been organizing a campaign against the tower. He has been contacting neighbors who did not get a notice from the county because their property does not adjoin the parcel, which is owned by Longhorn Acres Land & Cattle LLC.Joly said his major concern is about the health effects of long-term exposure to microwave radiation emitted by this type of tower.His concerns could be well-founded.In 2004, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment published a study of people living near the antenna farm on Lookout Mountain in Jefferson County, Colo., that serves the Denver area.Although the study found the incidence of brain tumors to be normal in most areas, it found an increased number of benign and malignant tumors in women and an increased number of malignant tumors in males living in two specific areas near the antenna farm.The Web site, www.MomsForSafeWireless.org, lists eight international studies showing sleep disorders, headaches, nervousness, distress, fatigue and difficulty concentrating among people living near cell towers.”We’ve found that it’s very hazardous to have (these towers) anywhere where people live,” said Jody Heffner, who lives near the proposed tower site with his wife and family.It can affect people up to 5 miles away, he said.As a real estate agent, Heffner also knows how these towers affect property values.”I’ve had several listings near cell towers, and as soon as we drive up to a property and see the cell tower, clients say ‘turn around, I don’t want to see this property,'” he said. “So, you lose about a good 40 percent of people who are in the market to buy a house. That’s how property values drop 30 to 40 percent.”In 2006, Ed and Mary Henning bought two 5-acre parcels on Safe Landing Road from the same company that owns the property slated for the proposed tower. They had hoped to build their retirement home.The county notified the Hennings because their property is next to the proposed site.Ed Henning said he’s surprised that only eight property owners out of the hundreds of people living within the tower’s 5-mile radius were notified.”This project should be cancelled just because of this underhanded approach,” Ed Henning wrote in a letter to the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners.Like Joly, Henning is concerned about the tower’s effects on local residents’ health.”The devastating effects related to 24-hour a day, every day, 20-to-30 year-long impacts will be massive,” Henning said. “The loss of life, pain, suffering, medical costs and possibility of future un-insurability is too much for present and future residents to bear.”The effects will worsen over time because heightened competition between cell phone companies will drive them to increase the number of transmitters and signal density, he wrote.Future development in the area could suffer as well.Shaw Ranch is located near the proposed cell tower. Its owners were planning to develop residential housing before the recession hit.”Why would anybody want to pump a bunch of money into development when you got these towers coming around?” Heffner asked.All of the schools in Peyton School District 23-Jt are located within 2 miles or less of the proposed tower.”The school district and other government entities could be sued and held liable for approving this project,” Henning said.There’s also concern about immediate health risks.At least one person living within a few hundred feet of the tower proposed in Peyton has a pacemaker, Joly said.Problems with cell phones and pacemakers have been documented.At its Web site, the Centers for Disease Control reports that when placed near a pacemaker, some cell phones interfere with a pacemaker’s normal delivery of electrical pulses needed to keep a heart functioning properly.But no data on the subject of people with pacemakers living next to cell towers could be found at the CDC’s Web site.The Food and Drug Administration’s Web site reports that the erratic movements of an electronic wheelchair could have been caused by a cell tower that was erected 75 feet from its owner’s home.Joly said that, in the past, at least one cell tower in the Falcon area was defeated when opponents did more than just say “we don’t like it.””That’s why I did a lot of research and got a lot of documentation,” he said. “I just hope everybody [on the planning commission] reads it.”Karen Parsons, who is handling Verizon’s application for the county’s Development Services Department, said the permit could come up for a planning commission hearing in December, at the earliest.
