Comments on High Power Transmission Towers on Lookout Mountain

Roger Mattson, Ph.D.Jefferson County Resident

Presentation to

County Commission of Jefferson CountyJuly 1, 2003

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A Question of Doing the Right Thing

• The problem we have is

• What is the right thing?

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Qualifications

• Mechanical Engineer, 39 years experience in nuclear safety and radiation standards

• 17 years with federal regulatory agencies– EPA ionizing & non-ionizing radiation

standards – AEC and NRC ionizing radiation

standards

• 20 years oversight of EMI research

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The Federal Government is Not Minding the Store

• Our Government has no entity that will say there are no health effects from long term, low level exposures to non ionizing radiation.

• In the past 5 years, the EPA has spent only $25,000 in total for research in this area, even though it is the health agency designated to be in charge.

• No one at the federal level is looking into the effects of long term exposure even though FCC has called for more research, along with EPA, NIH, NIOSH, FDA, NTIA, and NCRP.

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Current FCC Standards Are Flawed

• There are no standards that address long term, low level exposure.

• There is no organized research in the U.S. on the long term health effects.

• Standards in some countries are lower by as much as 100 times relative to U.S. to guard against potential effects of long term, low level exposure. (Austria, Canada, China, European Union, Italy, Russia, Switzerland)

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Recent Research Indicates Long Term Effects of Low Level Exposures

• Since about 1990 there has been a growing international body of scientific evidence that non ionizing radiation causes health effects for long term exposures well below the current FCC standards.

• The Colorado Department of Health has studied Jeffco neighborhoods and found an excess of brain tumors, a scientifically recognized effect of non ionizing radiation.

• Studies of the public near TV towers in Italy, Hawaii, Great Britain and Australia also indicate that there are adverse effects of exposure to low levels of radiofrequency radiation.

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Public Consequences of the Proposed Rezoning Action

• Some of your constituents chose to live closer to high power transmission facilities than almost anyone else in the country because they were not informed of the potential hazards and because the zoning did not allow industrial development.

• Lake Cedar Group wants to make the situation worse by increasing the power levels and bringing the new tower closer to more people.

• Without our consent, we would become the nation's guinea pigs for learning the consequences of long term exposure to low levels of non ionizing radiation.

• The only scientific evidence available today says that these consequences appear to be adult and childhood leukemia, brain cancer, infertility, altered immune function, and neurological and developmental impairment.

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The Buck Stops Here

• No federal agency has pre-empted the setting of public health standards in this field - local governments are left to set their own standards.

• County Commissioners have the power and the responsibility to act to protect their citizens.

• If there are health effects, and if you approve this rezoning request, then you are accountable for those health effects. 

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The Right Thing

• Deny this rezoning application.• Require LCG to chose an alternative location with lower

public health risks: apply ALARA.• Adopt a precautionary policy by denying the application

now, before all of the scientific proof is in hand: apply prudence.

• Require any future applicants to address the health effects of their proposed actions.

• Require independent monitoring & interference remediation for existing towers (current liability).