1) A lot is happening on Salt Spring Island in their battle to stop the cell tower. There is a lot of information below in “Letters” about the picketing effort. Here is a press release. Please share. People need to know how Rogers and ISED operate. As more communities all over demand safety over profit, changes will come. Fights like those in Qualicum Beach and SSI can make a huge difference in bringing attention to the problems caused by cell towers and the way our rights are being ignored.
Rogers cell tower fiasco draws RCMP to angry homeowners & community protest in BC
2) More communities in the USA are demanding their right to refuse having cell towers near their homes. Verizon, no doubt, will continue this fight as they did in Pittsfield because they cannot afford a precedent to be set. Good luck to Mahopac.
Town Wins in Court, Stops Cell Tower Installation in Residential Neighborhood
“UPDATE Residents in the hamlet of Mahopac within the town of Carmel, NY took their fight against Verizon Wireless to court. As the Westchester Journal News reports, State Supreme Justice Thomas Davis agreed with the plaintiff’s grievances. He held that the town of Carmel entered into an unlawful agreement with Homeland Towers to build a 140 foot cell tower in a residential neighborhood. The judge found that the dealings were not conducted in a transparent manner, and were influenced by a voting member who stood to gain financially from the arrangement.”
3) This Spring, birds died by the thousands in areas of Europe when multiple new cell towers were activated in their nesting areas. Arthur documents several of these and compares with healthy colonies in areas with no or few cell towers. Yet another reason why we must keep fighting cell towers and demand industry move to fiber optic cable ASAP.
(click on photos to enlarge)
“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” by Arthur Firstenberg
“On the Dutch island of Texel, being the south end of a line of islands separating the Wadden Sea from the North Sea, a large breeding colony of seabirds called Sandwich terns (“great terns” in Dutch) made headline news last month by dying. Of the 7,000 birds nesting in the De Petten nature reserve until the end of May, none were left by the middle of June. 3,000 avian corpses were collected, and the rest either died or abandoned their nests.”
https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Birds-on-Texel-Island.pdf
Letters:
From: Team CROC <teamcrocssi@gmail.com>
To: Team CROC <teamcrocssi@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2022 at 3:19:22 p.m. PDT
Subject: July 28th Rogers Tower Update and Press Release to Driftwood
Update:
After we wrapped up our protest today, a surveying crew arrived on site and spent several hours marking up the location where the antenna compound is going to be placed. Although Rogers are on record during the zoom call earlier in July stating that no trees will be cut down, it’s clear from the markings that several trees will be eliminated.
So what have we learned:
– Rogers is continuing to prepare for breaking ground
– We need to try and picket for more than just a few hours first thing in the morning
– To do that we will need a greater level of participation – if you can join us on Canvasback, we’d love to see you
– Our efforts to embarrass Rogers for their egregious behaviour, to convince the LTC they must act, and to have the ISED conduct a proper dispute resolution process before throwing out the LTC rescindment are all more important than ever
Thanks for all your support!
Team CROC
********
From: Team CROC <teamcrocssi@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 10:03 AM
Subject: July 28th Rogers Tower Update and Press Release to Driftwood
Good morning!
This is our biggest email blast yet. 182 people 🙂 THANK YOU all for paying attention to this. We are NOT going away and are ramping up!!! This heat is keeping our protest numbers small (but consistent!) in person but online our activity is really growing and getting more powerful. Thank you for your help!
Update re yesterday July 27th: There were zero Rogers contractor vehicles that attempted to enter the proposed tower site as opposed to 3 Rogers vehicles on July 26th. 2 of those Rogers vehicles were turned away, but one of them called the police and that forced us to let him through. He was there to make markings on the ground for blasting. Picketers stayed until about 10:30am until the heat was too oppressive. We have numerous neighbours on the lookout for vehicles going up and down that access road/entering the gate.
Update for today July 28th: Picketers are currently at the site, but will likely have to disband for the day around 10:30am/11am or once it is too hot to continue. Today and tomorrow and Saturday are all having highs of roughly 30 degrees so it will mean starting early and ending early, in case anyone is thinking of coming by! 7:30am-10:30am is a good window while this heat wave is on. Bring a parasol, chair, hat and water!
PRESS RELEASE TO DRIFTWOOD: We have been sending letters and press releases to various media outlets in Vancouver/Vancouver Island daily but wanted to share this one first with all of you since it’s to our local Salt Spring Driftwood Media and has a bit more info about the LTC specifically. We will share another one soon that speaks to conflicts of interest among the federal regulators. Please copy and paste, or forward this email to spread this first press release around. We will also be sharing it on social media so feel free to do the same. Our SSI LTC needs to feel the pressure! We may in fact organize picketing outside the LTC office as well. Stay tuned.
Sharon Noble, Director, Coalition to Stop Smart Meters
“Maybe they continued to agree with Archie Bunker – as I said earlier, you can’t change people’s minds, but you can get them to think.” Norman Lear