Attempts to get Huntsville Council to oppose a proposed telecommunications tower on the G5 network at 27 Hoodstown Road were not successful.
At the May 10, 2023, Planning Council meeting, residents Peggy Peterson and Gerry Lantaigne spoke passionately against the tower and its potential health effects.
Peterson told council that according to a recent study, 30 per cent of people in Ontario are impacted adversely by electromagnetic radiation that comes off the towers and three per cent suffer serious health concerns.
“To simplify this whole issue, and to clarify it for all of us, this is essentially being now called pollution, electromagnetic pollution, because we’re contaminating all of our airwaves and all of our forests and all of our communities,” said Peterson. “It’s actually polluting our environment with a known carcinogen…” noted Peterson referring to mounting concerns about the possibility of adverse health effects resulting from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields.
She said there are three people in the area where the tower is being proposed who have compromised health issues and told councillors they have a duty to ensure that not one person is harmed by their decision.
“The other thing you have to understand is that we don’t need these towers. The industry doesn’t need these towers. We have inground, secure systems that will boost people’s wireless, give them cell phone service much more economical, much more efficient and they won’t be contaminating our airwaves and our entire biospheres 365 days/24 hours a day with electromagnetic radiation.”
She asked council to reject the tower, even if senior government is the actual approval agency. “Well let’s see what the government does. Huntsville has an opportunity to set a different bar on this issue and it is a global issue, and it is coming here,” she said, referring to safety zones with only hard-wired Internet.
Lantaigne cited a host of reports regarding the adverse effects of electromagnetic radiation on humans, including a report noting that “in 1990 Ronald Reagan authorized Project Sleeping Beauty— mind control through microwaves to disrupt the human nervous system. Unhinge a man’s mind, paralyze his ability to reason and react causing rage or lethargy… they’re doing that,” he said. “The issue of the deployment of this military-style equipment is that it transmits very low vibrational frequencies that are tuned to the same frequency as the human brain. This causes extreme interference with the normal functioning of the brain and many extremely harmful conditions reported by the Pentagon. Signals can be controlled and manipulated at any moment by raising or lowering these frequencies and directing them in specific directions, leaving the entire system open to misuse with the intent to cause harm by a future controller of that technology.”
Lantaigne told councillors that there is enough evidence to call for a moratorium on the towers. Lantaigne said he asked that the information and studies he had reviewed be shared by Canacre Ltd. with members of the public at their public meeting respecting the tower but they declined.
“It would be in everyone’s best interest, including big telecom, to power down all 5G systems across Muskoka and the territories and jurisdiction of the service corporation of Canada before further damage is perpetrated on innocent and ill-informed communities across this country by the omission of this vital information…”
Fox Lake Association representative Alex Yule, who said the association represents about 70 households, also spoke at the meeting. She said the majority of residents around the community of Fox Lake, which includes East, West, and North Fox Lake Road as well as Rachels Lane, Yael’s Nature Walk, and a large part of Ravenscliffe Road, have no cellphone service. She also said very few residents have high-speed internet—only those with Starlink. “Everyone else has no Internet or unreliable, slow, and unstable Internet, including me,” she said, adding that it makes it difficult to work, study, and access banking and government services as well as emergency services, particularly for those who don’t have cell phone service, either.
“The power goes out, they have no ability to contact emergency services…,” she said while reminding council of the past snowstorms and the fact that more people are moving up to the area on a year-round basis. On behalf of those residents, and herself, she asked councillors to concur with the construction of the monopine- style 35m tall cellular tower.
Manager of Planning Services for the Town, Richard Clark, told councillors that 15 parties had submitted written comments in response to the public meeting and additional circulation respecting the tower. He said ten comments were in favour, two were neutral or requested additional information and three were against the proposal.
Huntsville Mayor Nancy Alcock said she had considered all comments carefully including proposed mitigation measures involving the potential impact of tree removal on wildlife habitat. She said the decision was difficult but she would be voting in favour of the tower as safety is also a concern for area residents, particularly those who live alone, who have no service to call for help in case of an emergency.
“With respect to the issue of health that were raised and with a great deal of passion… I am not a medical expert, I am not an expert in this field and so I have to listen to the authorities where they have this expertise and from that perspective, at the moment, Health Canada is one of the authorities of several in the health field that does have that expertise. And so at this point, this proposal is well within those guidelines. From my perspective, that’s the authority that I will take the recommendations from,” she said.
Huntsville Deputy Mayor Dan Armour agreed. “I have to echo our mayor on this. If you look at Safety Code 6, etc., and the studies that are done behind, I think that we need to go in the right direction, and I think that this does meet that Safety Code 6, so I can support this.”
In the end, the majority of councillors voted in favour of the tower with the exception of Councillor Cory Clarke who voted against it.
You can find the staff’s planning report, HERE.
Related: Committee halts 5G tower endorsement pending another public meeting
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What happened with that cell tower?
From what I’ve read although there is some debate about health impacts of cell towers, the bigger definitive risk seems to be from all that cell phone use close to our heads.
I don’t know much about 5G but I do agree with Brian Tapley. More of those “cottages” are being built in my neighbourhood too. Along with the dump trucks, contractor trucks and other traffic. I can’t help but wonder if road maintenance costs are included in development fees.
Funny how it all goes. Remember when they first proposed cell phone service? Way back in the dark ages of history.
It was going to be a utopian system, all based on signals from orbiting satellites (Elon does have these at a price)
The signals were going to reach every nook and valley on the planet. (ha ha to this idea)
The service was going to be cheaper than land lines. (Land lines and cheaper are no longer words in Bell’s vocabulary)
So now if you fly around rural Ontario, the place is starting to look like a hedge hog, with antennas everywhere. Best to stay well above 100 feet agl or know exactly where you are.
Wasn’t it like this with Nuclear power too? It was going to be “so cheap that it would not be worth metering” or at least we were told that back in the late 50’s and early 60’s. That didn’t work either.
Do you really believe that “electric cars are going to save us from climate change” Think about the details for a bit and my guess is this will be in the same class as cell phones and Hydro in another 20 years. Oh we will have more of them for sure but they won’t save the climate a heck of a lot when all aspects of their use are viewed as a collective.
There needs to be a better way to live than what we are doing now.
Got to stop here as I need to entertain myself watching a nearby “cottage” blast a vast amount of good old solid Muskoka rock away to build something new that they saw in Cottage Life magazine. The cottage is already bigger than the homes of 99% of the people on the planet, heck you could get 100 immigrants from the Mexican border into the boathouse alone it if you took the boat out, but that matters not. Resources are for using and the faster the better, right?
Listen to Peggy and Garry, I know at least 50 names that would agree with them. NO 5 G!!!
Please and thank you