Morristown council gets (virtual) look at 50-foot Verizon 5G poles

Verizon graphic shows black light pole with 5G transmitter on top, March 23, 2021. Screenshot by Kevin Coughlin
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Some of them will stand nearly 50 feet tall. Their bases will take up two feet of sidewalk space. You will see one every 2,000 feet or so.

But they won’t be any riskier, health-wise, than those cell towers you pass on the highway.

That’s according to Verizon Wireless representatives, who gave the Morristown council a virtual glimpse Tuesday of the 5G antenna poles coming to town.

Verizon graphic of light pole with 5G transmitter on top; these poles can stand nearly 50 feet high. Screenshot by Kevin Coughlin

Council members grilled Verizon about health and safety issues, aesthetics, and whether the wider base of these stanchions will impede pedestrians, sidewalk café patrons, and Seeing Eye dog trainers.

The Zoom session included an animated “flyover” showing how these wooden and metal poles might look along Speedwell Avenue, and added a few details to Verizon’s initial presentation in December.

Fifty “small cell nodes” are planned, to enhance Verizon’s high speed wireless network. No timetable was announced, nor was the amount that the company will pay the town. Verizon officials are hashing out an ordinance with town attorneys, and amending a 2016 right-of-way agreement for use of existing light poles.

HEALTHY DEBATE?

Millimeter-wave radiation from these nodes won’t come close to safety thresholds established by the Federal Communications Commission, Verizon engineering consultant Andrew Petersohn said in response to questions from Council President Stefan Armington.

“When we bake all these worst case assumptions in, even at ground level, the readings that we typically find are on the order of… hundreds of times less” than federal limits, Petersohn said. “The reality is, they’re typically thousands of times less.”

Each antenna will be analyzed for compliance with FCC rules, he said.

Although there will be more nodes, closer to people, exposure levels will be about the same as those from more familiar cell towers, which “often are a mile or a mile-and-a-half away,” Petersohn said.

But more antennae are likely to follow, from other wireless companies.

Verizon graphic suggests light pole (on right) with transmitters from two carriers, March 23, 2021. Screenshot by Kevin Coughlin

At most, Verizon’s poles will accommodate only one other carrier, company officials said, when pressed by Councilman Robert Iannaccone.

That could mean additional poles from other wireless carriers. Town officials are trying to craft an ordinance that would set aesthetic specifications for them all.

While some cities have attempted to prohibit such nodes, citing concerns about cancer, it’s an uphill fight. The FCC’s 5G Fast plan aims to expedite the national rollout of these wireless networks, and has set limits on municipal fees for use of utility poles.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2019 reaffirmed FCC exposure standards set in 1996, stating that “the available scientific evidence to date does not support adverse health effects in humans due to exposures at or under the current limits.”

Yet more study is needed, according to more than 400 scientists and medical doctors who have signed the 5G Appeal urging the European Union to delay 5G deployment.

In a letter to Scientific American, Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, cited studies suggesting possible dangers of prior wireless technologies, and endorsed a moratorium on this new iteration.

Americans should “demand that our government fund the research needed to adopt biologically based exposure limits that protect our health and safety,” he wrote.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Verizon plans to retrofit existing lighting- and utility poles in some Morristown locations — doubling their height–and install new ones in other spots.

Each antenna is about the size of a Home Depot bucket, according to Verizon attorney Kevin Jones. They weigh between 25 and 35 pounds, and some will be encased in 10-foot decorative “shrouds,” said Colleen Connolly, another Verizon engineering consultant.

“Oh my God. You’re putting 35 pounds on top of these polls in front of second story windows? Next to streets with traffic?” asked Councilwoman Sandi Mayer.

All will be analyzed to make sure they are “structurally sound,” Connolly said, responding to questions about whether the poles will withstand storms and auto collisions.

Verizon graphic shows light pole with 5G transmitter on top, March 23, 2021. Screenshot by Kevin Coughlin

Mayer also questioned two-foot bases for these poles.

“That’s like a huge expanse of walking space,” she said, noting that the Seeing Eye trains guide dogs on Morristown’s sidewalks, which also have supported restaurant dining during the pandemic.

“I mean, we have tightness as it is, people have been experiencing the pandemic, we’re trying to support our cafes, and now we’re going to have a two-foot pole smack dab maybe in the middle of this?”

Connolly said she was unaware of any placements planned outside of restaurants. Mayer said Verizon’s map is hard to read.

Verizon maps of proposed 5G modes in Morristown; click/hover on images for captions:

Verizon all nodes
verizon public lighting
verizon map utility poles
verizon stealth poles
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Verizon will try to accommodate any concerns about pole locations, though technical considerations are a factor, Petersohn said.

“If there is a location that’s just unpalatable, yeah, we’ll work to move to a reasonable distance away. However, once we start pushing beyond the next pole or across the street, then it upsets the balance of the design as a whole.

“The puzzle piece moves too far, and then the next puzzle piece, and there’s a cascading effect, so you know that there is that to consider,” he said.

Verizon also is rolling out 5G in Newark, Jersey City, Trenton, and along the Jersey Shore. Mayer inquired about Morristown’s neighbors.

“A lot of that is information that is proprietary at this point,” Verizon’s Bryan Cline said.

Virtual Morristown council meeting, March 23, 2021. Screenshot by Kevin Coughlin

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2 COMMENTS

  1. You asked for it. This is a classic case of NIMBYism. So many people live in heads-down mode. Their phones are their lives. They want more data, and faster is never fast enough. So the phone companies respond to that need. But then, people don’t like the solution.

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