Screen shows agent Michelle Klein, (upper right) Chris McDonald of Rogers., (lower left), a blank square representing Ben Van Reekum of Scott Telecom (lower right) and audience members (upper left)
About 25 people attended a meeting on Tuesday where residents expressed strong opposition to a proposed 65-metre (213 foot) Rogers cell phone tower at 14 Crescent Street in Sackville overlooking one of the town’s new water retention ponds and the walking trails around it.
“While the other providers such as Bell and Eastlink have more infrastructure in the area, Rogers currently has fewer towers, which results in many areas with weak or no service,” said Michelle Klein of Scott Telecom Services, the company that is acting as an agent for Rogers Communications Inc.
“This is especially important for critical services like EMS (emergency medical services), police, fire, rural broadband and everyday communication like voice, data and streaming,” Klein added in her online presentation from Calgary that was projected on a screen at the Civic Centre.
“I’m wondering why this tower has to be at 14 Crescent Street and not somewhere away from where people live,” asked Sackville resident Meredith Fisher referring to nearby homes on Beal Heights.
“It’s right in the centre of our town,” she said. “It’s going to be a contentious issue.”
Klein replied that her company selected the site because it’s zoned industrial and has ready access to electric power.
Her colleague Ben Van Reekum said the company has been working on the site’s technical specifications for several years after finding that there wasn’t room for a tower in the vicinity of Mount Allison University.
“There are many considerations: zoning, space…power, access, etc. and this location fit all of those as well as having a willing landlord,” he added.
Rogers is leasing the site from Sackville resident Percy Best who also attended Tuesday’s meeting.
The cell tower is across from the Armtec pipe plant, beside the CN rail line and overlooking the newly constructed Lorne St. water retention pond. Source: Rogers Communications
Kathleen Trites, a dental hygienist who works on Allison Avenue, said she puts lead aprons on her patients to protect them from tiny amounts of radiation when they get X-rays.
“What are people going to do, walk around with lead aprons all the time?” she asked referring to studies on the health effects linked to radio frequency (RF) radiation from cell towers.
Trites warned that children at the nearby Marshview Middle School would be at risk of thyroid cancer.
“Canada has very strict regulations for RF energy including Health Canada’s Safety Code 6“, Klein told the meeting.
“Safety Code 6 is based on scientific research and it aligns with international standards,” she added. “Health Canada ensures that RF levels from towers remain well below safe limits for human and wildlife exposure.”
However, Klein’s assurances did not seem to convince other residents who spoke.
Jean Cameron speaking to Michele Klein as audience members listen. Photo: Erica Butler
Retired physician Jean Cameron expressed a number of concerns pointing out that the area is subject to flooding worsened by rising sea levels and potential dyke breaches as well as hurricane-force winds from the Bay of Fundy as ocean temperatures rise due to climate change.
She also said that a cell tower that tall could affect migrating birds and wondered why Rogers would not consider locating it on the Tantramar Marsh where CBC shortwave towers once stood or on the nearby site of the Enterprise Foundry less than a kilometre away.
“This is a difficult decision I know for you folks to make, but it’s also very important to us as residents,” said former Sackville mayor Pat Estabrooks who also expressed concern about potential health effects.
“I live on Beal Heights, so that tower will be directly behind our home,” she added.
“It’s not the right place to put it…[and] I just want to tell you you’re making a wrong decision.”
When asked about next steps, Klein explained that after public consultations are complete, she will write a report for the Southeast Regional Service Commission’s municipal planning department known as Plan 360.
“It will include every comment that we’ve received, not from the open house tonight, but it will include every comment that has been e-mailed in and my response to the comment,” she said.
“After that, it will be up to Plan 360 to issue a letter of concurrence or non-concurrence. And, at that point, we review the file and if we have our letter of concurrence, then we move forward with building a tower.”
For previous coverage, click here.
LOL this town is hilarious. There’s already two towers downtown and no one seems to make a stink about those…
The “feedback” from the opposing parties literally made me laugh out loud.
What a load of bunk. Build the tower. Supposed health issues are complete fantasy. Industrial zoning either means something or it doesn’t, and the old Enterprise Fawcett lot is just as close to homes as the Crescent street location. If you don’t want to see industrial infrastructure, why do you live next to an industrial park?
The ‘industrial park’ was built well AFTER most of the property owners had purchased, invested, and lived in their homes – creating a neighbourhood. Russell Metals, over by the highway, was the only site of industry when I purchased my property 18 years ago, aside from the Town Engineering office bldg. and snowplow depot. The sign indicating ‘Industrial Park’ was only erected about two years ago. A lot of information was left out of reporting about the meeting last Tuesday, so if you weren’t there – you simply would not know.
Their cell tower is located according to their needs as a telecom company.
Does the effort to allow for public input actually mean anything other than to give the appearance of listening to concerns before they go ahead anyway with their plans and hope the majority of people stay silent about their desire not to see this monstrosity towering over the natural spaces park and rural landscape and nearby Middle School? Probably goes without saying that if people need their cell phones, and they appear to really need them, then this project will have to go ahead as planned. I don’t have a cell phone.. I’m old skool.. so I can wag my finger at your neediness as the problem.
Public input is awesome. I’m all for it.
Rogers has proposed putting a cell tower in *checks notes* AN INDUSTRIAL PARK. Who do they think they are?!? Providers of industrial infrastructure?!?
You cite a “majority of people”. Based on what? You asked some like-minded friends and they agreed? If we’re going to make majorities up out of thin air, I’m going out on a limb and suggesting that the majority of people couldn’t care less, either way, about a cell tower. As for the ”desire not to see this monstrosity…”, personally, I expect it to be a sleek, minimalist example of state-of-the-art engineering.
It’s a cell tower. Hardly anyone will notice it once it’s been there a week.
[As for the alleged health concerns raised, it’s fascinating that in the photo accompanying this article, I only see 1 person wearing a mask — during a time of high spread of influenza, RSV, measles, and COVID. A big show is made of health concerns while casual contempt is shown for the health of others in the meeting — and the health of everyone they all come into direct contact with. Was there any air filtration in use during the meeting? Were the windows and doors all wide open? The dental hygienist and the retired physician would know all about the very real, immediate risks of spreading highly infectious, potentially deadly airborne diseases, which contrasts sharply with the largely theoretical and unproven issues raised around cell towers. It all comes off a bit rich, the NIMBY scolds shouting “do as I say; not as I do”.]
In the end, it seems as if the real issue is that there’s an industrial park on the edge of town.
To be completely honest, I’d rather entertain this sort of discussion about safety with S.A. Cunliffe than with, I suspect, many of the people in that meeting – because S.A. does not have a cell phone.
Realistically, the exposure to RF energy would have been higher in that room, with a dozen or more phones in people’s pockets, than at any realistic distance from the emitters on the proposed tower. If a person is genuinely concerned with any perceived risk from radiated energy from cellular communication the very first step is to stop carrying around a cell phone.
And relative to Chris’s prior response, I definitely agree. If someone’s solution to “It’s too close to my house and one of the schools!” takes the form of “Why not move it closer to BOTH schools, and a lot more houses, and the hospital.”, I’m afraid I have already dismissed any rationale they had hoped would sway my opinion.
If no one notices a cell tower “once it’s been there a week”, it’s likely because their heads are buried in their smartphones. It will also be because they can’t be bothered lifting their heads to see a beautiful sunset…
If reason ranks high among the motives on display here, I must have somehow overlooked it.
Thank you, New Wark Times, for this report.
I was at this meeting.
As part of the process being followed for approval of an installation such as this cell tower, public consultation is necessary. Unfortunately, very few people knew about the “ public information” session and that it only happened as a result of being requested by Mayor and Council. It was at very short notice. Interestingly enough, a new resident that lives within the immediate area did not receive any information about anything related to this project or the meeting until just hours before.
#1. Consultation is not representative.
The consultant and Rogers representative were doing their jobs to conduct the public consultation. However, they were both grossly unable to answer many of the very pertinent technical questions that were being asked as part of their Q & A.
They, themselves, did not seem to know of the well-founded potential health risks of being exposed to EMFs especially in close proximity. Our children and pregnant women are most at risk. If you do not think this is the case, please take the time to educate yourself further with credible information.
#2 . Clearly, the consultant and Rogers rep. did not know anything about the risk.
Therefore, consultation is not to be considered as completely valid.
We are almost all addicted to our cell phones and devices now. All companies that are in the business of providing faster “seamless” (5G) service to their customers are in a race to sell their stuff to whoever will buy it at a price they will buy it at. They are not interested (yet) in potential complications as a result. They will do whatever they want to do wherever they can use persuasion and get permission to do it. We are not against development in Tantramar (Sackville) if is done thoughtfully and respectfully. The recommended location would be far from where people live. I agree that this would definitely not be on the old foundry property near two schools!
#3. Important decisions that present a potential health and safety risk to us, our kids, our grandkids and our environment into the future, must be made with as much due diligence as is absolutely possible.
It is important for us to encourage our Tantramar Council representatives to see this due diligence as important and as being accomplished. I did notice Councillor Bruce Phinney, Councillor Barry Hicks, Councillor Josh Goguen and Mayor Andrew Black at the meeting. (Sorry if I missed someone!) Please write to let Council know your concerns before April 1st. Email addresses are on the Tantramar website.
Meredith Fisher
Sackville
Tantramar
The “very pertinent technical questions” are largely irrelevant. The people conducting the consultations aren’t required to be electrical engineers, and the “do your own research, just asking questions” crowd fear-mongering about well-established technologies that would’ve already killed us all decades ago if one-tenth of their fears were real aren’t electrical engineers or medical researchers, either.
(Maybe the 5G will let Bill Gates control our minds!!! Or was that the Covid vaccine? I can’t keep up. 🙄)
All of this is, of course, moot. The jurisdiction is — from what I’ve read — federal, not municipal.
Fascinating, by the way, to see zero pushback on the lack of masking at the meeting from those claiming to be concerned about health. They could be advocating for air filtration in schools and town hall, or reduced speed limits in town to protect pedestrians, or better, safer cycling infrastructure, but instead their energy is directed toward 5G towers that will actually benefit everyone (including those they shame for — gasp — using their cell phones).
As for people who bought property adjacent to the industrial park before it existed, the time to gripe about that was when the industrial park was proposed, not now. Whether they complained at the time or not, that’s settled business. Honestly, it barely qualifies as an industrial park; it’s practically empty. What it needs is more tenants.