You need to read this article that was put out yesterday.  UNBELIEVABLE!!!!  

Mom doesn't want cell tower near ailing son
2006-01-19
by John Huether
Journal Reporter

SAMMAMISH -- Plans to erect a cell phone tower near a school bus stop are on hold while a group of residents in the Montage neighborhood try to convince T-Mobile to move it.

Shannon Coleman readily accepts that the tower needs to go somewhere -- just not near her home on Southeast Second Place, where the pole on which T-Mobile wants to place its tower is visible out the family's front window.



She and a handful of her neighbors met this week with the City Council, which last summer adopted an ordinance regulating cell tower placement. A moratorium on such towers had been in effect awaiting the ordinance, and T-Mobile's application for the one at 226 Louis Thompson Rd. near Southeast Third is the first of many expected in this affluent Plateau community.

``Our city has written a crappy ordinance,'' said Coleman, arguing that Sammamish's law should include tighter restrictions on where cell towers can go. In particular, while federal law precludes using general health issues to limit tower location, she feels the city should allow for specific health issues in deciding where a tower can, or can't, go.

``We had a nationally noted consultant help us draft this ordinance,'' responded Mayor Michelle Petitti, who said the city is trying to bring the Montage neighbors and T-Mobile representatives together to resolve the issue.

``We realized that as a city, we don't have a lot of choice in these matters,'' Pettiti said, adding that the city's main input was to establish a hierarchy of preferred sites where cell phone towers can go.

At the top of that list, said community development director Kamuron Gurol, is a city arterial right of way, which is where T-Mobile has proposed its tower.

But Louis Thompson Road is only a two-lane arterial, which Coleman argues fits smaller neighborhoods where towers shouldn't be allowed. Put them on four-lane arterials, she suggests -- or, better still, down at Ebright Creek Park, a little more than half a mile away.

Petitti doubted that would be close enough to serve the cell phone company's needs. ``Sammamish is a city full of neighborhoods. We don't have a lot of open space to put these things,'' she said.

Any revisions in the city's ordinance could not be applied retroactively to T-Mobile's application, both she and Gurol noted.

A T-Mobile representative could not be reached Wednesday for comment. In a letter to the city on Tuesday, a zoning supervisor for the company expressed a desire to meet with the neighbors opposing the tower.

The tower opponents' best hope, Petitti said, would be if T-Mobile agrees to move its tower perhaps just a short distance, something that would also involve Puget Sound Energy's agreeing to allow it on a different pole.

Meanwhile, Petitti says the City Council will discuss the tower with staff Tuesday evening, and Coleman is awaiting that meeting with T-Mobile representatives.

She's not optimistic they'll agree to move the tower, though.



The connection with radiation resonates deeply with Coleman, whose mother lived in Hanford, home of the Hanford Nuclear Facility.

``My mother was a downwinder,'' Coleman said, using the term for residents near the nuclear site who were exposed to radiation releases. ``I spent every summer of my infancy down there, so I was exposed to the radiation as a downwinder, also.

``And I believe my higher-than-normal exposure to radiation caused Conner to develop this diesease.''

     Hey Michelle,  Great article that certaintly gives all of us something to think about.
     By the way who is the neurosurgeon?  He seems a little too confident in knowing the causes of moyamoya while all of the experts that we've dealt with have no idea as to the cause.   Anyway good job
    
     Tom

Geesh.  At first, I was thinking that the idea of communication towers and Moyamoya being related was ridiculous... then, I remembered that for about 10 years I lived about a quarter of a mile from communication towers (and even played around them) as a teen.  We also could see a nuclear power plant in New Jersey from our house -- although it was miles away.  A lot of people around our house also had cancer (and two of our dogs died of cancer).

Then, I started thinking about the fact that Daphne had lots more than normal ultrasounds because one of her kidneys was larger than it was supposed to be (the issue has since resolved on its own, and isn't an uncommon imaging finding in fetuses) and the doctors wanted to keep track of it.

There are so many possible causes, though.  I do remember reading about radiation being one of many possible causes of MM disease, but I believe that was with intense radiation undergone in something like cancer treatment.   Actually, there were a number of possible causes that seemed to apply to Daphne (e.g. Daphne had CMV as a young infant, and that was one of the hundreds of things associated with Moyamoya). 

I guess it's natural to always wonder why this happened to your child/you.   

Hi Michelle,

Very interesting article!  Okay, when I first read it, I felt like Jenny did.  I initially thought, what is this lady thinking?  But then, after reading everyone else's posts, come to think of it, I too had more than the "normal" amount of radiation growing up as well.  I had a lot of headaches in middle and high school and therefore had numerous CTs.  I also had thyroid cancer , and now I have radioactive treatment everyother to every 2 years.  Bottom line is that this has made me go "hmmmmm..... " and got me thinking.... I don't recall living near any communication towers though.

Anyway, I did find this article very interesting.  You always find such great articles.  Thank you for sharing.

Take care,
Shan