The Federal Communications Commission has a broad mandate to ensure that technology doesn’t damage the environment, but as the agency presides over a nationwide buildout for 5G service, requiring 800,000 new “small cell” transmitters, it is ignoring that mandate.
By Peter Elkind, ProPublica, 3 May 2023
In a mountainous forest in southwest Puerto Rico, workers cleared a patch to make room for a 120-foot cellphone tower intended for use by AT&T and T-Mobile.
The site, as the tower company later acknowledged, destroyed some of the nesting habitats of the Puerto Rican nightjar, a tiny endangered songbird. Fewer than 2,000 are believed to be alive today.
In the northwestern New Mexico desert, a company called Sacred Wind Communications, promising to bring broadband to remote Navajo communities, planted a cell tower near the legally protected Pictured Cliffs archaeological site, which contains thousands of centuries-old tribal rock carvings.
And in Silicon Valley, a space startup pursued plans to equip thousands of satellites to use mercury fuel in orbit, even as an Air Force official at one of the possible launch sites voiced “extreme concern” that the toxic element could rain back down to Earth.
You may be surprised to learn that these potential harms fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Few people think of the FCC as an environmental cop. It’s known for regulating television and radio and overseeing the deployment of communications technology.
But the agency also has a broad mandate to ensure that technology doesn’t damage the environment. The task includes everything from protecting wildlife and human health to preserving historic sites and even preventing aesthetic blight.
This role is particularly critical now, as the FCC presides over a nationwide buildout for 5G service, which will require 800,000 new “small cell” transmitters, those perched on street poles and rooftops, often near schools, apartments and homes.
But even with this massive effort underway, as ProPublica previously reported, the FCC has refused to revise its radiation-exposure limits, which date back to the era of flip phones.
In addition, the agency has cut back on the environmental reviews that it requires while also restricting local governments’ control over wireless sites.
And as the satellite-fuel example reflects, the FCC’s ambit extends even into space.
The agency is licensing thousands of commercial satellites at a moment when the profusion of objects circling the planet is raising concerns about collisions in space, impediments to astronomy, pollution and debris falling back to Earth.
To call the FCC’s environmental approach hands-off would be an understatement.
Continue reading:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/fcc-5g-rollout-environmental-damage/
The site, as the tower company later acknowledged, destroyed some of the nesting habitats of the Puerto Rican nightjar, a tiny endangered songbird. Fewer than 2,000 are believed to be alive today.
In the northwestern New Mexico desert, a company called Sacred Wind Communications, promising to bring broadband to remote Navajo communities, planted a cell tower near the legally protected Pictured Cliffs archaeological site, which contains thousands of centuries-old tribal rock carvings.
And in Silicon Valley, a space startup pursued plans to equip thousands of satellites to use mercury fuel in orbit, even as an Air Force official at one of the possible launch sites voiced “extreme concern” that the toxic element could rain back down to Earth.
You may be surprised to learn that these potential harms fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Few people think of the FCC as an environmental cop. It’s known for regulating television and radio and overseeing the deployment of communications technology.
But the agency also has a broad mandate to ensure that technology doesn’t damage the environment. The task includes everything from protecting wildlife and human health to preserving historic sites and even preventing aesthetic blight.
This role is particularly critical now, as the FCC presides over a nationwide buildout for 5G service, which will require 800,000 new “small cell” transmitters, those perched on street poles and rooftops, often near schools, apartments and homes.
But even with this massive effort underway, as ProPublica previously reported, the FCC has refused to revise its radiation-exposure limits, which date back to the era of flip phones.
In addition, the agency has cut back on the environmental reviews that it requires while also restricting local governments’ control over wireless sites.
And as the satellite-fuel example reflects, the FCC’s ambit extends even into space.
The agency is licensing thousands of commercial satellites at a moment when the profusion of objects circling the planet is raising concerns about collisions in space, impediments to astronomy, pollution and debris falling back to Earth.
To call the FCC’s environmental approach hands-off would be an understatement.
Continue reading:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/fcc-5g-rollout-environmental-damage/
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