by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., childrenshealthdefense.org, March 25, 2025
The residents of the “Shacktown” neighborhood of Pittsfield have been fighting for years to relocate or turn down the radiation levels of the Verizon cell tower installed in their neighborhood in March 2020.
“It’s been 1,694 days of being sick and displaced,” said plaintiff Courtney Gilardi, a mother who said her family became ill and had to move because of Verizon’s tower. “The kids just want to go home and be back in their own rooms in their own community without vomiting in their beds.”
Gilardi added:
“The injured neighbors still living in Shacktown want to live safely in their own houses without feeling dizzy, nauseous and without experiencing palpitations, afib, cardiac issues, migraines and other neurological symptoms.
“We have been begging for help for the last four years, seven months and 21 days, and up until our Board of Health became involved, all we’ve had is finger-pointing on whose responsibility it is to deal with a community health problem. It feels like Verizon just wants us to shut up and die.”
After noticing a sharp spike in illness after the tower went up, Gilardi and other residents reached out to their local health board for help.
In February 2022, the board — after researching the health impacts of radiofrequency (RF) radiation emitted by the tower — issued a cease-and-desist order to Verizon unless the telecom giant agreed to discuss removing or relocating the tower. Verizon sued to overturn the order.
Lawyers supported by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) intervened, arguing that the residents’ local health authorities should be able to act on residents’ behalf because the Pittsfield Health Department’s mission is to “protect and improve the health and quality of life of its residents.”
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