Op-Ed: Time to talk towers and radiation

February 16, 2026  |  By Alison Despathy

A couple in Tinmouth is fighting for their health and safety, trying to oppose a proposed radio tower approximately 500 feet from their home of more than 50 years. 

Westmore residents are collaborating to protect the natural beauty of their homes and Vermont's beloved Lake Willoughby from a recently approved radio tower. 

A family in Pownal has spent a year dealing with the torturous telecom siting process called Section 248a, trying to relocate a proposed cell tower away from their children and home in the woods of Vermont. 

Rochester residents have organized to share research and concerns regarding the environmental and health impacts of a proposed tower in their community. 

Marshfield, Manchester, Washington, the list goes on, with many communities in Vermont pushing back on this unprecedented telecom infrastructure rollout.

Vermonters are actively opposing proposed towers due to inadequate setbacks from homes, schools and sensitive areas, scientifically documented harms and negative health impacts of radiation on humans, wildlife, ecosystems, and environment, decreases in property values, and their desire to steward local areas and protect Vermont's scenic beauty.

Currently in the U.S., any and all considerations of the negative health impacts are prohibited in the siting of cell towers and telecommunication infrastructure. This was preempted by the 1996 Telecom Act, which mandates ignoring the reality of negative health effects when considering telecom siting.

People have had enough of this betrayal. The 1996 Telecom Act is a three-decades-old law, which has miserably failed to address rapidly escalating radiation and its documented and well-understood harms.

A lawsuit emerged, and on August 16, 2021, the Environmental Health Trust won a landmark case resulting in a federal court ordering the Federal Communications Commission to explain why it ignored scientific evidence showing harm from wireless radiation. 

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences also published the National Toxicology Program (2) study, which assessed tumors and heart damage in rats due to radiofrequency radiation. They concluded that the FCC limits should be strengthened up to 200-400 times the current level in order to protect children.

To date, this court order and the massive compilation of peer-reviewed research demonstrating harms from wireless radiation exposures have been blatantly ignored by the FCC and the Food and Drug Administration. Zero action has been taken to address this overwhelming body of research. 

Even more egregious, the United States allows 10-100 times higher levels of radio frequency radiation from cell towers and wireless infrastructure than most countries including Greece, Canada, Israel, Chile, Belgium, Croatia, Bulgaria, India, Switzerland, Russia, China and Italy.

Other countries have developed transparent accountability frameworks through monitoring and compliance enforcement to provide protections for communities, the environment, and vulnerable populations.

For example, in 2015, France passed legislation to ban Wi-Fi and wireless devices in nursery schools, reduce WiFi in schools, require cell tower radiation compliance, offer tools for citizens to verify radiation measurements near homes, and establish an agency to evaluate research on health effects from radiation exposure and handle compliance and enforcement of this law.

Many countries such as Turkey, Greece, Chile, Bangladesh, Australia, Israel, New Zealand, and Russia prohibit cell towers on school grounds. Australia capped radiation emission limits at 1% of federal levels near schools. Turkey mandates ongoing monitoring and compliance with radiation levels at schools and hospitals. Bangladesh banned cell towers on residential buildings, schools, colleges, playgrounds, and in high-density areas. Chile prohibits cell antennas in sensitive places such as kindergartens, hospitals and nursing homes. The city of Toronto, Canada, advises radiation limits set 100 times lower than federally accepted levels.

Why is the US not taking action to protect the health of the people, the environment and wildlife, from known and documented health effects of radio frequency radiation?

The past two decades have seen an explosion of radio frequency radiation via wireless personal devices, wearables, environmental and weather research and experimentation, sensor technology, mega frequency expansions, surveillance enhancements and proliferation of communications infrastructure, including thousands of launched satellites, cell towers, and small cell antennas in our environment and communities.

The reluctance of the FCC and other agencies to actually regulate and ensure thorough reviews of the ongoing research on harms related to wireless frequencies should not be surprising.

In 2015, Harvard University's Edmund and Lily Safra Center for Ethics published Norm Alster's book, "Captured Agency: How the Federal Communications Commission is Dominated by the Industries It Presumably Regulates.” 

This book details rampant conflicts of interest, revolving-door issues, and funding concerns. The primary message is summarized in this statement: “The FCC sits at the core of a network that has allowed powerful moneyed interests with limitless access a variety of ways to shape its policies, often at the expense of the fundamental public interests.”

Currently, the FCC is drafting rules that, if passed, would prohibit states and towns from holding any jurisdiction over the siting of towers, antennas, and other wireless infrastructure. The National Call for Safe Technology also recently alerted the public to Congressional Bill, HR 3557, described by telecom Attorney Andrew Campanelli as deceptive, insidious, and evil, and “designed to strip all powers from state and local governments... over the placement of [wireless] facilities.” 

If these become law, the telecom industry will effectively govern itself and place unregulated and unmonitored wireless infrastructure wherever it pleases. Property values and scenic beauty will take a dive, while the health of humans and ecosystems will literally be placed in harm's way. 

Solving this problem will require the creation of state-level regulations that guarantee the use of peer-reviewed scientific research on safe setbacks and allow the scientific evidence of radio frequency harms to be considered while determining the placement of wireless infrastructure.

Vermont must claim statewide jurisdiction over telecom infrastructure, establish safe and acceptable radiation emission and power output levels, and create a framework for monitoring, compliance and enforcement of these levels in our communities. 

It is urgent that this issue be addressed before more harm and damage are done.

Alison Despathy is Community & Environmental Health Director for Vermonters for a Clean Environment. This piece first appeared in VCE’s December newsletter. For a list of sources cited in this article, email Alison.despathy@vce.org.

Alison Despathy lives in Danville.