The commenter raises concerns about tower permitting and historic-district review, restrictions on consid…

I am sorry to not have seen this in time to review studies and attach relevant ones. Five years ago I delved into numerous studies since a cell tower was about to be installed within a few hundred feet of our residence, in the middle of a residential designated historic district. It was on the edge of a residence with a woman with a pacemaker who was fighting cancer (she died within a few months of the installation) and across the street from a family with an infant. It was demonstrated at a city council meeting that the public works officer responsible for working with the telecom company concerning placement had failed to fulfill requirements for approving cell tower placement, including the review required before placing a cell tower in a historic district (among others). When this was pointed out, and the city attorney was asked to look into this, the cell tower was immediately installed (several weeks before it was scheduled). In addition, no concerns or studies about the deleterious effects of RF's on human health or on the environment was allowed to be cited as a reason for delay or in order to regulate placement of the cell towers. There were numerous studies available then which pointed clearly to the need for a serious review of safety standards, and which also highlighted the negative effects on insects (including pollinators) and migrating birds with regard to navigation and orientation. The amount of money which telecom companies were offering municipalites (where not prohibited) and private individuals in order to install cell towers, and their disregard for property rights in some cases (I know of several) is disturbing. In our city, the first cell towers to be erected were close to the hospital, a public school, a college campus, and a historic residential neighborhood. The restrictions against a municipality considering health or environmental impacts regarding cell towers is itself disturbing. If there is in fact nothing to be concerned about, then why prohibit citing relevant studies. Shouldn't health and environmental safety be top priorities? What are the telecom companies afraid of? Since the FCC has not reviewed its safety standards since 1996, and has been historicaly reluctant to do so, one wonders if the cell tower industry might not be a trillion-dollar juggernaut which our government allows to roll over and disregard even legitimate and documented concerns for human health and for the environment. The consequences for the government continuing to evade the responsibility to provide and enforce safety guidelines, based on serious evaluations of the proposed hazards, could well be devastating for our comunities and ecology in general. I strongly encourage the HHS and FCC to respond in a serious and earnest way to the Supreme Court mandate issues in 2021. Respectfully submitted, October 21, 2026