Local • Perspective

The ugly side of 5G: New cell towers spoil the scenery and crowd people’s homes

By Robert McCartney
Columnist
July 12, 2021|Updated today at 5:04 a.m. EDT

The telecom giants promise that 5G technology will thrill us with dramatically expanded, ultrafast wireless service. But they don’t mention that it also means installing vastly more equipment, including cell towers, in ugly and intrusive ways. ... Property owners and local governments across the country are pushing back with a surge of grass-roots objections pressing the industry not to erect poles that spoil a view or crowd a home and potentially reduce its value.

Such a protest in Dewey Beach, Del. — summer playground for thousands of Washingtonians — has drawn national attention. The resort has emerged as a champion of the movement after persuading Verizon to promise to remove three of five towers that marred the scenery along the dunes.

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Julie Levine of Topanga, Calif., founder of 5G Free California, said new poles “are ugly and are placed too close to homes. . . . It looks awful on the mountaintops.” ... Levine and others also warn against what they see as health risks from radiation generated by the 5G antennas. But several authorities — including the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Cancer Institute — have said no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use.

An academic paper in March looked at 107 experimental studies in a “state of the science review” of research into possible health dangers of 5G technology. ... “This review showed no confirmed evidence that [radiation fields] such as those used by the 5G network are hazardous to human health,” the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology said. ... But it also called for further research: “Future epidemiological studies should continue to monitor long-term health effects in the population related to wireless telecommunications.”

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By Robert McCartney
Robert McCartney is The Washington Post’s senior regional correspondent, covering government and politics in the greater Washington area. Twitter https://twitter.com/McCartneyWP