Despite Telus claims the Town of Canmore is “running close to the limits in capacity,” the Canadian Rockies Public School division has reiterated its stance against placement of a permanent cellphone tower near a middle school.
With over 77 per cent of homes within town having access to Internet and 16 per cent strictly wireless service, a plan for the national telecommunications company to increase its capacity in certain areas could be delayed without new infrastructure.
Following up on its letter to members of Town council last year, CRPS has requested the temporary cellphone tower on Seventh Street, which Telus has proposed to make permanent, be relocated.
The tower’s current location is roughly a half block from Lawrence Grassi Middle School, an issue that has created concern for some parents and staff regarding the risk of adverse health effects.
“The board’s position has not changed since the letter of June 2012,” said CRPS Superintendent Chris MacPhee. “We’re not going to get into a debate about science in the school division when it comes to radio frequencies.
“The fact is, we don’t believe it’s a good place so close to a school and that’s the end of the story,” he added. “There’s no need to get into the he said/she said debate and we don’t plan to.”
Back in November, Telus, in co-operation with the school board, conducted various tests inside and around the perimeter of Lawrence Grassi to determine the level of radio frequency (RF) power density and concluded the biggest source of RF energy came from the FM radio station.
In its ensuing report, Telus pointed out the second strongest source of RF energy came from the cell tower as measured inside the front entrance to the school, however, the power density was 230,000 times below the limit set by Health Canada.
Regardless of these tests, which were supervised by CRPS facilities manager Ken Riordon, the board remains convinced the cell tower should not be as close to the school as proposed.
“As far away from the school as possible would be my first gut shot,” MacPhee said about where the tower should be moved.
“We don’t want it that close to the school because we don’t want to have to even risk anything when it comes to our students,” he continued. “There’s no need for us to take a risk and find out many years from now we had the opportunity to do it and we didn’t.”
Last week, Telus hosted a consultation session at the Canmore Rec Centre to collect feedback from the public regarding the proposed permanent location for the tower and to answer any questions from residents.
One of the comments during the meeting concerned the fact it was Telus who had conducted the tests within the school and some of those present suggested it should have been an independent party.
Jim Johannsson, director of community consultation for Telus, was the main speaker during the public engagement session and indicated hiring a third party to conduct the test would have been difficult.
“The piece of test equipment we used for testing, it’s a very specialized piece of equipment,” he said. “It’s valued at about $65,000. There are only two of them in Canada.
“There’s an issue where some individuals in the audience didn’t trust the measurements we did were accurate,” he added, noting to hire a consulting engineer with proper qualifications and equipment would be in the “tens of thousands.”
Another topic brought up during the meeting centered on the Town adding an extra safety buffer on top of the standards approved by Health Canada, which the Telus rep said is an option some other municipalities have adopted.
“Basically, it’s taking the existing safety code limits that Health Canada has done and adding or multiplying a safety buffer over and above that,” he explained. “If the Town were to adopt something like that it’s actually very easy for us to work with.
“The ones that are hard for us to work with are the ones that aren’t based on exposure limits.”
Finding an alternate site for the cell tower has also been difficult due to the fact each location must consider existing structures in the area and interference caused by other buildings.
“The way the cell phone network is evolving, each antenna only has a fixed amount of capacity so you have to put it where you’ve got the user demand for the service,” he said.
“A great analogy is a street light, because it works exactly the same way. You put the light where you need it. It has to be high enough to clear some obstacles, including buildings and trees. The more of that in the way, the harder it is to get the signal to the ground where people are.”
Johannsson also noted Telus usually pursues locations such as industrial, commercial or civic locations for antennas and avoids residential areas. For this specific instance, the proposed site and potential alternates are still up for public comment.
“We do appreciate the input from the town and we thank them for coming out,” the Telus rep said. “We’re going to take that information and work with it to the best of our ability to see if we can address those concerns or find a solution that works for everybody.”
Those interested can submit their comments online at telusconsultation.com
