Battling Bell

Jerry Anderson says he doesn’t want to be the canary in the coalmine for Bell Mobility’s proposed cell tower.

The 60-year-old has lived in the township of Ware in the Thunder Bay area for more than 20 years. He’s enjoyed living there with his wife and two children but has had to put up with a few issues over the years. One of those issues he said was when TbayTel put up a cell tower near his home but he wasn’t able to do anything about it.

Now he said Bell wants to place a “monster tower” in the area but unlike TbayTel, he plans to fight this decision with everything he’s got.

He admitted that his motivations are selfish because he thinks the tower would be an eyesore and even thought Bell picked a good site on a technical level but he said he’s worried about what the health effects could be by living near two cell towers.

“I hate being used like a canary in a coalmine,” Anderson said. “Just like tobacco and asbestos, people were flagging concerns long before the definitive studies came out. I don’t want to find out 20 years from now that living close to two big transmitting towers like this is not a very healthy thing to do. I have to live with the TbayTel tower but if I can do something to stop the Bell Mobility tower then I feel I have to speak my piece and take my trial.”

“This is selfish but better (the cell tower) was somewhere else where the tower could actually better service for somebody who doesn’t have it already. We already have cell phone service.”

Bell has given out some notification to the neighbourhood regarding the proposed site and what the company has planned.

Anderson said they are required by law to do so but Bell is only doing the bare minimum and trying to push the proposal process through so they can start building the tower. He said they only have to notify people that live within 600 feet of the tower.

He credits former Lakehead University President and Progressive Conservative candidate Fred Gilbert for spreading the message to the neighbourhood about Bell’s plans.

“I won’t say they have been secretive about it but they are flying under the wire about it,” he said. “We received a brochure in the mail letting us know that Bell intended to build a tower. The brochure was very hard to read unless you were into GPS coordinates. You would not have known where the site was because the map was very poor. They certainly haven’t made it easy.”

Since Ware doesn’t have a municipal council, Bell has the ability to sidestep a lot of the procedures that other councils would require them to do, he said.

Bell spokesman Jason Laszlo said the tower would be for consumers and businesses and would cover the region from Thunder Bay to Fort Frances. Laszlo wouldn’t speculate on the idea of more towers going up in the region because it’s difficult to tell what will happen in the region in the future.

Bell chooses a site based on network requirements and the best spot to meet customer demand. He said they are proposing the site in Ware because it meets those requirements.

“We have a public consultation process and we’re in that now,” Laszlo said. “We sent mailings to neighbours on April 23 and we took out a newspaper ad on April 27. The consultation period closes on May 30. This is the time where people can bring forward their comments.”

Residents can give their consultation by calling 1-866-980-5263 or email [email protected].