There was a recent article in the local paper a few weeks ago titled “Mobile phone tower fight at Katoomba” which expressed the fears of seven people of a development proposal for a Mobile phone tower on Woodlands Rd, Katoomba.

Emma Schofield stated “We’ve got a school probably 350 metres away, a hospital not much further I think with so many inconclusive and unsubstantiated results and studies, we should be really careful”.

I found it interesting that an article was published without inspecting the geographical facts. North Katoomba Public School is more like 400m from the Colless Foods site and the Hospital is 350m away – something that can easily be measured with a tool like Google Earth.

There also is in fact already a radio site at the Hospital offering several frequencies of a power higher than the proposal by Telstra for this new mobile phone tower. A further two radio sites for Integral Energy and the NSW Rural Fire Service are on Showground Lane some 400m from the Hospital and 600m from the School.

While we are concerned about inconclusive and unsubstantiated results I also find it interesting that Barton St and Victoria St which both surround the North Katoomba Public School have high voltage power lines, lines that equipment used by Integral Energy is subject to routine quarantines to remove magnetic energy – yet no such quarantine system is employed by the telecommunications industry as the energy exposure is much less.

Optus currently considers the Hospital and North Katoomba Public School to be in strong signal meaning both sites are already exposed to significant amounts of mobile phone signals.

Even without electricity we are exposed to radiation continually from both our Sun, other stars, and the microwave background.

The study of safe radiation dosages is based on observations of the health effects from the Hiroshima atomic bomb which was a high dosage. Health effects from lower dosages was assumed to be linear and its not exactly known if the assumptions are correct – which is something that is potentially being disproven after the Chenobyl nuclear accident as there has not been enough deaths to line up with the radiation dosages chart.

While the reception issues that Telstra wish to clear up will effect hundreds, if not thousands of homes, and provide mobile phone reception in a bushland area not already covered which will provide improved public safety.

So whats all the fear about? I’m not so sure. If mobile phones scare you, maybe you should move west of Bathurst, because you will be exposed to electromagnetic energy if you like it or not – and there is no conclusive evidence to suggest this exposure is harmful in any way.