Cell Phone Tower Controversies http://www.emfnews.org Over 190 million cell phones are in use in the United States, with users often scrambling to another room, building or street to get better reception. As consumers, it is frustrating when your cell phone reception gets dropped or is too garbled to hear. But beyond "Can you hear me now?" is another considerably more important question: Are the cell towers and antennas popping up all over the country - -the very ones that we depend on for clear reception and a wide coverage area -- safe? This may have been a moot issue in the past when the towers were sparse and limited to obscure cornfields and hilltops. But the number of these cell "sites," as they're called, has increased tenfold since 1994. Among the more than 175,000 cell sites in the United States are antennas on schools, churches, firehouses, cemeteries and national parks. There's even a cell tower near Old Faithful in Yellowstone. "Don't Put That Tower Here" "Our companies are always running into this conundrum, which is, 'We want cell phone service, but don't put that tower here.' When you're dealing with communications through the air, you have to have antennas and towers," said Joe Farren, a spokesman for CTIA-The Wireless Association, the industry's trade group. Aesthetics aside, the primary reason most people don't want cell sites near their homes and communities is because they're afraid of the potential health effects. Already, more than 500 cases have sprung up across the country in which people have tried to stop cell phone sites from being constructed, according to Washington attorney Ed Donohue, who represents several cell phone companies. Most of the time, the cell phone companies win because, as it stands, federal law does not allow rejection of a tower based on health risks. http://www.CellphoneLies.com