Looking down a treed country lane, a simulation of a cell tower is inserted in the distance

SRD Report: New details on the TELUS tower(s)

Regional Director Noba Anderson unveiled some new information about TELUS’s proposed Cortes Island cell phone tower(s), in a report she gave the SRD Board on Wednesday March 16th, 2022. 

image: site of the proposed tower in Mansons Landing

Anderson reported on her own communications with the Tla’amin Nation and mentioned CityWest also reaching out to them.

TELUS appears to have aborted the proposed tower project in Squirrel Cove and is instead putting micro cells on telephone poles. 

However the telecommunication’s giant may still approach the SRD about a tower in Gorge Harbour. 

Only two of the more than 140 correspondents she is aware of were in favour of cell towers, which may speak more to the lack of a public forum for this project than the number of people actually opposed to cell towers. 

Cortes Currents was hoping to delay the broadcast of this story until the SRD released the audio of that board meeting, but this has not occurred in time for today’s deadline and the next deadline for radio is Monday. 

Anderson has spoken to both Erik Blaney,  the lead contact from the Tla’amin Nation, and the council. 

Her message was threefold:  

  • First of all, asking that they join the regional district in requiring TELUS to conduct a meaningful community engagement process, rather than just an opportunity to write one-on-one letters.
  • Secondly, that the Tla’amin Nation hold off on any confirmation of a cell phone tower on their land until the CityWest fibre optic cable is buried and operational to people’s homes. 
  • Lastly, if the Tla’amin Nation wants a telecommunication tower on their land,  that they also take a look at other partners. If TELUS erects a tower on their land it will be for the sole use of their customers and not people who use Bell, Rogers or Shaw. 

She suggested they speak with CityWest, which does not have the capacity to provide cell phone service, but is ‘a partner with the Regional District’ and ‘more responsive to the public.’

“I didn’t get much feedback other than they would be in touch and  they were already working with TELUS on a public zoom meeting. Eric Blaney framed it more in terms of giving TELUS an opportunity to dispel misunderstandings on the island,” said Anderson. “I hope it is done in a more open participatory way than we saw with Mosaic’s zoom meeting, where you have to pre-register and then you can’t actually speak.  Providing that does happen, which I don’t have agency over, they may well be a bit surprised by the breadth of input here on the island. There’s a lot of people who are very, very, very passionate about this matter right now.” 

Anderson added that TELUS has not shared any of the communications it has had with Cortes Island residents.

“I don’t know if that’s because they’re grumpy about sharing them or whether they have privacy laws that inhibit them from sharing. And we haven’t really pushed that, but they have said that is absolutely not standard procedure to share them,” she said.

TELUS has informed her that they opened a new file with the proposed tower on Tla’amin land and do not consider the public input they received prior to that as relevant.

Anderson disagrees, “Although I appreciate that the specifics will be different, I think that because people wrote in such a general manner that those letters are still really relevant.”

She suspects that 70% -80% of the people writing in opposition to the towers were concerned about the lack of consultation rather than cell phone technology.

That said, there is a wide range of perspectives on Cortes Island right now. Some people insist the towers are indispensable, for emergency services like calling 911, and others  believe that the electric medic magnetic field emitted by the towers is a health hazard. 

“The people who are writing really, really, really don’t want cell phone towers right now in this particular way without community consultation and are letting me know really loud and clear,” said Anderson. 

She added, “The most recent email I received from TELUS just shy of two weeks ago, I think they found a way in Squirrel Cove of not needing macro cells, which I understand to be towers. They have put some micro cells on telephone poles on the island. So that’s what I take from that line.” 

As regards to the proposed tower in Gorge Harbour, that was one of the reasons Anderson submitted a report to the SRD. 

“I wanted to really underline for the Regional District that if indeed TELUS does come to us seeking land use planning, authority and concurrence as they call it for a tower in the Gorge, I wanted them to stick to their position of requiring better community consultation before making that decision and just giving them the sort of the history and the depth of the history on this matter that otherwise they couldn’t possibly know.”

Top image credit: Photo Simulation: View Looking South from Rexford Road – courtesy TELUS via Anderson report.

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