(December 14)   Parents of kindergarten through eighth grade students attending  Sacred Heart Parochial School in Rancho Cucamonga have expressed concern and outrage over the Diocese of San Bernardino’s agreement to allow Verizon to install a cell phone tower on the church grounds proximate to the school’s playground.
The Diocese and Verizon have had the project on the drawing boards for more than 20 months. Approval for the tower was given by the Rancho Cucamonga Planning Commission in January and the Diocese signed a lease payment contract with the phone company two months ago. Parents, however, said they did not learn about the tower until late last week.
There is concern over the high intensity electromagnetic radiation to be emitted from the tower, which is to be erected at the west facing side of  the school’s “Blue Hall”  directly to the east of the  school’s grassy play area.  Studies done by Dr. Howard Wachtel at the University of Colorado at Boulder have demonstrated potentially harmful effects on humans exposed to high intensity magnetic fields. Studies undertaken in Scandinavia indicate elevated incidences of leukemia and other forms of blood cancer in children exposed to magnetic fields.
The school and the Diocese maintain they would not expose the children at Sacred Heart to any hazards and that Verizon had provided them with assurances the radiation to be transmitted from the tower is well under the maximum exposure level permitted by the Federal Communications Commission.