Citizen Science: Charlie’s Garden and Family’s Food vs. the Pittsfield Cell Tower
by Patricia Burke of Safe Tech International with Charlie Herzig
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay
Encyclopedia Brittanica describes Love Canal, as “a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, N.Y., U.S., that was the site of the worst environmental disaster involving chemical wastes in U.S. history. The Love Canal area was originally the site of an abandoned canal that became a dumping ground for nearly 22,000 tons of chemical waste (including polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxin, and pesticides) produced by the Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corporation in the 1940s and ’50s. In the following years, the site was filled in and given by the company to the growing city of Niagara Falls, which allowed housing to be built on it. In 1978, however, state officials detected the leakage of toxic chemicals from underground into the basements of homes in the area.
Subsequent investigations established an abnormally high incidence of chromosomal damage among the area’s residents, presumably caused by their long-term exposure to the toxic chemical wastes. Much of Love Canal was then evacuated, the abandoned land being purchased by the state of New York. The canal was capped and fenced off, and the buildings around it were razed. After protracted litigation, 1,300 former residents of Love Canal agreed to a $20,000,000 settlement of their claims against the Occidental Chemical Corporation, which had taken over Hooker in the late 1960s, and the city of Niagara Falls.” – Source
The Crucial Role of Citizen Science
The Brittanica narrative fails to describe the revolutionary impact of citizen data-gathering that unfolded over a three- year period in upstate New York, fueled by a mother with a sickly child.
Citizens took science and data collection into their own hands.
The Center for Health, Environment and Justice explains,
“Lois Gibbs was raising her family in Love Canal, near Niagara Falls in upstate New York, in 1978 when she discovered that her home and those of her neighbors were sitting next to 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals. That shocking discovery spurred Lois to lead her community in a three-year struggle to protect their families from the hazardous waste buried in their backyards. By trial and error, Lois and her neighbors developed the strategies and methods to educate and organize the community, assess the impacts of toxic wastes on their health, and challenge corporate and government policies on the dumping of hazardous materials. Her leadership led to the relocation of 833 Love Canal households.[]
Homeowners were never given any warning that their property was located near a chemical waste dump. From the late 1950s through the 1970s, people repeatedly complained of odors and substances surfacing near or in their yards and on the school playground. The city, responding to these complaints, visited the area and covered the “substances” with dirt or clay. []
[ ] Lois began talking with other parents in the neighborhood to see if they were having problems with their children’s health. After speaking with hundreds of people, she realized that the entire community was affected. In June 1978, she started the Love Canal Parents Movement.
On August 2, 1978, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) issued a health order recommending that the 99th Street School be closed, that pregnant women and children under the age of two be evacuated, that residents not eat out of their home gardens and that they spend limited time in their basements. A few days later, the state agreed to purchase all 239 homes in the first two rings of homes closest to the canal.- Source
Chemicals were the culprit when Love Canal residents were told not to eat the food growing in their gardens. What happens when the economic growth engine is powered by another environmental exposure impacting gardening – for food?
The European Environment Agency published two volumes of Late Lessons from Early Warnings. Based on case studies and delays in necessary corrective action, in Volume 1(EEA, 2001), twelve key lessons for better decision-making were offered, including
“- Acknowledge and respond to ignorance, as well as uncertainty and risk, in technology appraisal and public policymaking
– Ensure that real world conditions are adequately accounted for in regulatory appraisal
– Ensure use of ‘lay’ and local knowledge, as well as relevant specialist expertise in the appraisal gathering” – Source: Late lessons from early warnings II – Summary.pdf
By not accounting for real world conditions and not heeding layperson and local knowledge, the United States and other countries are decades behind in terms of the evolution of radio frequency science and protection of human health and the environment, regarding non-ionizing radiation.
The Pittsfield Tower
During the pandemic, the exact day that a cell tower was activated in a residential neighborhood in Pittsfield, MA, a young girl came downstairs and told her mother that she felt “buzzy” and anxious. She was correctly describing the experience of being induced by the artificial man-made frequencies that were now blanketing her home and neighborhood, from a Verizon cell tower.
On the one hand, she was housebound by decree; on the other hand, her house, yard, and neighborhood were now making her sick.
She was not the only one who reported symptoms, and the Pittsfield tower is now at the center of on-going legal action involving seventeen nearby residents.
The Pittsfield Cell Tower – What If You Cannot Grow Your Own Food on Your Own land?
Although less instantaneous, in addition to health issues, neighbor Charlie Herzig and his wife Judy’s land and garden have also been affected by the cell tower.
As an experienced farmer growing food to support his extended family, Charlie’s story is a cautionary tale extending far beyond one neighborhood.
On March 2nd Children’s Health Defense TV Good Morning CHD’s Kim Mack Rosenberg interviewed Courtney Gilardi and Charlie Herzog of Pittsfield.
The show can be viewed here: https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/shows/good-morning-chd/wireless-intrusion/ (Charlie Herzig speaks candidly, starting at about 10 1/2 minutes)
The audio version is here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/08aPj9rnxOBSiB23YwIorr (56 minutes total)
Here is a partial, lightly condensed transcript (by Safe Tech International) of the section of the interview where Charlie described harm to his family’s food supply and his garden.
Charlie’s Garden vs. the Cell Tower
Kim: You’ve worked hard your whole life, including fighting for your country when called, so thank you for your service. You built a house with your own hands, and I understand that you and your wife plan to spend the rest of your lives in this house surrounded by wildlife and wonderful neighbors. So let’s talk first a little bit about the neighborhood situation. I understand you joined the litigation in support of your neighbors, particularly Courtney and her girls, because you hated to see children getting sick as a result of what Verizon was doing with the cell towers so close to a residential neighborhood. Tell me a little bit about your decision to join the litigation and what you hope to have come of this.
Charlie Herzig: I just can’t see where anybody or any company can ever cause harm to children especially, just in the light of profit. I mean, everybody has the right to have a happy life, and there’s no need for in this day and age to have communication towers that are causing harm to people when they can do it other ways and still accomplish the same thing. And my hope is that at some point this is going to go away, and Courtney and her family can move back into their house. I mean, we have one family that sold already. We have another family that’s selling the house next door to me because they just can’t put up with it anymore. My wife and I are both retired. We built a place to retire out of. And win, lose, or draw, we’re here. We can’t move, so we’re hoping this gets resolved.
Loss of Pollinators
Kim: Thank you. And much appreciate you joining in this litigation. I understand that we mentioned that you built your own home. I understand it’s a self-sustaining house you built with your own hands and that you love the outdoors. You have gardens in your yard. And when you grow food, that food needs pollination. Right?
Charlie Herzig: Yes.
Kim: They need to be pollinated, lots of these plants. Can you tell me what you’ve seen in terms of what’s happened to wildlife around you since the tower’s activation, everything from large wildlife, like big deer, down to the bees?
The Bees Disappeared First
Charlie Herzig: Well, the first thing that disappeared were the bees. And it was the bees that had hives. I still do get a few, very, very few cellophane bees, which are solitary, that live in the dirt. And obviously, it doesn’t seem to affect them much, but they aren’t very effective at doing my big gardens because I have to, especially all my squash related plants, I have to every morning go down with a small paint brush and pollinate my plants or else all my squash die and rot. That was the first thing.
Disappearing Predators: Hawks, Owls, Fox, Bobcat, Coyotes
And then the predators started disappearing, the hawks, the owls, the fox, the bobcat, the coyotes. All those started disappearing. And my rodent population, the small rodent population, not the rabbits and stuff like that, but the little ones, the mice and the voles and stuff, the ones you can’t really stop even with a small fence, they’d get through. Last year, I lost almost 2/3 of my gardening to small rodents. And that’s one of the things that sustains us and part of our financial existence in our lifestyle.
Kim: And have you noticed the larger wildlife disappearing too?
Charlie Herzig: Yes. We used to have a lot more deer. I haven’t seen a bear in maybe three years, no, two years. I saw one three years ago, but we used to get them through the yard all the time. And it’s turned into a desert. We used to have flocks of turkeys that would come through the yard that would be as many as 40, 50, in a flock. I haven’t seen a turkey in two years. They’ve just totally avoided the area.
Kim: So it sounds like your area was very, very abundant with wildlife just a few years ago.
Charlie Herzig: Yeah.
Hand Pollinating
Kim: You’re pollinating your gardens yourself. You’re not able to rely on bees any longer.
Charlie Herzig: No. No, I can’t. The wind pollinators like peas and beans and things like that, they’re okay. It’s just the ones that have to have some kind of insect to pollinate that I have to do by hand.
Kim : So that’s got to be a tremendous amount of … I’m just imagining going and using a paint brush, as you described, to pollinate your plants-
Charlie Herzig: Every day [ ] you have to determine what’s a male flower, what’s a female flower, and how to pollinate them.
Kim: And you said this is a garden that you and your wife rely on for-
Charlie Herzig: And my three kids.
Kim: So this has been a real burden on your and having to do this, and a real challenge I’m sure.
Without Predators the Mice and Voles Population Exploded
Charlie Herzig Usually, I start running out of food just about the time that I start harvesting in the spring, and I ran out in November this year because of the rodent population that just totally devastated my gardens. They ate everything. And I’m not the type of person that’ll put poison out. I don’t agree with poisoning wildlife. I just try to avoid them as best I can.
Kim: So am I correct that with the decrease in your predators, your hawks, your owls, things that would eat mice and voles, the mice and vole population has-
Charlie Herzig: Exploded. []
Charlie Herzig: I was in the Army. Well, I did what I needed to do. What they asked me to do, I did. And in turn, I believe that we are due a healthy, happy retirement, and a longevity as long as it can be. I just can’t see how the companies, the telecommunication companies, can willingly, knowingly, affect people’s health just for a bottom line.
Charlie Herzig: [ ] all our computers and TV are hardwired. We removed our smoke detectors, which were wireless. We removed the wifi completely from the house. So everything in the house now is hardwired.
Kim: And when you removed all that, it’s my understanding that both of your symptoms didn’t improve.
Charlie Herzig: No, they stayed the same.
Kim: Which obviously points to the tower as a causal factor there.
Charlie Herzig: Yes. []
Kim: And I know this is sort of a little bit secondhand, but you heard from one of your neighbors, who spoke directly with the people constructing the tower that’s near your home, tell me how the workers, what you heard, how the workers described you all, who are living in close proximity to the tower. I understand that it’s at 877 South Street in Pittsfield.
Charlie Herzig: They called us the cost of doing business and collateral damage. That’s what they said this neighborhood was. And it’s like they know what’s going on, they know what they’re doing, but they do it anyhow. They purposely hurt people for a profit. And that’s just not right on anybody’s mind. You know?
Health Issues
In the CHD interview, Charlie also described the disabling health effects that he and his wife Judy began experiencing, including fatigue, sleep interruption, and ringing in the ears.
(See Physicians for Safe Technology: Cell Tower Radiation Health Effects and Environmental Health Trust Peer Reviewed Published Research on Cell Tower Radiation, Base Station Radiation and Health Effects)
Note that these symptoms associated with cell towers were reported in France in 2002.
Not Just Cell Towers – When Data is Not Collected There is No Data-Based Decision Making
Cell towers are not the only concern.
Like Lois Gibbs in New York, when Paul Harding started waking up abruptly with his brain racing at 3:15 am, after a smart meter was installed near his bedroom, he found that others were reporting the same thing. See his story here. Reports of smart meter health harm have not been quantified, other than through the efforts of citizen science and advocacy – which has not been recognized or supported by policy makers and denied by industry.
When citizen science and corporate beliefs collide, isn’t it time to pause and ask questions? How much longer and further can society kick the can down the road?
Pollinators can’t shield their homes. And humans shouldn’t have to.
This is the 3rd article in an ongoing series by Safe Tech International highlighting first person accounts of harm to the natural environment caused by wireless technologies.
DNA and Developmental Damage from Cell Towers on the Greek Island of Samos: Effects on Insects, Flowers and Vegetables featured Diana Kordas’ observations. “When 4G came in, we saw big declines in many species of insects, among them fireflies and certain types of spiders, which seemed to vanish overnight.5 6And it was after 4G came in that in one area of our property we started to see carrion flies with damaged wings. Some of these flies had deformed wings, some had vestigial wings, and some had no wings at all. For generation after generation, they have bred and produced more flies with the same defects. By now, the number of carrion flies in this area has fallen dramatically.”
Equinox Elephant in the Ecosystem: Dying Plants and Trees vs. Wireless Antennas featured the work of German researcher Cornelia Waldmann-Selsam, including one-sided and crown damage in trees in locations of high RF readings. About 1920 electrical engineers discovered that trees act as receiving antennas of radio waves. From 2004 different research groups have published effects on germination, growth and cellular metabolism in laboratory experiments. Research findings and observations that have been emerging since the 1930s as well as our own on-site visits to damaged trees provided the impetus to our tree documentations over many years, including RF measurements, and our study. In the vicinity of all mobile phone base stations we visited, we found RF radiation-related tree damage.”
Did You Know? FCC: A Complete Failure to Respond to Comments Concerning Environmental Harm Caused by RF Radiation
In 2021, “The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in the historic case EHT et al. v. the FCC that the December 2019 decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to retain its 1996 safety limits for human exposure to wireless radiation was “arbitrary and capricious.” The court held that the FCC failed to respond to “record evidence that exposure to RF radiation at levels below the Commission’s current limits may cause negative health effects unrelated to cancer.” Further, the agency demonstrated “a complete failure to respond to comments concerning environmental harm caused by RF radiation.” – Source
To learn more about the Pittsfield Tower lawsuit, see the CHD television show 15-year-old Activist Stands Up to Big Telecom or listen here.
Pittsfield Massachusetts Cell Tower Community Links:
https://www.change.org/p/pittsfield-city-council-stop-the-pittsfield-cell-tower
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