Washington State Radio Towers Near Canada Border Denied Relocation

British Columbia’s radio industry hit a setback on Tuesday when a Washington state county authority denied an application to build radio towers just a few hundred feet from the Canada-U.S. border near Tsawwassen. According to Tom Taylor, radio news journalist who publishes Tom Taylor NOW, “An anomaly in the borderline between Washington state and British Columbia leaves a 5-square mile stub of American soil as a peninsula attached to Canada. It’s named Point Roberts, and that’s the place U.S. operator BBC Broadcasting (no relation to the UK’s ‘Beeb’) wanted as its new tower site for KRPI Ferndale at 1550 AM.” The towers would have transmitted South Asian radio station KRPI, AM 1550, which currently broadcast from studios in Richmond to a Lower Mainland audience. Canadian residents in the area applauded the U.S. authorities’ decision. John Lesow with Stop The Radio Towers Cross Border Coalitioncalls the ruling a “David and Goliath” victory. He says had the towers been approved and built, people in Tsawwassen would be impacted the most. “They would’ve suffered from the blanketing interference that is the radio frequency interference to all kinds of electrical devices, wireless phones, pacemakers, baby monitors, door bells, you know everything.” (News1130-TV)