In 2018, the Stroudsburg School District entered into a 25-year contract with T-Mobile, allowing the carrier to place 5G equipment on the roof of the Stroudsburg Middle School in Pennsylvania. Now, a “Remove the Cell Tower from SMS” petition with 400 signatures is circulating, opposing the project, reported the Pocono Record.
The equipment, which will net the district $25,000 per year in revenue, was scheduled to be installed in March. However, delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed the timeline to late July or August, according to Superintendent Cosmas Curry.
Darlee Pipher, one of the organizers of the petition, has two children enrolled in the district. She questions whether 5G can cause cancer and infertility. “We don’t have enough concrete evidence that this will not cause health issues 20 years down the road,” she said. “We do have enough evidence pointing to negative effects on animals, cancer, and brain tumors.”
The petition states: “We do not feel the FCC standards from 1996 & OSHA standards, last updated in 2005, are reliable sources or standards, as they are outdated.”
According to School board president Tameko Patterson, due diligence was done before the contract was signed with T-Mobile in 2018. “The information I saw back then I thought was fine,” she said. “I’m not saying new information hasn’t come up. Consider though we have a contract. That’s not something we can just change our mind on.”
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