More than 100 Tsawwassen and Point Roberts residents attended a town hall meeting Tuesday to find out the latest on the fight against a contentious plan to erect radio transmission towers in the area.
Organized by the cross-border Coalition to Stop the Towers, the gathering at Tsawwassen United Church drove home the message the fight is far from over.
"I know this community has been through a number of fights and I'm sure you feel you've lost most of them, but the message we have for you is that if you join and help us, we have a really good shot at winning this thing," said Jennifer Urquhart.
BBC Broadcasting Inc. wants to construct five 150-foot steel towers on an undeveloped lot on McKenzie Way in Point Roberts, about 330 metres from the border.
The towers would transmit South Asian radio station KRPI, AM 1550, which broadcasts from studios in Richmond, B.C. Also known as Sher-E-Punjab AM 1550, the company currently broadcasts using antenna located in Ferndale, WA, but it wants a stronger 50,000 watt all-day signal in the Lower Mainland. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a construction permit but a conditional use permit is required from Whatcom County. The county's planning department is still dealing with the application, having requested further information from the applicant. A public hearing will be held in Whatcom County regardless of the planning department's eventual recommendation.
The concerns flooding the department include environmental, health as well as widespread "blanketing interference" of electrical devices.
Asking for donations for the legal battle, which has raised about $20,000 so far, opponents are battling on several fronts, including continuing to raise objections with Whatcom County and Industry Canada, as well as a formal petition and an informal objection filed with the FCC to deny the renewal of 1550 AM's broadcast licence in Ferndale.
Noting the application and strong signal violate Industry Canada standards, Nancy Beaton pointed to how the entire community of Tsawwassen was delib-erately left out of the application, shown as nothing more than a rural empty white space on a submitted map. She also went over the myriad of interference problems Ferndale residents described in testimonials, including baby monitors with the South Asian radio station blaring through and one resident told by BBC Broadcasting to just wrap foil wrap around her television.
Point Roberts resident Arthur Reber noted that Delta-Richmond East MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay was given a detailed letter outlining the application's flaws to hand over to MP James Moore, Minister of Industry Canada, but Moore has been silent.
Steve Wolff told the audience the opposition has already been warned to get a strong legal team for the upcoming county hearing.
In a letter to Whatcom County last fall, a law firm representing BBC Broadcasting Inc. assured that the broadcaster is committed to working at its own expense to resolve
any and all complaints that are brought to its attention, provided that the complainants allow adequate access for KRPI's engineers. The station has established a hotline for the Ferndale community to submit complaints of radio frequency interference and employs a qualified engineer available to anyone with a suspected interference problem. All complaints submitted to the hotline are acted upon, the company states.
The company also notes, "Although KRPI is not legally required to address complaints beyond a period of one year from commencement of station operations, nor to work across the Canadian border on the issue, KRPI nevertheless is committed to going beyond minimum legal requirements and maintain its interference complaint resolution service for the life of the transmitter, and to provide the service to anyone affected regardless of whether they are in Point Roberts or Tsawwassen."
Saying there had been many complaints about interference in his community, but those complaints have eased to just a few, Ferndale Mayor Gary Jensen told the Optimist the broadcaster seemed to be making a genuine effort to resolve the problems. He said he personally encountered such problems as South Asian music coming through on his telephone, but the company was handing out filters.
"Some of the new technology in terms of new phones, new radios, new stereos, would have automatic filters, and the company would help people with some of the older equipment. People would say they still hear it, including ham radio operators, but the complaints are not as much as before," said Jensen.
Many in Ferndale were upset that local concerns weren't taken into account by federal regulators in the U.S., he added, For more information on the coalition check www.notowers.webs.com.
