Perhaps the petition holds the key. The idea of erecting radio towers at the edge of a community the size of Tsawwassen doesn't make any sense, however, thanks to an international border and huge government bureaucracies on both sides of that dividing line, BBC Broadcasting's confounding project is still very much alive.
The kinds of towers being proposed for the American peninsula are so invasive they're routinely situated on the tops of mountains or in the middle of farm fields, yet the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S. has already given its approval to the project, meaning only Whatcom County now stands in the way. Ironically, if the towers had been proposed for Canadian soil, on the doorstep of a 20,000-plus-person community, Industry Canada would have certainly quashed the undertaking. If the housing to be impacted had been in the U.S., adjacent to the towers, the Americans wouldn't stand for it.
Yet if you draw an international border between the towers and the population that will bear the brunt of the blanketing interference, somehow this logic-defying proposal manages to fall through the cracks.
The Cross Border Coalition to Stop the Radio Towers, which has been on the file for over a year now, is hoping its petition MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay brought to Ottawa last week will inject some muchneeded common sense into the issue. It calls on the Canadian government to file an informal objection with the FCC and also seeks an answer as to why Industry Canada didn't object to the FCC's decision to grant a construction permit for towers so close to a Canadian community.
It's painfully obvious that dealing with an issue that crosses the border has thrown regulators on both sides of it for a loop, resulting in a potentially untenable situation for thousands of homeowners. It's also abundantly clear that it wouldn't take a whole lot to sort this mess out. It seems that if someone in a position of authority sat down with all the facts, the folly of this situation would immediately come to light.
If this petition prompts such a sober second look then it will have done its job and, in the process, saved thousands from picking up unwanted radio signals on all manner of electronic devices.
The coalition, and by extension all of Tsawwassen, is hoping the feds will finally stand up for the community and expose this issue for the farce it's become. The ball is in their court; it's time they began playing.
