• Our Fire Department should know this because in 2004, the International Association of Fire Fighters passed a resolution denouncing the installation of cell towers on or near fire houses because of cell tower health risks. Here’s the link to its resolution: https://www.iaff.org/cell-tower-radiation/. SRAET has a website at: https://www.sraet.org. This website includes links to authoritative reports (including from the EPA and U.S. National Toxicology Program) that confirm cancer and other diseases are caused by the radiation emitted by cell towers.

The tower will have four wireless carriers bringing four separate diesel-powered emergency generators and four separate diesel storage tanks to the property. If diesel spills, it may poison the groundwater. There are 112 homes within a half-mile of Elite’s Tower. Almost everyone in Springs drinks well water. Thus, nearly all of our drinking water could be contaminated if diesel fuel spills or leaks. The risk from contaminated groundwater is very real. In 2018, 110 homes in Wainscott (an adjacent hamlet) were found to have contaminated well water and were connected to city water on an emergency basis. In 2016, 450 gallons of diesel fuel spilled from an AT&T cell tower in Oregon into the drinking water. Learn more about this incident here: https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2016/02/22/450-gallons-diesel-spill-above-detroit-lake/80759708/.

When all is said and done, there can be no denying that the Planning Board’s unanimous decision to approve this tower was based on the false assumption that it will telescope (and not topple over) when stressed by high winds or seismic pressures or other climate change events. There can be no denial because the Board arrived at this assumption while being videoed at its Board meetings on April 2, 2025, July 23, 2025, and November 19, 2025 at which times Mr. Gregory Alvarez (Elite’s attorney), under cross-examination by Board members testified that Elite’s tower would telescope under the aforesaid conditions.

The back and forth between Mr. Alvarez and the Planning Board can be viewed at this YouTube link: youtube.com/watch?si=W5KO_4mc8DKiCcYa&v=chBL5gc_Rgg&feature=youtu.be. The key exchanges occurred at the times shown on this YouTube link which were as follows: April 2nd from 7:50pm through 7.55pm; July 23rd from: 7:27pm through 7:28pm; and on November 19th from: 7:08pm through 7:12pm.  You can also view these videos on the East Hampton website under the Planning Department web portal. 

Notwithstanding Elite’s attorney’s reassurances, on December 16, 2025, Ms. Negron (Elite’s owner) admitted her cell tower cannot telescope, and in fact, that no cell tower can telescope, because the steel cylinders it is built from are bolted together. Ms. Negron’s admission was videotaped at the SCAC December 16, 2025 meeting. That video can be viewed by clicking this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quJ8wG7Y2Nk.

It is important to note that two board members of SCAC, David Buda and Krae Van Sickle, as well as Ian Calder-Piedmonte, an East Hampton Town Board member, who all attended the December 16 meeting, all concurred with Ms. Negron’s acknowledgment that no cell tower exists which can telescope. 

Because of Ms. Negron’s admission, the Springs cell tower now becomes a test of the Planning Board’s integrity. Based upon Mr. Alvarez’s false information, the Board consented to shoehorning this 150-foot tower onto the Fire Department property by relocating it to the center of the site, barely squeaking it into the truncated 150-foot fall zone (in 2022 the fall zone was cut in half from 300 feet (2x the tower’s height) to 150 feet (1x the tower’s height). But the Board did so based on false information.

It is important to be clear about what happened. The Planning Board shares no responsibility whatsoever for the propagation of false information. That fault falls squarely on Elite and its attorney. Instead, the Board is to be commended for the zeal it has shown concerning public safety as was evident in the Board members’ vigorous cross-examination of Elite’s attorney.  But lest that display be deemed a charade, the Board now has no choice but to veto this tower because its rationale for approving it was based on the fallacious assumption that the tower could telescope, thus rendering the fall zone irrelevant. 

There are 112 homes within a half-mile radius of the proposed tower installation site. According to Zillow, the average home value is $1,774,489. A 10% loss of value equates to $177,000 and a 20% loss equates to $354,000. That’s a high price to pay for an ugly, unnecessary, and carcinogenic tower.

See the table here to view home values of residences within a half-mile radius of the proposed Elite tower here.

The Elite tower is not only unnecessary for providing cell phone service, it is also entirely unnecessary for emergency services because by dialing 911, a caller’s phone, regardless of his or her service provider, will be connected to the nearest emergency service dispatcher. Moreover, the police department’s emergency service tower antennas at Camp Blue Bay provide the emergency services communications interface for all first responders in the Town of East Hampton, including the Springs Fire Department. It should also be noted that the Camp Blue Bay tower now performs a dual function: besides being used for all Town of East Hampton emergency services dispatch and communications with all East Hampton first responder organizations, including police, ambulance, and fire (including the Springs Fire Department), it can also serve as the nearest cell tower for Springs residents to connect to in case of an emergency. 

See a non-exhaustive list of cell tower incidents here.

Elite hired VHB Engineering from Hauppauge whose report is included in the application under the Planning Board’s review. The report is rife with false statements. It says that the tower is not near any wetlands, but the tower is 1,959 feet from Accabonac Harbor and 2,417 feet from Pussy’s Pond. Towers devastate wildlife, birds in particular. In 2014, the U.S. Department of the Interior estimated that 6.7 million birds annually are killed from collisions with cell towers in the U.S. and Canada. The Department of the Interior also cites scientific studies that cell tower radiation kills nesting birds and their offspring. VHB’s report is replete with falsehoods which were made to support Elite’s application.

VHB’s report also claims that no wildlife will be disturbed in the vicinity of the Elite Tower. But how can anyone believe that is true? There is a nest on top of Elite’s own tower that was built by a family of five Osprey that returns every summer. And neighbors whose backyard is contiguous to the Fire Department property, using the Bird App from Cornell University, recorded 45 different species of birds in their yard, including rare and protected species such as the Northern and Red Winged Woodpeckers.

The VHB report also falsely states that the Elite Tower will cause no harm to the Long-eared bat, an endangered species that is known to inhabit the area surrounding the Springs Fire Department, but which VHB claims has not been seen there. But, as all we neighbors know, these Long-eared bats come out at night during the summer like clockwork and circle our yards, and they are welcome guests too because they feast on mosquitos. 

The raison d'être for the Springs Fire Department tower has always been that cell service in Springs was deficient -- some even called it non-existent. But the recent activation of the 185-foot multi-carrier cell tower at Camp Blue Bay, which hosts the town of East Hampton Police Department Emergency Services antennas just 0.9 mi from Elite’s tower, and AT&T’s 70-foot tower at St. Peter’s Chapel on Old Stone Highway just 2.0 mi from Elite’s tower, have rendered the Elite Tower entirely superfluous. The presumption that cell service in Springs is inadequate is now old news, indeed it is now fake news.

Anyone who lives in Springs can attest to the dramatic improvement in cell service since these new towers came on stream. This eyewitness evidence is confirmed by the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Map which shows that reception in Springs is 100% for all major wireless carriers. Here is the link to the FCC map: https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/location-summary/mobile?version=jun2025&location_id=26c61a67-d6fa-4718-ba59-caa82f53d2f9&addr1=179+FORT+POND+BLVD&addr2=EAST+HAMPTON%2C+NY+11937&zoom=15.00&vlon=-72.157936&vlat=41.026225&env=0&tech=tech4g. 

Further, any intermittent coverage gaps (caused by brick buildings or tree clusters or dips in the road) will soon be eliminated by 61 micro-antenna (five-feet high and attached to telephone poles) which Crown Castle has already begun to install throughout Springs. The efficacy of a micro-antenna has already been demonstrated by the antennas that have already been put up in the "Napeague strip" of Montauk Highway which had been a notorious dead zone but which now has robust cell service due to the micro-antennas installed last summer by Crown Castle.

It should also be noted that the “Wireless Telecommunications Master Plan” prepared by CityScape consultants and adopted in April 2024 by the Town of East Hampton states that micro-antennas (and not macro towers like the 150-foot Elite Tower) are the best way to plug isolated gaps in cell service. 

Elite Towers bears responsibility for the obsolescence of its tower. Had Elite embraced the ZBA’s directive and filed an application in 2015 (instead of suing the ZBA in State Court and losing five years later), its tower would probably have been approved many years ago. But now, the “need” for this cell tower has disappeared because of all the newly installed wireless infrastructure. In short, the window of opportunity has closed due to Elite’s intransigence.