Protect the Oak Creek Riparian Corridor
In late August, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a decision authorizing the placement of a proposed AT&T cell tower at 9420 E. Cornville Road. The FCC’s decision ends its environmental review proceedings under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and clears the path for SQF LLC, the tower developer, to install a 100-foot cell tower right behind the Cornville U.S. Post Office, Cornville Market, and Cornville Mercantile at the entrance of Cornville as one descends into the valley.
If constructed, the tower would sit across the street from Runnin’ W Wildlife Center Inc., a recovery sanctuary for injured birds of prey and other wildlife, and one block away from the Desert Star Kindergarten. In 2022, Gillian Goslinga, property owner in Cornville, and Billy Harvey, Founder and Director of Runnin’ W Wildlife Center Inc., filed a request for review of certain harms on seven of nine NEPA natural and historical environmental impact criteria. Goslinga and Harvey submitted extensive U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service evidence in addition to evidence of harmful historic and scenic impacts.
Federal law requires all cell tower developers to comply with NEPA, but SQF LLC had not completed the FCC-required NEPA review when it obtained its Yavapai County wireless permit in February 2022. The County has since withheld authorization to build until SQF LLC registered the tower with the FCC and complied with its FCC-required NEPA review.
The Hopi Tribe’s Hopi Cultural Preservation Office (HCPO) joined Goslinga and Harvey in 2022 to oppose the proposed placement, filing a nonconcurrence as Stewards of the Earth. The proposed tower’s location on the Hopi Palatkwapi Trail would interrupt and disturb the Trail’s ancestral, religious, and historic landscape and features of significance to the Tribe. The Tribe also cited the critically close proximity of the placement to the wetland Oak Creek habitats where sacred Bald and Golden Eagles return to nest seasonally and hunt on the surrounding mesa tops. At 100-feet high, the tower emitters will emit radio frequency (RF) radiation directly on the eagles’ hunting area.
Goslinga and Harvey, along with other individual Cornville property owners and residents who also signed and filed letters and petitions with the FCC in 2022, have formed the grassroots community organization Stewards of Oak Creek to appeal the FCC’s August 2026 authorization. The national McCollough Law Firm, who partners with Children’s Health Defense in cell tower environmental cases, will represent Stewards of Oak Creek in its appeal of the FCC’s authorization.
In contention is the FCC’s RF radiation safety standards the FCC enacted 30 years ago in 1996 and reaffirmed in 2019. The outdated FCC safety standards fail to account for advancements in technology, such as 4G, 5G or 6G, the current ambient saturation levels of wireless radiation, and the now vast body of independent peer-reviewed science documenting mechanisms of thermal and biological harm of bioengineered wireless on plant and animal life, as well as humans.
Goslinga stated:
“It is not widely known that the 1996 FCC radiation safety standard still in effect was an occupational standard for human subjects 6 feet tall standing right next to 1G emitters. I’m 5 foot 4 and have no reason to stand right next to an antenna. Bird sizes are tiny in comparison, and they fly through that radiation just having to live their lives. We have Desert Star’s kindergarten with toddlers and infants just around the corner from where the tower would be, and the 1996 RF standard does not protect them either.”
Goslinga and Harvey also had argued at the FCC that the four planned emitter rings at 100-feet would directly expose commuters on Cornville Road and property owners with homes at the same elevation on nearby bluffs to the strongest beams of bioengineered radiation 24/7.
The Hopi Tribe is addressing its nonconcurrence with the placement with the FCC directly in government-to-government consultations.
Read the Defender article from 2023 by clicking HERE.
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