Monday, 15 September 2025
‘The highest court in Massachusetts will weigh whether local boards have the authority to regulate cell towers, in a case that could set a national precedent.
At issue is a 115-foot Verizon tower off South Street in Pittsfield. Since it went live in 2020, neighbors have said they’ve suffered “headaches, nausea, sleep problems and other negative health impacts attributed to the radio frequency emissions”.
The Pittsfield Board of Health issued an emergency cease-and-desist order against Verizon after investigating residents’ complaints. According to The Berkshire Eagle, the order called the tower “a public nuisance” that was a “cause of sickness,” the first order of its kind in the country, citing ProPublica. Weeks later, the board rescinded the order after Verizon filed a federal lawsuit, arguing the move was preempted by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The residents then sued, arguing that the board “capitulated and abandoned its duty to protect public health in the Shacktown neighborhood”.
A lower court ruled that federal law left no room for local regulation as long as the tower operates within FCC standards. The residents appealed, and the Supreme Judicial Court has now decided to hear the case.
The case raises the question of whether the Telecommunications Act “preempts state or local regulation of a wireless cell phone tower in connection with radio frequency emissions from the tower”. Residents argue that boards of health have long been empowered under state law to protect the public from hazards such as contaminated water, noxious industries, or other environmental threats — and that this authority “includes responding to the harms linked to wireless facilities, particularly when residents report injuries that, in their view, the FCC has refused to account for”.
A ProPublica report notes that “a growing body of research has raised concerns that radiation from phones and towers may cause harmful biological effects at levels below the FCC’s 1996 limits, even as U.S. regulators and industry say the risks aren’t proven”.
Source: The Berkshire Eagle, ProPublica https://berkshireeagle-ma.newsmemory.com/?publink=1dc591d44_134fb47
