People on Cortes Island have formed a new group Safe Tech Cortes to try to prevent Telus from building a cell tower near homes and community hub. Cortes is a small island and I was told there is a cell tower there already, but Telus is planning on adding a total of 3 more. As we know, Telus is expanding its grid to accommodate 5G, and, as usually happens, more transmitters will be added to each tower without any further notification at all.  Telus is planning on erecting this tower on the edge of a large area (park I believe) although a better spot is deeper into the park area. The land is owned by a First Nations band that lives in Powell River, not on Cortes, and emails, letters, scientific and environmental reports, and petitions to the Council have gone unanswered.  If anyone has suggestions or wants more information, email for this group is  [email protected]

 

“I, as a member of Safe Tech Cortes, am reaching out about a 63 m Telus tower that is scheduled to go up very close to my home. It’s a small rural community on Cortes Island BC. Our community is totally against this, we have written letters, done petitions etc but they are still going ahead. My home will be closest to this tower and I am absolutely devastated, we are all out of ideas. Is there any way your organisation can offer help.
We are desperately trying to figure out options for our community as Telus has recently proposed the construction of a new cellular tower near Mansons Landing (the community hub) on our island.
Very brief backstory: They originally proposed this tower last year on existing Telus land — they were going to replace their old tower with an updated one. The community response was a clear NO, and there was lack of support for the tower from our local government and the SRD (Strathcona Regional District)  and so Telus dropped the proposal. A year later, they proposed a new site, about 800m away (on the same road) this time on Tla’amin First Nations land. Despite receiving hundreds of letters from Cortes community members who are opposed to the tower, and an additional hundreds of signatures on a petition, Telus and Tla’amin have appeared to come to a deal and the news is that the tower is slated to be constructed this fall. Our SRD has, apparently, no say in the matter as the land is First Nations and therefore out of their jurisdiction.”