How one Michigan school is addressing 5G anxieties

Harbor Springs High School, which serves the small resort community of Harbor Springs, Michigan, is spending roughly $2,000 a year to conduct tests of radio frequency (RF) power levels in its facility.

Brad Plackemeier, the superintendent of Harbor Springs Public Schools, told Light Reading the school is conducting the tests in an effort to address parents' concerns about possible health effects of RF signals, specifically from 5G.

"We have people that are concerned about different things," he explained. 5G "is one of them."

The tests are a way for the school to respond to those worries, Plackemeier said.

"I think we need to keep an eye on it," he said about the usage of RF devices in schools. "We don't want to put our kids in harm's way."

The school recently received the initial results of the first round of tests, conducted by Michigan EMF Specialists, and published them on the school's website. The tests looked at cellular and Wi-Fi transmissions and found no evidence of RF signals above the FCC's recommended guidelines.

"No reason to throw up any red flags," Plackemeier said.

Cellular antennas atop schools

Parents and others began to raise concerns about RF transmissions at Harbor Springs High School last summer, when AT&T and Verizon signaled interest in upgrading their existing antennas there to 5G, according to Plackemeier. The companies installed the antennas on top of the school roughly 20 years ago, and they currently broadcast 4G signals across the small town.

Figure 1:



Harbor Springs High School has had a cellular antenna atop the school since around 2000.
(Source: Brad Plackemeier)

"Everybody was talking more about 5G," Plackemeier said. So, the school decided to commission routine RF tests to ensure that students were not being exposed to RF signals above federal guidelines.

"We told our community that we would monitor it," Plackemeier explained.

Harbor Springs High School is not alone. In recent weeks, a Vermont resident voiced concerns about an antenna near Williston Central school in Williston, while a Michigan judge dismissed a lawsuit regarding a cell tower atop Washington Elementary school in Wyandotte (a situation covered by Light Reading earlier this year).

The bigger picture

The debate over cellular communications and their possible effects on humans has been happening for decades. But the introduction of 5G, around 2019, intensified it.

In 2018, Vox published a comprehensive look at the research on the effects of cellular communications on humans. A year later, the director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health told the FCC that 5G is safe. Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, conspiracy theorists promoted the idea that 5G caused the coronavirus, which led to vandalizing of cell towers.

Today, despite advocacy by companies like Verizon and Crown Castle and industry groups such as CTIA to promote 5G as safe and useful, fears about the technology persist.

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— Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano