Study: Cell Tower, Wi-Fi Signals Safe at Thurston Middle School

Radio frequency and cell tower-related signals in and around have been deemed to be well below regulatory safety limits, according to a new report revealed at last week's meeting of the Westwood School Committee.

The report was compiled by Isotrope, LCC, with whom Westwood school administrators partnered to conduct a two-prong effort to look at the Radio Frequency Energy (RFE) exposure in and around the school after a group of parents voiced their concerns.

"It's a very dense and detailed report," Westwood Superintendent John Antonucci said during Thursday's meeting. "We are safe by far."

The first part of the project comprised the using of a safety compoliance instrument to determine if the total RFE was near regulatory safety limits. The second part of the study involved taking actual measuresments of the strongest sources of RFE at Thurston.

Tests were conducted in various locations within the school and at different times of the day, such as after dismissal, when students tend to use their cell phones the most. Moreover, tests considered frequencies entering from other sources, such as the cell tower located at the nearby First Baptist Church, and even the television antennas in Needham. 

In February, within the cupola on the building's roof.

"You're no more exposed [at Thurston] than in any other building," said Heath Petracca, Finance and Business Director for Westwood Public Schools.

Based on the findings, the total of all RFE fields were found to be at less than 2 percent of the applicable saefty limits. 

"We are confident that the actual ambient RFE at the school is not only less than 2 percent of the regulatory limits, but substantially less," the report reads. 

Studies of the frequency levels have been consistently deemed safe, Petracca explained last week, citing two tests by EBI Consulting in 2008 and another by Site Safe in 2011, both of which deemed the building to be in compliance with safety regulations. The cell tower was installed in the building in 2000, when the cupola on the roof was reconstructed. 

Isotrope tested the school using standard testing equipment, which tests 2-300 percent of Maximum Permissible Exposure (MPE), Petracca said. Thurston measured at less than 2 percent on that scale, he added.

The greatest indoor levels were found to be in rooms 201-209, but those levels were well below the safety limits, the study finds. Moreover, the dominant RFE in those rooms comes from the AT&T facility in the cupola on the school's roof, but the total received emissions of digital television (DTV) and wireless in those rooms was at about 1/10,000th of the safety limit, or -40 db MPE.

While the outdoor levels were greater than that of the indoors, such as on the roof of the school, the total of about 1/1000th of the safety limit. The measurements in the driveway of the school, meanwhile, were at about 4/10,000th of the safety limit. 

The classrooms that are most directly beneath the rooftop cell tower have the highest overall exposure levels, but those levels are within the vicinity of 1/10,000th of the applicable safety limit. 

"The emissions of the AT&T wireless facility above the roof of Thurston Middle School reach the general public at levels that are substantially below the applicable safety limits, including accounting for other ambient RFE sources," the report reads. "Even if one were to apply an arbitrary safety standard that was 1000 times more stringent than the applicable standards, the general public would remain protected at Thurston Middle School. "

The full report can be read and downloaded on the Westwood Public Schools website.

One local resident is also  to discuss the safety of cell towers on April 24 at Westwood High School.