As yet, there is no consensus in the medical community about whether or not such exposure is harmful to people's health. Sage told the board that some countries have set far lower standards for safe exposure to microwave radiation generated by the towers. While the U.S. standard is 580 units of exposure, some countries, including Russia, China, Switzerland and Italy, have set safe limits at less than 10 units. She said that concealing the towers, as the board requires, means that people won't know the towers are nearby when they decide whether or not to live in a neighborhood. But a wireless industry representative, who refused to give her name outside the meeting, said the county could not look at health questions.
Federal law prohibits the county from doing that.
Instead, the board focused on visual restrictions, including concealing towers to look like palm trees, bell towers or making them part of existing buildings. The board also wanted to make it harder to get permits to build such towers in residential areas to encourage companies to look at commercial and industrial areas. But all of those ideas move again to the back burner while county staff works to write an ordinance, have it approved by planning groups and the public and bring it back to the board in the next year.