CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Puuwai Momi residents protested yesterday outside the Restaurant Row offices of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development against the placement of nine T-Mobile cellular phone antennas near their homes. Monique Ocampo said the antennas were installed without resident input.
Halawa residents protest
new cell phone antennas
Halawa residents are protesting the installation of T-Mobile cellular phone antennas in their public housing project, citing possible radiation hazards.
They are also upset that it was done almost three years ago without their approval.
About 15 residents of the Puuwai Momi federal housing project held a protest yesterday at the Restaurant Row offices of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees the state public housing program.
Doreen Ako, a member of Island Tenants On the Rise, an organization of public housing project presidents, presented HUD with a petition of 150 signatures of the project's 300-plus residents and several letters of protest.
They are asking HUD not to approve the antennas. Under a settlement of a lawsuit filed by the residents against the state Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawaii, the state had to get HUD approval, according to a letter written by Robert J. Hall, state housing agency acting executive director.
Hall said in the letter that HCDCH officials did not get HUD approval because agency officials thought they were granting a "license" to T-Mobile, not a lease, which needs HUD approval.
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Sincerely Techuo looked up yesterday at the cellular antennas installed on Building 3 at the Puuwai Momi housing project.
Heather Kahawai, president of the Puuwai Momi Residents Association, said her group is calling for removal of the nine antennas erected by T-Mobile, formerly called VoiceStream. She said the approval for the antennas was given illegally.
The antennas are on a rooftop directly above an apartment occupied by a family with three children and one newborn who moved in five months ago without being warned of possible health risks, she said.
The antennas are easily accessible to all children living in the housing project via a ladder to the three-story Building 3, Kahawai said.
"Our children are climbing on the antennas," which they were told by a maintenance man "were seriously dangerous," and that he would testify that they were, she added.
Female residents enumerated the illnesses experienced by residents since the installation of the antennas.
Janny Silva said there have been 11 miscarriages in the project since the antennas were installed, and one man died of kidney problems this January.
Cellular phone companies have said such antennas emit low levels of radio-frequency radiation and pose no health hazard to people.
Monique Ocampo, president of Island Tenants on the Rise, said the antennas were installed without giving the residents opportunity to study the proposal and to voice their opinions "because we're low-income. But we're a community and deserve the same kind of process that any community receives."
