An anti-emissions group and the residents of Wilderness Lane in Smith's Parish have lost their long battle to stop the building of a communications tower in the area.

Last week, Environment Minister Terry Lister dismissed an appeal that was filed when the Development Applications Board (DAB) decided to allow a local cellular phone company to put up the tower.

The DAB approved the application for the tower by Bermuda Digital Communications (BDC) - the company which operates CellularOne - to erect a 40 foot monotube tower with two 12 foot whip antennas in January of this year.

But residents in the area had been objecting to the tower for many years - filing their first letter of objection in 1997.

They renewed their objections last summer and the Community Against Radioactive Emissions (CARE) came out in support of the residents.

CARE claimed that Warwick residents in the vicinity of a similar tower had experienced ill effects such as sleep disorders, headaches and memory loss and that Government had said no new towers would be built on the Island.

CARE also contended the BDC-proposed tower was unnecessary and a sharing of the tower at Warwick camp would be a substitute for the new tower. Wilderness Lane resident David Ashurst submitted a formal objection to the DAB decision in July, reiterated concerns he had voiced the previous year. "I wish to record my objection to this tower on health grounds," Mr. Ashurst wrote. "Insufficient evidence has been produced to show that this will not be harmful to area residents of which I and my wife are included."

But after Planning Inspector Peter Cuming visited the site last month, he found no grounds to support the appeal.

Mr. Cuming said that the location where the tower will be erected is fenced off and at least 90 metres from nearby residences.

He noted that the area had been used for communications equipment in the past and that there were no records of previous health problems associated with that equipment.

"While there is no doubt that widespread anxiety exists to warrant an embargo on uses of this kind, (BDC) in their site justification submission contended that such is the remoteness of housing from the proposed tower that any hazard is attenuated by distance," Mr. Cuming wrote.

He continued: "Those who object to this proposal on safety grounds seem to be making unspecific objections based on anecdotal evidence in Warwick and the tentative conclusions of some international researchers."

Mr. Cuming said the objections had not included any evidence that monotube towers with antennas were hazardous at all.

"An appraisal of this proposal utilising an overseas communications commissions (the US Federal Communications Commission) safety test appears to suggest that were this mast installed in that foreign jurisdiction it would not be deemed hazardous," he said in his recommendation.

"In the absence of a Bermudian safety standard, the claimed ability of this proposal to meet FCC standards suggests radiation levels should be acceptable."