Wednesday February 4, 2015 www.saobserver.net $1.25 GST Included
Citizens warn of Wi-Fi risk By Martha Wickett OBSeRVeR STAFF
You can’t see it, you can’t smell it, you can’t touch it, but it is a real danger nonetheless. city council heard pleas, facts and personal histories focusing on this message Thursday night from residents of Salmon Arm and as far afield as the north Shuswap and West Kelowna. council chambers were filled to overflowing Jan. 29 as about 120 citizens gathered to provide information and opinions on cell phone tower placement, cell phones and Wi-Fi – and urged council to protect citizens. donalda and Ruth Mclaren of Tappen used their five-minute-each allotments of time to show a video clip of u.S. lawyer Jimmy Gonzalez testifying in 2012 to Florida’s Pembroke Pines commission about the health risks of cell phone radiation. He said he has no doubt “cell phones cause cancer,” and showed the scars on his left hand and left ear where he underwent surgery to remove cancerous tumours. He explained that as a lawyer he spent many Lori hours from 2001 to 2011 on his phone. When not Onsorge talking on it he stored it in aCtiVist an inside breast pocket of his suit. He developed another tumour specifically at that site. He said the booklets that come with some cell phones state somewhere in the vast amount of text written that the phones emit non-ionized radiation into the body, which the booklets prefer to term ‘radio frequency’ and ‘specific absorption rate.’ He said cell phones should never be placed next to the body, and points out the cell phone booklets, which almost no one reads, state the phones should be held or carried at least 10 millimeters or about an inch away from the body. The city of Pembroke Pines then adopted a resolution warning the public about the potential health effects of cell phone radiation. Gonzalez died in november last year at age 42. Mike Testart from canoe noted that microwave
evan BuHler/OBSeRVeR
Deadly encounter: Salmon Arm Rescue Unit workers inspect a semi-trailer tipped on its side in the
east-bound lane after colliding with an SUV on the Trans-Canada Highway near the Trickle Inn Sunday.
Sorrento woman dies on TCH
Fatality: Circumstances of collision remain under investigation. By Tracy Hughes OBSeRVeR STAFF
A Sorrento woman has been identified as the person killed in Sunday’s collision between an SuV and a semi-truck on the Trans-canada Highway west of Salmon Arm. Mary Gould, 55, died at the scene of the collision. She was a realtor in Sorrento for Royal lePage Access Real estate. The collision, which occurred by the Trickle Inn in Tappen, involved a semi trailer with Alberta plates and Gould’s sport utility vehicle. The driver of the semi-truck suffered minor injuries. The badly damaged SuV ended up in the ditch on the eastbound side of the highway facing east and the semi lay tipped over on the same side of the road,
further west and facing toone every year from 2007 wards Kamloops. to 2010. There were no Members of the RcMP fatalities in the stretch betraffic analyst team were at tween Pierre’s Point Road the scene and are still conand Sunnybrae-canoe Point ducting an investigation Road between 2011 and into the cause of the col2013, which is the most relision. Weather and winter cent data available. road conditions are exBut the number of accipected to be factors. Snow dents is much higher. IcBc Mary Gould was falling heavily at the reported 34 crashes in the Crash time of the collision. section of the highway beViCtim The Trans-canada tween Tappen Valley Road Highway about 15 kiloand Sunnybrae canoe Point metres west of Salmon Road between 2009 and Arm opened to single-lane alternating 2013, with a total of 21 of those resulttraffic about 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 1 ing in injuries to one or more people. and was reopened completely by 6 p.m. At a Ministry of Transportation and Insurance corporation of Bc (IcBc) Infrastructure forum held in February reports that six fatal accidents occurred 2013, the Trans-canada Highway at on the Trans-canada in the Tappen area Tappen was not listed for upgrades, nor in the past decade – two in 2004 and was any project in the planning stages.
See Council on page A2
This week The trial for the man accused in a fatal houseboat crash begins later this month. See A12. The action was fast during the Salmon Arm Ice Jam speed skating event. See A15 for more.
Index Opinion ....................... A6 View Point .................. A7 Life & Times ............. A11 Sports................A15-A18 Arts & Events ... A19-A21 Time Out................... A22 Vol. 108, No. 5, 40 pages