Nora Estrada | Kiosko
LOS ANGELES — Residents of East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights are asking for more trees to mitigate heat waves and have more oxygen.
Instead, LA County authorities allowed telephone companies to “plant” thousands of cell phone and internet antennas, which allegedly harm the health of residents. On a tour of Boyle Heights, it was possible to spot dozens of the antennas, some camouflaged and others in plain sight.
Activist Brenda Martinez, member of the board of directors of the Fiber First LA Group and vice president of the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, says that within a three-mile radius of Euclid Ave, between Whittier and Cesar Chavez in Boyle Heights, there are 2,700 antennas and 500 towers.
“We are invaded by poles, towers, antennas and God knows what else. Just look at the tangles of cables. We don’t see any leafy or beautiful trees around here. There are no trees to give us shade,” commented Ivan Mendoza, a Boyle Heights resident.
Like Mendoza, other East Los Angeles neighbors, mothers and seniors are clamoring for more trees, green areas and community gardens.
Residents agree that there is no environmental balance in the area.
During Kiosko News’ tour of Boyle Heights, it was also possible to see trees, but not in the quantity that residents want.
Cesar Chavez, one of the main avenues in the area, has leafy trees planted several decades ago. Although the city of Los Angeles planted 1400 new trees between 2021 and 2023, this area still does not enjoy enough green areas, especially for a region that is surrounded by freeways and which has historically suffered from toxic pollution such from corporations like Exide Battery Recycler.
“They’re putting antennas on poles, clocks and fake palm trees on us so they think we’re breathing clean air,” Mendoza said. “We need more trees. We don’t want the antennas because they seem to make the trees and neighbors sick from radiation. We are surrounded by towers and exposed to radiation.”
Martinez, also a Boyle Heights resident, added that a plot of land where they had a community garden in the courtyard of the Casa del Mexicano was taken from them to install a giant clock that serves to camouflage a 51-foot-tall tower that agglutinates 11 antennas 25 feet away from the houses. The land belonged to the East LA Community Corporation.
“It used to support us with an 1800 square foot community garden because we don’t have green space on private property they offered the space for the community,” he said. “We neighbors were very happy because we planted vegetables and some fruits, and we also offered classes to eat healthy.”
But he said their enjoyment was short-lived because a year later, their garden was taken away.
“We had to leave the area. All our work went to waste. They told us they leased the space to Verizon for the tower that services cell phones,” Martinez recalled.
It was then, he added, that he began to investigate what was causing the proliferation of towers throughout the community.
He said that this “invasion” of antennas and towers came to the region without warning to residents because Los Angeles County passed an ordinance allowing these structures to be installed anywhere.
Martinez explained that in 2023, the Board of Supervisors made amendments to wireless infrastructure ordinance titles 16 and 22.
“In title 16, they determined that they were going to remove all rights to have neighbors notified and without going through a legal process in the installation of towers to put antennas for cell phones and internet, and that is not fair to those of us who live here … They are putting antennas in front of homes and businesses, we are also already seeing them in school and church yards,” expressed the activist.
Despite this accusation, the County Supervisor, representing District 1, which includes East Los Angeles, said during a public hearing that the process established by the ordinance requires permit applicants to notify residents that they are within 500 feet of any tower or small cell access stations.
According to local activists, the amendment to title 22 is related to the Environmental Quality Act’s removal of all environmental protections, environmental assessments and reporting.
In March 2023, several organizations — including Fiber First Los Angeles, Boyle Heights Community Partners, California for Safe Technology, Mothers of East LA, Children’s Health Defense and 5G Free California — sued the County of Los Angeles, the Board of Supervisors, the Regional Planning Commission, the Department of Public Utilities and the County Department of Regional Planning over the issue.
“We want environmental protections and the right to be notified back. It’s a great irony that they would do this in a vulnerable area like ours. We need trees, green space and community gardens,” he said.
On March 27, 2024, case Judge James C. Chalfant of the Los Angeles Superior Court handed down his decision on the case, ruling in favor of the plaintiffs on some parts of the lawsuit and against them on others.
Chalfant decided that the county ordinance cannot ignore California’s environmental laws for historic areas or freeways, but nor can it prevent the densification of towers near homes, schools and businesses, because the evidence of health and environmental damage “is insufficient.”
On the other hand, Martínez said that area residents fear that their health will be affected by the energy emitted from the antennas.
He added that they fear the antennas could cause fires related to telecommunications equipment, like those that happened in Malibu Canyon (2007), the Woolsey Fire (2018) and the Silverado Fire (2020).
“We’re not against technology, what we don’t want are those antennas,” he expressed. “What we want are more trees, community gardens and parks.”
Despite the fears of East Los Angeles neighbors, cell phone towers or antennas do not emit radiation that causes damage to the health of living beings, according to Dr. Ilan Shapiro, pediatrician and chief of health at AltaMed Healthy Services, Shapiro said that residents who live near an antenna or tower have nothing to fear.
“The reality is that so far they have not been proven to be harmful. They do not cause damage to health, nothing like that has been seen,” he said. “No type of living being should be affected, whether human beings, animals or trees.”
But one of the complaints from neighbors continues to be the lack of more green space in the neighborhoods immediately east of downtown Los Angeles. Gladys Tadeo, a neighbor on Pedro Infante Street in Boyle Heights, agreed with Martinez about the lack of green space.
“We don’t have safe, tree-lined areas to walk, share with family or with neighbors, this is pure asphalt, cements, vines from pole wires and antennas,” she explained.
She said that the cool days are about to disappear and with it the walks she takes with her son.
“I am taking advantage of the last cool days to walk my baby that I carry in a stroller, which I will no longer be able to do with the heat coming, that would represent exposing the baby to a scourge of heat. We need wooded areas,” she said.
Maria Meza said that East Los Angeles neighbors suffer from disproportionate forestry inequity.
“It’s not fair that they don’t do in our neighborhoods a good reforestation, we don’t have environmental equity. I don’t deny that there are wooded neighborhoods, but there are not enough. Our outlook is bleak,” she said.
This story was produced by Ethnic Media Services in collaboration with the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS) at UCLA as part of the Greening American Cities initiative supported by the Bezos Earth Fund.
Nora Estrada wrote this fellowship story for Kiosko Magazine, an LA-based, international news hub connecting, informing, and entertaining Latino communities in LA and worldwide since 2011.
“East LA, Boyle Heights Neighbors Call For More Trees, Fewer Cell Phone Antennas” discusses the angered reaction of East LA and Boyle Heights residents asking the local government for more canopy cover when, instead of planting trees, LA County authorities allowed telephone companies to plant thousands of antennas which some residents believe are harmful to their health.
Estrada, journalist and founder of Kiosko, said “I am passionate about nature issues. I feel that the imposing trees in parks and forests, and the apparent tranquility of the Pacific Ocean, provide human beings with mental health and the opportunity to exercise to improve overall health.”
