This commentary is by Annette Smith, who is the executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment.
As I awaited my turn to testify in the Senate Finance Committee on April 2, 2026, I had a hard time hearing what Hunter Thompson, telecommunications and connectivity director of the Department of Public Service, was telling the committee, because of the noise of the HVAC system and his soft-spoken voice. I know I heard the word “sacrifice” more than once.
When it was my turn to speak, I described the arduous process that members of the public must navigate at the Public Utility Commission to weigh in on the growing number of telecommunications towers proposed for rural Vermont. I have heard some people refer to the process as “brutal” or “torture.”
For a decade, in the rare instances when legislative committees have briefly broached the PUC’s public participation process for land use siting of wind turbines, solar arrays and communications towers, I have described my role as “leading the lambs to slaughter.”
When towns and citizens find their way to Vermonters for a Clean Environment — the only organization that helps the public navigate regulatory processes regarding Act 250, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, the PUC, and Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets large farm proposals — I tell them upfront: The process is difficult, potentially expensive and always time-consuming, and unless circumstances are unusual, you will lose.
After the April hearing, when I listened to the video and read the transcript of what Hunter Thompson said about sacrifice, I was — and still am — shocked by his analogy:
“Everybody is in favor of throwing one person in the volcano if it means the greater good. Everybody realizes that sacrifices must be made for the greater good. … Nobody ever thinks they’re the one that is going to get thrown in the volcano or they’re the one that’s going to have to make the sacrifice.”
Now that the Department of Public Service has acknowledged the sacrifice neighbors must make to enable their neighboring landowners to capitalize on leasing or selling space to wealthy communications tower companies, it is time to revisit the Vermont Constitution, Chapter I, Article 2 that says “private property ought to be subservient to public uses when necessity requires it, nevertheless, whenever any person’s property is taken for the use of the public, the owner ought to receive an equivalent in money.”
The standard interpretation of Article 2 considers the taking of property through eminent domain, not the impacts on neighboring properties.
This “taking” of neighbors’ land has been raised in disputes over industrial wind turbines, whose audible noise, low-frequency sound and infrasound trespass onto adjoining properties and cannot easily be mitigated. Some solar installations can produce glare that interferes with neighbors’ peaceful enjoyment of their land. Outdoor wood boiler smoke presents a similar problem, drifting into neighboring homes.
Hunter Thompson told the Senate Finance Committee, “I feel that a fair amount of pushback on these … petitions are from the folks who realize, ‘I’m the one that’s now going to have to make the sacrifice,’ and nobody wants to see that.”
If Vermonters must sacrifice, compensate them.
The top two issues Vermonters raise when confronted with a communications tower are property values and health. I tell them the PUC doesn’t care about those, and you can’t talk about them, despite evidence that communications towers lower nearby property values, and mounting peer-reviewed research suggesting the Federal Communications Commission standards for radio frequency emissions may not adequately protect public health from cancer and male reproductive risks.
To argue property value reduction, the PUC requires showing that the project will result in a reduction to the municipality’s grand list — an impossible standard to meet.
Health effects are off the table due to Section 704(a) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which expressly preempts state and local government regulation of the placement, construction and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions, to the extent that such facilities comply with the FCC’s regulations concerning such emissions.
The FCC has been defying the Aug. 13, 2021, judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which found that the FCC violated the Administrative Procedure Act and failed to respond to comments on environmental harm — specifically, “record evidence that exposure to RF [radio frequency] radiation at levels below the Commission’s current limits may cause negative health effects unrelated to cancer.” Nearly five years later, the court-ordered review of scientific evidence has not been done.
Be aware, rural Vermonters. With the push to build more towers, Vermonters in rural areas can expect they, too, will be thrown into the volcano, without compensation and with the potential for their property to lose value and their health to be harmed. That is our state’s and our country’s policy.
