ELF Vandals Topple Radio Towers
September 6th, 2009
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The Earth Liberation Front – a group of criminals who claim to be fighting for the environment, but actually just go around torching SUV’s and committing various other cowardly acts of vandalism and destruction against the property of others – have claimed responsibility for the recent destruction of a number of AM radio towers in Washington State.
A group cited by U.S. officials as a domestic terrorism threat claimed responsibility Friday for knocking down two radio station towers in Snohomish County, Washington.
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) issued a statement saying opponents of the towers argue that “AM radio waves cause adverse health effects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.”
“When all legal channels of opposition have been exhausted, concerned citizens have to take action into their own hands to protect life and the planet,” Jason Crawford, a spokesman for the group, said in a news release.
Members of ELF have been sentenced for acts of domestic terrorism in the past.
Though no one is known to have been killed in ELF attacks, the government defines domestic terrorism as use or threatened use of violence by a domestic group “against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives,” the FBI’s then-domestic terrorism chief, James F. Jarboe, explained in congressional testimony in 2002.
The towers belong to radio station KRKO. “There’s quite a bit of destruction to the antenna system and it will probably take at least three months to get it back up and operational again,” station manager Andy Skotdal told CNN affiliate KIRO, adding that much of it was “flattened like a pancake.”
In this case, the attack isn’t even based on any real damage to the enviornment, but is primarily due to the groups concerns over those horrible radio waves and what they do to people and wildlife (absolutely nothing.) The group is an especially violent and dangerous eco-terrorism operation. They pop up every once in a while to claim that they have done something great in the battle for earth’s enviornment – really, they’re just a bunch of thugs and punks. The group’s members are too cowardly to actually admit to what they’ve done. (Even Bin Laden admits his actions.) They call for violent action and respond with shock and rage when their members end up in prison for trying to blow something up – as they sometimes do.
Amazingly, they actually have a press office, with a website and everything. The site claims that they do not encourage crimes (which they clearly do) and that they do not know who commits them and only get anonymous information. Granted, I value freedom of speech, but I find it amazing that this “press office” is not being perpetually raided by officials to seize their IP logs and emails and interrogate the operators. Since when does tacit support for a terror group and receiving communications from them not qualify as probable cause for a warrant? The site is even “in memory” of a criminal who they state was “murdered by the state.” In face, the person in question was actually caught after committing several acts of arson by the FBI. While in jail, awaiting trial he took his own life, rather than face up to what he did.
Note of personal commentary: Civil disobedience my ass, they don’t deserve to smell Gandhi’s s***
KRKO is an AM radio station that has been on the air in Washington State since 1922. The station broadcasts on 1380 kHz. The station’s current format is primarily sports radio, covering both local and national professional sports. It serves the greater Seattle, Washington area market. It’s affiliate of Fox Sports Radio, but is locally owned and operated. Last year, the station for and received a license to upgrade their transmitting power to fifty thousand watts of RF power. KRKO’s previous broadcast power was only 5kw, making this upgrade a huge step for the station and moving it from a small area radio station to a powerful regional station.
Although 50kw is the highest power permitted for AM radio broadcasts, it is not uncommon for AM stations to broadcast at such high power. In the US alone, there are nearly 150 stations licensed for 50kw operation. Hundreds more are licensed to operate at between 40kw and 50kw.
In order to begin broadcasting at the power levels of the new license, KRKO began construction of a new transmitter. The site selected is located in a rural area, surrounded primarily by farmland, but within less than a mile of a small nature preserve. The site is about two miles from the town of Snohomish, and is located about three quarters of a mile from the nearest residential community. There are some farms located closer to the transmitter, however. The site consists of a series of towers that are about 200 feet tall with one 350 foot tall tower.
It seems like a good deal, right? The land was not expensive, as it is no longer being used for farming. The site provides good RF characteristics and propagation. There’s nobody living all that close to it, who would have to put up with the sounds of the construction or the aircraft warning lights on the tower at night. So what is the problem?
A few have complained that the towers will obscure their view or be an eyesore. Fair enough, but the unfortunate reality is that any infrastructure of any type is going to have the potential to obscure someones view of something. All in all, the site does a pretty good job of minimizing the visual impact and preventing anyone from having the towers dominate the view from their home.
In general the concerns have been over those dangerous RF fields and what they’ll do to people, wildlife and the environment. It could be that this is being put up in Washington State, where there are all too many yuppies who have nothing better to do than relive their Woodstock days by getting all hot and bothered about this kind of thing, but the response has been extreme to the point of being ridiculous.
Several sites and community groups have been set up to try to throw themselves at stopping this:
Corporatepigs.org is a site dedicated to the dangers of these towers and to pointing out that the parties involved, including the radio station and the realestate agency are…. gasp… private profit-driven entities and therefore must be evil. Here’s a blurb from the site:
They have the permits they need, the government is in their back pocket, and our only chance to stop this, is to raise some heck, like a lotta heck.If you also believe in doing things right, like stopping towers from ruining our valley, then go straight to our STOP THE TOWERS, SAVE OUR PARKS page.
…
WHY ARE THE SKOTDALS AND KRKO 1380 RADIO proclaimed that their TOWERS are perfectly safe, yet………
refused to give a written guarantee that Snohomish County citizens health will not be affected by their radio tower cluster.
And refused to give a guarantee that they would cover any health related expenses should they be wrong. Do you think its because they might know better? At the very least, its because they are unsure of their proclamation.
I’ll tell you why they don’t state that they’re willing to cover health related expenses: the towers won’t cause any. Even dignifying that request with a response would be an invite for every freeloader with a runny nose within a fifty mile radius to come looking for a handout, claiming it was the towers.
Another site contains a newspaper editorial stating the following:
Will proposed AM radio antennae on farmland in the Snohomish River Valley adversely affect the health of the 30,000 people and school children who live and go to school within four miles of the tower cluster?
The Skotdal family, proposing the project, doesn’t think so — at least not at the low level of radio frequency radiation that will be emitted if the project were approved.
Angela Day and grassroots group, Citizens to Preserve the Upper Snohomish River Valley (CPUSRV), disagree. They say little is known about low-level, long-term exposure to radio frequency radiation, but recent biological studies suggest low-level exposure within proximity of broadcast towers is not completely safe. These studies on low-level effects reported brain cell damage, DNA damage and learning deficits, which could lead to potentially serious adverse health effects.
“Stewards of the Land and Community” has the following to say on their Geocities website:
Several epidemiological studies correlate residential exposures to radiofrequency radiation (RF) at low levels over time with twice the incidence of leukemia, particularly in children. The most recent study was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology on August 1, 2007. and is consistent with other epidemiological studies conducted over the past two decades. Studies finding a connection between radiofrequency radiation and leukemia indicate that children within six kilometers (3.7 miles) of AM radio towers may be at risk. This 3.7 mile radius encompasses much of the town of Snohomish, as well as several schools in the Snohomish School District. Of particular concern is Valley View Middle School, which sits approximately one mile west/southwest of the tower site.
…
Even the most skeptical agree that more study is needed. This leaves local decision makers in a difficult position. We believe decision makers should apply the precautionary principle in selecting sites until federal regulations relative to RF are brought in line with scientific evidence. We believe our decision makers MUST err on the side of caution.
If that isn’t bad enough, their source of health information on RF fields is the Bioiniative Report.
Another page, Citizens to Preserve the Upper Snohomish Valley has similar statements. I could go on, as there are other sites and groups making a lot of noise over this crap, but this is pretty representative of what everyone is so upset over.
The Real Facts:
There’s never been any solid scientific evidence that AM radio stations effect human health in the region they broadcast from. These kind of stations are amongst the oldest forms of broadcast radio, dating back to around 1920 and having a long history of operation with no health effects ever linked to their transmitters. At a mile or more, the signal from these transmitters will fall to levels that are not much higher than ambient background levels.
Even in cases where a person is close to the transmitters, the frequencies that AM radio operates on produces wavelengths so long that they are very poor at producing heating effects in the human body and generally pass through tissue without losing much energy. Therefore, all things being equal, a microwave radio source would be more likely to produce rf injury than a medium-frequency transmitter like those of an AM station of the same power.
Of course, at the distances we’re talking about the levels are entirely harmless. Even the area just outside of the transmitter site is perfectly safe.
The only real concern here is the potential that the station could cause unwanted interference with reception on radios and televisions in the area or cause problems with telephones or intercoms. This can happen for any number of reasons, including RF energy creating ground noise or traveling through the local power grid. It can also be caused by unshielded phone lines that pass close to the transmitter.
This, however, is not an issue that is not addressed. By federal law, it is the responsibility of the broadcaster to correct such problems at their expense. Doing so may include installing filters, modifying or moving their grounding connection or paying for the installation of shielded phone lines, RF chokes on the power lines going into local homes or other such measures. If a person in the area has such problems, they can report it to the station manager and request that the station take whatever measures necessary to rectify the problem. If the station fails to solve the interference issue, then they may file a complaint with the FCC. This is something that the FCC takes very seriously and therefore, in most cases the station will comply or face fines or even license suspension.
Final Note:
KRKO is offering a twenty five thousand dollar reward for information leading to the conviction of those involved. If you know who is responsible or have any information that may be of use, including information implicating other ELF members who are aware of who it was, information that contradicts the claims that the organization does not know or in any other way is useful, please contact authorities. The ELF has threatened violence against those who report their members and activities, but remember that running in fear only empowers them. Only by working to fight these criminal punks will they end up where they belong: in prison.
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Enviornment, Obfuscation, Politics, inverse square. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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September 6th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
“Members of ELF have been sentenced for acts of domestic terrorism in the past.”
These vandals and the others that are mentioned in these pages, be they animal rights activists, Greenpeace operatives, or these morons have been getting a free pass from the law IMO all over the West. It is time that we collectively push for the full weight of the law to fall on them, and see them treated like any other form of organized crime.
The parent organization that is claiming responsibility should have its assets frozen and its public officers charged, regardless of whether the perpetrators of the crime are identified or not. These are public relation stunts designed to elicit monetary donations. If any monies collected were impounded and those giving money warned that they risked charges of being accessories before and after the fact, I warrant that these acts of vandalism masquerading as political direct action would come to an end.
Those preforming these acts are driven by the money, not ideology regardless of the propaganda they dress themselves in.
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September 6th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
DV82XL said:
Absolutely. No doubt those who claim to be on the “legal” side know a lot about those involved and they do encourage and condone this. At the very least they should have all their records ceased as evidence, but really, the fact that their operating in support of this makes them a criminal enterprise. Image if Al Queda had a fully public arm that said “We just report on their activties. We don’t actually set the bombs.”
Anyone in contact and support with these thugs is no better. They’re part of the same network. They’re a criminal organization. It’s like Al Queda or the Mafia or anything else.
The problem in the west is politics. If these were not eco-bastards then this whole operation would be frozen and dismantled.
By the way: regarding the towers and the station. They will be losing a lot of money on this. From what I read the towers are a write-off. They were pushed over and flattened. That is very dangerous, it’s just a shame they didn’t fall on the vandals in the process. They’re going to need to be fully replaced. This will take months. I am sure in the future they’ll be protected by plenty of security systems, however.
The station will lose money not because of the physical damage but because of what they will lose in advertising fees. They had to switch to the auxiliary transmitter, which is the older low-power one and that means that they will have much less coverage and less listeners. By not covering the whole region their advertisers don’t get the same audience. They’ll have to refund anything already paid for the anticipated audience. Potentially this will mean most of their revenue goes down the tubes.
The towers themselves are almost certainly insured. Depending on things, they may lose a few thousand on the deductible and some incidentals not covered, but in general, that is not where the loss is. It’s a loss for the insurance company, but the big loss is station coverage. It could drive them into the red until they get these back up and running.
This costs them a lot more than the 25 grand they put up in a reward.
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September 6th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
I absolutely think the public side of the operation should be frozen and charged with whatever they can for their support. At the very least, they should have everything they have that might be evidence ceased every time this happens.
In the US, we have the RICO act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). It has been around since the 1970’s and has been expanded to grant powers over organizations involved in terrorism and related activities. While I often think the US government has gone too far in this area, RICO has some very important uses.
It allows those who have provided continuing material support or who are members of criminal organizations to be charged in line with the offenses of the organization. These are the laws that have been used to undermine the big Mafia crime families. It allows the crime bosses to be held responsible for what their organization does, even if they can’t be physically liked to the acts.
Although the RICO charges usually come down to support of things like money laundering and racketeering and that kind of thing, those convicted are frequently sentenced to life in federal prison, sometimes in isolation from the general population and with restrictions on communication. It depends on the circumstances, but based on experience with the Mafia and some other organizations, it’s been determined that’s often the only way to truely stop a crime organization – to make it impossible for the bosses to run it, even from prison and assure they never get out.
This is how they destroyed the Gambino empire. John Gotti got life in prison and has since died. Peter Gotti, they couldn’t get anything serious enough to get life without parole on any of the single crimes, so they stacked up the sentences for everything they could convict him on. Peter Gotti won’t be elidgable for parole until the year 2032. If he lives that long, he’ll be something like 93 years old. He won’t live that long though. He’s already got some bad health problems.
These laws have also been used to go after big drug rings and other major criminal organizations.
I’d really like to see them getting used to dismantle these organizations as well.
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September 6th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
I don’t think the government can be counted on to hunt these kinds of creatures effectively, if at all.
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September 6th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
apotheosis said:
That is because these criminals are hiding behind the population. Governments believe that these organizations have grassroots support, and that attacking them will backfire by lending credence to the accusations of government complicity that are always part of the propaganda.
What needs to be done is to create a critical mass in the public that has had enough of these antics, and when that happens the authorities will move on them.
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September 6th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
apotheosis said:
They investigate these incidents individually, and there’s a good chance they’ll catch whoever did this, likely because of a combination of stupidity and loose lips. If the purps are smart enough to keep quite and didn’t get spotted or leave something traceable, they might get away with it. Like any crime, it’s not a 100% thing that it’ll be solved.
That’s not the problem though. Local authorities can get these criminals on individual incidents and they’ll probably get a slap on the wrist. If it’s something as bad as arson, they might get a year or so in the pen, but nothing real hard.
The issue is that the organized crime groups need to be destroyed. It’s about more than catching the peon who did the dirty work. They have to treat this like any other criminal organization. Find the higher ups and put them away for good and the low level guys, give them enough of a wakeup call that it’ll at least sting.
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September 6th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Here in Australia (at least in my home town of Perth), these radio towers and mobile relay towers have a definite effect on the local wildlife: Whenever one is erected, you can guarantee that within a few months some birds will move in and make a permanent nest in them. Wedge Tailed Eagles and Sea Eagles especially love them. And both being protected species (I think so anyway, I may be wrong…), once the nest is there, its there for good, and the tower cannot be shifted or removed.
The short sightedness of these environmental groups is amazing. In recent history here in WA, an environmental group was protesting to have some concrete pillars that used to be part of a drilling platform removed. Protesting against several large groups of marine biologists who wanted the pillars to remain, as they had become a very vibrant artificial reef, home to a few species of endangered coral and sponges.
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September 6th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
The Curtains said:
Which only underlines the fact that their actions are all about grandstanding, and not about the impact of their demands at all. This can only be adequately explained by assuming that they are only interested in the money that these actions might raise. Hell I don’t like them, but at least a politically motivated terrorist believes his/her foundational ideology, and thus get more of my respect than these frauds do.
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September 6th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
I have heard of certain bird species being prone to crashing into towers because the aircraft lights on the very tall ones somehow attract them. Something to do with their migratory instinct I think, they navigate by moonlight or something. Not a major issue where I am located, but in some areas apparently it is. It’s easily remedied though. The lighting just needs to be changed a little in either color or in how it flashes. Usually they go on and off slowly, and this is partially to make them less annoying to anyone in the area. Adding a small flash near the light seems to keep the birds from running into them. Sometimes adding blue lights or other colors is said to work on some.
The open latticework towers though really seem to attract nesting birds. They like to build nests in them, especially any time there is a horizontal shelf anywhere, like if you have a large junction box mounted on the tower or some place else they can make a nest.
it’s horrible. They crap all over everything. They have no concern for blocking air vents or anything on any kind of equipment.
There are ways of dealing with this too. They put strands of wire sticking out around the edge of anything like that and on the cross members. It’s like prickles. It does a descent job of keeping them off. Also a buzzer that makes a noise every couple of minutes. it is too quite to hear from the ground, but scares them off.
It’s worth it. It doesn’t cost much to add something to scare away birds. They make a disgusting mess. It doesn’t matter where you situate the most important components. Somehow the birds are able to figure it out and **** all over them. They build a nest out of god knows what and crap all over it, and then they leave and the nest is still there and it starts to rot and then the bugs come in. I don’t know how they can deal with it when the bird is endangered or protected and it has a legally protected right to **** all over your equipment. That’s got to be fun.
Nature has a way of adapting to things, and if you add a structure and leave it there for a few years it is no surprise that removing it could be more damaging than leaving it there.
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September 6th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
They all get a pass. These idiots never get the kind of treatment their organization deserves and meanwhile Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd are constantly doing things that would be grounds for getting torpedoed if anyone else did. They think they’re allowed to break into power plants and vandalize ships etc etc. They think they’re being oppressed and they whine and cry when one of their members gets a slap on the wrist. They constantly go after the poor saps at the bottom. The fishermen, the merchant ship crew, the power plant workers, the rescue brigade and all the other working stiffs who just want to do their job and not be endangered.
In a way though its the governments fault for constantly telling them it’s okay through their actions and lack of punishment.
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September 7th, 2009 at 6:27 am
The first thing that came to mind when I read their name – ELF – was ‘Extremely Low Frequency’… !
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September 7th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Yeoz said:
That was my first reaction also. I thought somebody attacked the Navy’s ELF antenna in Wisconsin.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/elf.htm
BTW, on the subject of stupid publicity stunts, here was something that was posted as a comment on a completely unrelated topic in Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog at the NY Times.
“Andy, and readers here: with Copenhagen meetings starting in less then 95 days,
some climate activists are now planning a dramatic self-immolation
protest in front of the UN bulding in NYC before the summit opens,
with 5 people appearing to set themselves on fire to protest the
world’s inaction on all this. However, they will be using Hollywood
stuntmen suits to protect them from the flames and no one, repeat, no
one, will get hurt or die. It’s all part of a concerted PR effort to
get the world to wake up and pay attention. If anyone wants details
and rehearsed photos of the event, email me at “
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/countries-pledge-to-boost-climate-forecasts/
I was immediately reminded of Niven’s Law #16: “There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZmIEJYPptU4C&pg=PA583&lpg=PA583&dq=%22niven%27s+laws%22+%22high+frontier+convention%22&source=bl&ots=kl4P2n1a67&sig=7nDxfl4mumWhnMpkK1pxEulaybA&hl=en&ei=1BSlSr2SO6mM8QaCpcnlDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
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September 7th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Joel Upchurch said:
Yeah, I try to keep the titles a reasonable length, but I can see how that would cause some initial confusion. It’s too bad they didn’t go after the ELF antenna system because that is one of those things that is considered to be absolutely critical for national security, it would probably get them shot on sight. The impact of that kind of thing would be pretty dramatic. I’d imagine that after not receiving any kind of the regular ping signals for a bit, US submarines all around the world would start coming to parascope depth and deploying their HF and satcom antennas to see if World War III had started.
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September 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Doc thanks for this entire site. You give me hope in a world full of woo woo. If the ELF is so worried about the earth why topple the towers?Like the article said the towers are destroyed and can not be reused, now the will just be sold as scrap. Now even more metal will have to be brought in to replace the destroyed towers. Not to mention the impact of more people out there removing the old towers and increasing security for the new ones. The “impact” now on the environment out there will be even greater than it was the first time these towers were built. This just shows that the ELF cares more about their money flow than they really do about the environment.
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September 8th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Mace said:
I think the Earth Liberation Front appeals to young, immature and generally stupid people who have a violent streak and want to feel like they have a war to fight. They’re the type who like to think they’re as great and persecuted as the great civil rights leaders or freedom fighters. They never really learned that playing paintball or video games is not the way life works.
Of course those are just the ones who do the bidding. The high ups are the ones who make money. Much like a mafia crime boss or a drug lord.
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September 8th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Russ said:
I wouldn’t say that they are stupid (though some definitely are), but are spoiled by our standards of living, and feel an entitlement towards it, without giving a second thought as to how it affects them and others.
They are the same people who advocate cutting back on ‘excesses’ and ‘luxuries’, while at the same time spouting how wonderful they are for buying organic, and failing to realize that the luxury that organic foods are (I know several people like this).
But yeah, I agree with you on having a war to fight point. But not all us paintball players are fruitcakes. Some of us aren’t half bad.
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September 8th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Yuppies, seeking some higher purpose, disillusioned, unaware of how easy they have it, who don’t understand what they’re really doing, but are doing the dirty work of someone who is the real brains of the operation up on top and has them convinced what they are doing is a good thing and will bring on a revolution and a battle that they will ultimately win. The guy at the top thinking as long he does not get physically involved in the crimes he decrees, he will be safe.
This is a description of the ELF
Or the Manson Family. It applies equally to both.
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September 8th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Someone should remind them that “civil disobedience” is something you do publicly and openly (and nonviolently, thus “civil”), hoping to get arrested and tried, to highlight the injustice of the law.
This is why civil disobedience worked for Dr. King and for Gandhi; they both openly defied an unjust law to prick the conscience of the mass of the people making up the States that upheld those laws.
That tactic only works when the law is actually unjust in such a way that the people agree with you, not when you’re a nutcase that the people quite reasonably think should be punished for doing what really is wrong. (It also doesn’t work very well under a police state, and very likely some of the ELF morons think the US is one now, showing that delusions travel in packs.)
That, of course, is why the ELF attack anonymously and do their best not to get caught – because they know damned well that their cause is unpopular and that nobody else really thinks it’s just at all.
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September 13th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I don’t like these groups either as they make environmental activists look bad.
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