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Spring Lake, New Jersey, residents drew national attention last week as they stepped up their ongoing fight to keep Verizon 5G cell towers off the town’s beachfront.
Fox Business “Mornings with Maria” featured a report and commentary on how all Spring Lake residents who attended an Aug. 25 city council meeting spoke out against the towers.
A Fox Business panel guest likened the local pushback against Verizon’s towers to the widespread pushback against data centers, saying both can involve multi-year fights between local communities and companies.
On Nov. 8, 2024, the telecom giant sued Spring Lake in federal court in a bid to push its 5G tower plans through despite local resistance.
Now the borough wants to settle with Verizon to avoid the cost of ongoing litigation, according to attorney Joseph M. Carusone, who represents residents who intervened in the lawsuit.
“It’s just not the right time to settle this,” Carusone said. “We really even haven’t started litigating this case yet. It hasn’t gone to discovery.”
Carusone, who spoke at the Aug. 25 city council meeting, said every resident who spoke was opposed to the towers.
Residents voiced concerns about possible health impacts of 5G wireless radiation, how the towers would negatively affect their property values and harm the boardwalk’s aesthetics.
Kelley Badishkanian, a Spring Lake resident and grassroots organizer for Spring Lake Against 5G Towers, told The Defender she hopes the Spring Lake residents’ efforts benefit other communities in New Jersey that will soon face the same battle.
“This fight with Verizon is not just about our little town. They’re going to try to bully every single town across the Jersey Shore, all across New Jersey,” she said.
Settlement would be premature since related federal and state cases are ongoing
Verizon’s lawsuit against Spring Lake is one of several ongoing lawsuits in the area.
In May 2021, Verizon sued Belmar — a town roughly three miles from Spring Lake — in an attempt to install its towers on the town’s boardwalk.
In September 2023, Verizon sued Monmouth County — where Belmar and Spring Lake are located — after realizing the land in question was under the county’s jurisdiction and after county officials on Aug. 8, 2023, denied the company’s project application.
Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless team, which provided legal support to the Belmar residents in their ensuing legal battle, also is providing legal support to Spring Lake residents.
CHD has intervened in both the Belmar and Spring Lake cases, Carusone said.
Verizon’s suit against Spring Lake alleges the town “unreasonably delayed” and “effectively denied” its application.
On Aug. 25, residents of Lavallette, New Jersey, filed a new lawsuit in state court, alleging that Verizon failed to complete an environmental review process for its 5G towers as required under the Coastal Area Facility Review Act.
Lavallette is a small coastal town roughly 10 miles from Spring Lake.
The new lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey Ocean County Law Division, aims to force Verizon to conduct endangered species and environmental reviews for all its proposed 5G towers along the New Jersey shore.
CHD is providing legal support for the case. A hearing has yet to be scheduled, Carusone said.
It’s especially premature for Spring Lake to settle in its lawsuit with Verizon as this new state lawsuit has yet to get underway, said Miriam Eckenfels, director of CHD’s EMR & Wireless Program.
Plus, the Belmar federal lawsuit has yet to be decided, Carusone added. “We should wait until Belmar is determined because that’s going to be the bellwether of this case.”
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Residents and CHD excluded from drafting tentative settlement
Eckenfels said that although residents and CHD are intervenors in the Spring Lake lawsuit, the borough has failed to involve them.
“The proposed settlement came completely out of the blue because Spring Lake has been categorically excluding us, despite promising us to include the intervenors in all major developments,” she said.
“We had no idea they were talking to Verizon all this time and that they were close to reaching a settlement — a settlement that we would have wanted to negotiate with them.”
The settlement highly favors Verizon while failing to address the residents’ concerns, according to resident Patrick L. Donnelly. “The proposed settlement is a total capitulation by the Borough to Verizon,” he wrote in an Aug. 29 letter to Spring Lake Mayor Jennifer Naughton.
The proposed settlement would allow Verizon to install the 5G antennas inside two enclosed, hut-like cupolas on top of pavilion buildings at the north and south ends of the boardwalk, Fox Business reported.
The tentative settlement would strip away local control by no longer requiring future wireless infrastructure proposals to be reviewed by the borough’s planning board, according to a letter Badishkanian sent to her fellow Spring Lake residents.
Badishkanian also pointed out that the settlement puts no future limits on where Verizon could install towers in Spring Lake.
Verizon claims its 5G towers are needed to close cell service gaps. But residents, including Badishkanian, dispute that.
“Our cell phones were just fine on the boardwalk,” Badishkanian said. “So I don’t even think Verizon’s really made a great case as far as why they even need these towers to begin with.”
Related articles in The Defender
- Residents of New Jersey Town Battle Verizon to Keep 5G Towers Off Beachfront
- New Jersey Residents Opposing 5G Towers Win Right to Intervene in Verizon Lawsuit
- CHD Asks Court to Dismiss Verizon Lawsuit Against New Jersey County That Denied Permits for 5G Towers
- CHD Asks to Intervene in Verizon Lawsuit Against New Jersey County That Denied Telecom Giant’s Permits for 5G Towers
