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After a roughly two-year battle to stop Verizon from installing two cell towers in their town, the residents of Minden, Nevada, achieved a partial victory.
On Jan. 21, a state district judge affirmed the county’s decision to let Verizon erect an 80-foot cell tower near an elementary school, public park and several homes.
However, in April 2025, the residents, with help from Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Stop 5G initiative, convinced their local authorities to reject Verizon’s bid to build an 80-foot tower near a high school, daycare and dance studio.
W. Scott McCollough, CHD’s chief litigator for its Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless cases, represented the residents. “We ended up 50/50, which is frankly not too bad in this environment,” he said.
Minden, located about 20 miles from Lake Tahoe, is home to roughly 3,000 residents. With help from Stop 5G, the Minden residents have been fighting both towers since January 2024, when they learned of Verizon’s plans to build the two towers.
Resident: ‘Do WE THE PEOPLE have a voice anymore?’
In September 2024, Minden’s planning commission approved one tower project and denied the other. The residents appealed the approved project. Verizon appealed the project that was denied.
On Dec. 5, 2024, the Minden residents scored a temporary win when county supervisors, who heard the appeal cases, unanimously voted to hold off issuing a permit for either tower until at least April 3, 2025. The supervisors also told Verizon to explore alternative sites.
On April 3, 2025, the county supervisors denied both appeals and affirmed the planning commission’s decisions. That meant Verizon could not construct a tower proposed near a high school, dance studio, daycare and residential neighborhood, but could move ahead with the tower near an elementary school and adjacent to several houses in another residential area.
The Minden residents stepped up their fight by suing the county on Aug. 8, 2025. They asked the Douglas County District Court to review and reverse the county’s approval of the tower.
On Jan. 21, Judge Nathan Tod Young upheld the county’s decision without first hearing oral arguments. He wrote in his opinion that the county commissioners showed “reasoned decision-making” rather than “arbitrariness” when they approved the tower.
Casey Rodgers, a Minden resident and leader of the grassroots group Minden for Safe Tech, said she was angry that the judge denied the residents’ petition without first hearing them out.
She told The Defender in an email, “The question I have is, Do WE THE PEOPLE have a voice anymore?”
The Minden residents and McCollough are assessing whether to push the issue further. “We believe the county decision granting the permit violated the requirements of the controlling ordinance,” McCollough said.
Law needs to change so communities can fight cell towers based on health concerns
Miriam Eckenfels, director of CHD’s EMR & Wireless Program, praised the Minden residents for putting up “a remarkable fight.”
“The fact that they were able to defeat one of the two proposed towers shows that victories are possible,” Eckenfels said.
But such victories are difficult to come by because the Telecommunication Act of 1996 doesn’t allow local authorities to deny a cell tower application based on health concerns.
“The biggest problem is that under current law, local jurisdictions cannot consider health effects from RF radiation when making tower decisions,” McCollough said.
That prohibition had a “direct impact” on Minden’s recent loss — and on a similar loss in Snowflake, Arizona, he said.
Snowflake, a town in rural Arizona, is a known haven for people with severe multiple chemical sensitivity and electrical sensitivity, now called EMR Syndrome. In 2024, residents urged their county leaders to stop SBA, a wireless developer, from erecting a 120-foot cell tower nearby.
In November 2024, the county’s board of supervisors ruled against SBA’s tower proposal. However, they have since reversed that decision.
Snowflake residents — many of whom become disabled when exposed to wireless radiation — likely would have been more successful if federal law didn’t restrict county officials from denying the tower based on health concerns.
“Our 704 initiative will be focused on trying to get that restriction removed,” McCollough said.
704 No More is a nationwide, nonpartisan coalition effort led by CHD to legally challenge Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Section 704 prohibits local authorities from denying cell tower applications based on health and environmental effects.
Snowflake resident Dianna Suslo said the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is “criminal” and needs to be challenged. “Otherwise, disabled communities like ours will continue to be bullied by multibillion-dollar corporations like SBA.”
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RFK Jr.: Wireless radiation is a ‘major health concern’
Last month, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told USA Today that the wireless radiation from cellphones, cell towers and other wireless infrastructure is a “major health concern.”
On Jan. 15, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched a new study into the health effects of wireless radiation. The same day, federal health officials quietly removed longstanding U.S. Food and Drug Administration webpages asserting that cellphone radiation poses no health risk, The Wall Street Journal reported.
McCollough called Kennedy’s actions a “key step” toward resolving this issue on the national level.
HHS’ study on the health effects of wireless radiation will likely yield more reasons for local authorities to deny cell tower applications based on health concerns, once federal law allows them to do so, he added.
Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed new rules that, if adopted, would allow for the uncontrolled proliferation of new cell towers.
The FCC, which has not updated its limits on wireless radiation since 1996, continues to state on its website that there is no proof wireless devices cause cancer.
Related articles in The Defender- Residents in Small Nevada Town Step Up Fight Against Verizon’s Plan to Build Cell Tower Near School, Homes
- Residents of Nevada Town Score Temporary Win in Battle Against Verizon 5G Towers
- Children’s Health Defense Urges FCC to Drop Plan That Would Strip Communities of Local Control Over Cell Towers
- ‘No Place in Our Community’: Santa Cruz Residents Sue County Over AT&T Cell Tower
- Residents of Hawaii’s Big Island Pass Law to Keep Cell Towers Away from Homes, Schools
