Central Maine Power is on a mission. Its Spanish parent company, Iberdrola, wants to present Maine as a model for its so-called “smart” meter rollouts in New York State and elsewhere.
To succeed, CMP first has to squash the grassroots resistance sprouting all over Maine as CMP customers develop health problems, worry about being hacked, experience appliance and computer malfunctions, and realize that state governments around the country — including Maine — rolled over for powerful power companies that are raking in federal stimulus dough to pay for the meters.
The new meter on your house emits radio frequencies to transmit your usage data to other meters and to repeater devices, bouncing the data around until they reach a collector unit, which bundles the data to relay to CMP. This process saturates the area with CMP’s RF emissions.
Resistance to CMP’s mission began with a handful of brave, hardy Mainers who have been laboring through the morass of state legal requirements in order to get one question answered: “are ‘smart’ meters endangering our health?”
You are scoffing, “if they weren’t safe, the state wouldn’t allow CMP to install them.” Wrong! In July, the Maine Supreme Court ruled in the case that the Maine Public Utilities Commission hadn’t addressed the human safety of the new meters.
The one that is already stuck onto the side of your house. Maybe just outside your kids’ bedroom. Or a foot from where the family sits to watch TV. The more CMP accounts in your neighborhood, the more exposed you are to RF pollution, and the more exposed your household data are. Because not only can these meters make you ill, but they invade your privacy and are susceptible to being hacked.
CMP allows customers to keep their electromechanical meters but charges you $40 a pop, plus $12 every month to keep your existing meter. Although this assures your privacy, opting out doesn’t save you from the negative health affects of the not-so-smart meters all around you. And while the PUC mulls how to address the health question, CMP keeps right on charging people who have opted out but are still being saturated with not-so-smart meter RF.
CMP equates emissions from not-so-smart meters with those from cell phones, cordless phones, and Wi-Fi. That argument is deeply misleading on two points. First, you choose whether to have a cell phone or Wi-Fi in your house, and you alone decide when to turn it on and off. Not-so-smart meters are on 24/7/365 — and you cannot turn them off.
The second widening hole in CMP’s argument is that there is mounting alarm in scientific, medical, and public policy communities about the health dangers to a society saturated by emissions from — you guessed it — cell phones, Wi-Fi and cordless phones. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine and the Council of Europe are among those now issuing strong advice to get Wi-Fi out of schools.
Where can you get more information and help? Unlike CMP, the grassroots resistance to not-so-smart meters isn’t glossy or well-funded. We don’t have a website or an 800 number.
What we do have is a cantankerous notion that we don’t want manmade RF emissions bouncing around us and through us, up to 15,400 times a day. We also have the temerity to believe that the power company shouldn’t be collecting — and possibly selling — usage data that include the brand and model number of any electrical device we use in our homes, and what time we use it.
And speaking of time, you don’t have much left.
Before we’re too far down this dangerous road to back out, educate yourself now about the meters that invade your privacy and might make you ill. Begin by reading the American Academy of Environmental Medicine press release that calls for “Immediate caution regarding ‘Smart Meter’ installation due to potentially harmful RF exposure.” Read their list of medical conditions that can be exacerbated by the meters. Read about emerging studies on the detrimental health impacts of long-term exposure to an environment saturated by manmade RF and EMF.
Call CMP and tell them that you want your electromechanical meter back. Then call your mayor or select board members, your state representative, your state senator, and your Congresspeople to ask why the government is throwing money at power companies to install meters that can make you ill and that invade your privacy.
We may not be well-funded, but Mainers are scrappy. Don’t be steamrolled by Big Brother and Big Business.
Deborah Oliver is a publishing consultant and owner of Ab Initio (“From the Beginning” Publishing Consulting & Editing) in Camden.
Flat-Earth Toads-Cause-Warts Green-Cheese-Moon Fairy Tale Nonsense.
Why do we have to endure this Ignorant Hoo-Hah in the year 2012?
There is no peer-reviewed scientific evidence that these meters or any similar type of device causes any medical problems.
Yessah
Hurray! Well said munebaght. What most of these protestors don’t seem to realize is that the computer they use to complain about these meters is a much greater invasion of their privacy and health risk than the gosh darn meters!
The first California County Health Department smart meter report has been issued in Santa Cruz, CA, expressing strong concerns about health effects from smart meter radiation exposures, asking their county to impose another moratorium on installations.
In addition, the health department asks the county supervisors to sign a petition to postpone the CPUC opt-out ruling until independent investigations and public health hearings are conducted. Many portions of this report pertain to all municipalities where smart meters are being used and is a model for other communities.
This health department report, approved by County legal council, was issued at the request of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors
And what it the basis for their concern? Please cite.
http://lamesa.patch.com/blog_posts/california-health-department-cites-smart-meter-health-risks-in-report see attachment B
Susan Brinchman, the author of the link you give Organgardener, is a social activist who pretty much single handedly convinced San Diego County to abandon smart meters. She did it without scientific evidence from any reputable source. In this link: http://www.sandiegofreepress.org/contact/#.UE5eXo5OT0c she cites examples of one person and a pet becoming ill from a smart meter along with various other vague unscientific references of people who claim to be ill from the meters. No good science is evident. Good grief! I will say this, her efforts, misguided as they are, clearly demonstrate that one person is indeed capable of negatively impacting our government. She also runs a non-profit called Center for Electrosmog Prevention. Hmm, how creative. Her education is in Education. She is a teacher, not a scientist nor even a healthcare provider. Nuff said.
My (educated) guess is that this action in California was driven by (uneducated) local concerns such as the ones we just read about. I used to live and work in that area so perhaps I have some insight here. If I wanted to invest 10 minutes I’m certain I could do a quick internet search and come up with a long list of quotes that refute such stupidity. By the way, health departments are not usually comprised of people who have studied physics, or even health for that matter. Both would be required to comprehensively study the cause and effect of this source. Want more, how about the controversy that has been going on literally for decades regarding cell phones and cancer? How about being near power distribution lines? How about being exposed to radio waves? Television broadcasts? Solar flares on the sun perhaps? Good grief! The list of radiation sources, manmade and otherwise, is virtually infinite! If the organic gardening lobby had their way we would be living short lives of misery and ignorance such as was normal 200 years ago. At least back then there were people like Thomas Jefferson who embraced the study of science. Backwards thinking, ill informed, gosh darn….., well I can’t say it and have this comment remain posted.
I have a microwave, a wireless router, 3 cell phones and a wireless game console in my house. At work I’m surrounded by cell phones in every single office in my building and carry my own cell phone on my person most of the time. I’m hardly concerned about a wireless meter that transmits in short microbursts only occasionally. If folks don’t want them, then don’t have them and pay the additional cost of having your old meter read by a meter reader. But if you’re trying to save yourself from harmful radio frequencies then you’d best become a hermit and move off the grid to a very remote area as radio frequencies of all types area all around us …. think back to the old b&w televisions and their rabbit ear antennas….
Just hoping that in 20 years you aren’t making that list again to a dr. There is no evidence either way.
There is. As a minimum, the evidence is in the continuing increasing longevity of Americans despite an ever increasing exposure to radiation at various wavelengths.
Give me a break. We may as well go back into the stone ages and break out the candles. Sometimes there are uncertainty’s with progress but, in the long run, we will get it right. It’s called technological evolution. If there is something unhealthy with all these waves running through the air then we had better prevent supernova’s from happening in space, and thousands of other naturally occurring events that produce much more hazardous emissions.
It’s not very difficult to see which side of the [non]issue Deborah comes down on.
“usage data that include the brand and model number of any electrical device we use in our homes, “. What a load of crap! Electronic time of day metering likely will be used in the future to charge higher rates for power used during peak load demand times, however.
Their concerns are ridiculous in the extreme. Criminy!
Beemare,
It isn’t a load of crap. It’s for real.
In other states the utilities have ALREADY requested to sell the data to third parties…..for marketing purposes, I’m sure. And I sat in all of the technical conferences last year at Maine’s PUC, and guess what? I found out it is true. The new appliances are all set to have RF chips. You can find that out easily. New appliances DO have chips in them that will be able to be identified. One person bought a Bosch, and tried to get one without the “chip”, and couldn’t. If she removed the RF chip, her warranty would expire. She found another. Be careful of making assumptions. Truth is stranger than fiction!
I laugh my arse off evertime these moon bats whine about this…Better get my tin foil hat on…LOL…
You probably missed the privacy issue part and the charge for the human meter reader if you elect not to have one installed. But then again you probably deliberately ignored that so as you would have the opportunity to harrass those who do not have the same conservative views of anything that saves you a buck is good at all costs!!
A reasonable person truly concerned about the issues of the day , wouldn’t ignore the government subsides to an industry that eliminates jobs with the introduction of technology as their replacement and the promotion of ( Taxing) the consumer for the meter reader services for not engaging in their job elimination scheme.
This does NOT promote jobs!
It eliminates them and replaces them with a system with an unproven cost to benefits analysis to the consumer all for more profits to the utilitiy company profits.
Therein lies the fallacy of the whole Republican Job Creators scheme!
It really isin’t about job creation.
It’s about Profit Creation!
Conservatism and it’s “Free Market ” Mantra is an utter failure because it’s only concern is what’s in your wallet and how can I get it from you!
It’s also about the expansion of government control, when you connect ‘smart’ appliances required by the energy efficiency politburo to the ‘smart’ meter and a government official decides to cut down on your use of air conditions and sends out a signal to throttle down your system during a heat wave.
Liberals designed this system or was it the DARLEKS?
I doubt that this was designed by ‘liberals” or anyone else political. As I recall, cutbacks on electrical use must be agreed to by the customer.
Efficiency Maine, one of key backers is a bastion of Liberal Democrats.
How can you be “organic” and against conservation? You wouldn’t be hypocritical could you? You cannot have it both ways my friend.
What are DARLEKS?
Dlbrt you and I agree on the job issues and the GOP in general. However I do not believe the complaints here are about jobs at all. I think it is the ‘back to the dark ages’ organic people and the survivalists who hide in dark tunnels afraid there is a conspiracy behind everything that touches them.
It wise to question authority and change.
If we wish to continue to use electricity at an increasing rate, then we may wish to consider a cheaper rate of electricity at off-peak times. For the prudent customer, this would save money, and the environment (as we can reduce the state and nation “peak” consumption rate) by less requirement for fossil fuels.
We can’t have everything, but if we would like to continue using electricity – which most of us take for granted – then we must embrace this new (and perfectly safe) technology.
One of the editors at the BDN must believe in this junk science. How else can you explain them putting this in the paper?
Equal opportunity for all.
A poorly reasoned column, if I’ve ever seen one.
1. Yes, we are bombarded with radio waves. But not just from cellphones, wireless hotspots and routers, or smart meters, but from AM/FM/short wave radio signals, two-way radio, television, GPS signals, satellite signals, etc.
2. Smart meters send out one signal once a day. That’s it.
3. My guess is the data are encrypted and pretty safe from “hackers.”
4. Privacy? Anybody can walk up to your traditional meter when you’re not home and read the numbers. Who cares?
5. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s decision (not “Maine Supreme Court”) did not address whether smart meters are safe; it simply pointed out that the Public Utilities Commission didn’t address health concerns in its decsion.
6. The writer alludes to “CMP customers develop[ing] health problems.” What conditions would those be? And has there been definitive proof that these conditions were caused by the smart meters? If you’re going to make a claim, provide evidence, if not proof. All the writer does is make a wild accusation.
Perhaps if we said “security” instead of “privacy”, it might shed some light through all this scorn.
Many Mainers have summer homes; other travel frequently. There is no easier way to tell if a house is unoccupied than by tracking its electricity usage.
Yes, anyone can walk up and look at your mechanical meter, but few thieves bother to go house to house at random– it’s not worth the effort or the risk. And now, thanks to CMP, they don’t have to bother. They can sit at their laptops and hack into all that prime SmartMeter data.
Of course it will be encrypted. And any code can be decoded, usually by a clever high school student in his bedroom late at night. Think of all the large retail chains, financial institutions, government agencies that have had their secure data highjacked, then tell me CMP is somehow going to be smarter and more diligent.
This is an excellent article. Contrary to the previous commentors beliefs, there are over 2000 peer-reviewed, published scientific studies showing very serious adverse health effects from the type of RF radiation from smart meters. If you want to hear about these, sign up at the Maine PUC online case filing system for notification of the filings in the Maine PUC’s current open investigation into the known health problems & the documented serious risk we are all being subjected to against our will, while ignoring our constitutional rights to choose what is placed on/in our homes. There will be experts Md, PHd..scientists that have been studying radiofrequency radiation emissions will be submitting testimony. Other will testify as to how we are being misled by big industry money…just like tobacco! Don’t be so naive, go online to PubMed, type in electromagnetic radiation….obviously some commentors have not done their homework.
This is an excellent article. Contrary to the previous commentors
beliefs, there are over 2000 peer-reviewed, published scientific studies
showing very serious adverse health effects from the type of RF
radiation from smart meters. If you want to hear about these, sign up
at the Maine PUC online case filing system for notification of the
filings in the Maine PUC’s current open investigation into the known
health problems & the documented serious risk we are all being
subjected to against our will, while ignoring our constitutional rights
to choose what is placed on/in our homes. There will be experts Md,
PHd..scientists that have been studying radiofrequency radiation
emissions will be submitting testimony. Other will testify as to how
we are being misled by big industry money…just like tobacco! Don’t be
so naive, go online to PubMed, type in electromagnetic
radiation….obviously some commentors have not done their homework.
Recently, I have had unusual things happen to the large UPS to which the computers are plugged into.
In the middle of the night it started rapid cycling, going off switching to battery restarting the computer and then after a few minutes going through it again….off, restart, off. for an hour until I cut off everything.
Old wiring, but it’s been old for a long time. Only new component is the smart meter.
Called CMP, and a lineman came over within 20 min. checked the lines and found a slightly higher voltage. We went over the lines coming from the service and all were o.k.
I shut off the power to the UPS and went shopping for a new one. A few hours later, turned back on the power and no reaction from the backup UPS.
Smart Meter? short in house wiring somewhere? line disturbance? Need new UPS? or aliens? or squirrels?
UPS units are notorius for failure after a time.
Didn’t fail….problem wasn’t with unit; in fact I used a second one; same problem regardless
Rf emissions are indeed ubiquitous, but any effects (highly debatable) depend on the frequency, the power intensity, and the inverse cube law for proximity. To make such a blanket indictment, you should also avoid left turn lanes, proximity to any radio or TV transmitter, and WiFi.
And cellphone sites as well. I think you meant to say ‘inverse square law’ rather than ‘inverse cube’, but many know what you’re talking about.
Yes. There is a huge amount of peer reviewed scientific evidence. Radiofrequency radiation (RF) causes adverse biological effects at very low levels. It is easy to find the data and research. We have gathered some of it. Go to the Maine PUC transcripts and data provided by complainants for details. Docket 2010-345 et. al, 389, 398, 310 and now the ongoing 2011-00262. The World Health Organization has defined RF as a possible carcinogen. How long ago was it that smoking was a “possible” carcinogen? Are you willing to let industry create the same doubt they created for tobacco and asbestos for this new technology? We need to learn from our mistakes.
Article in Bangor Daily News – BDN that addresses smart meter technology. For your reading pleasure.