Growing Smart Meter Resistance on North American Coasts

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Josh Hart

Resistance “Mounts” as Mt. Shasta Renews Opposition to Smart Meters

KOBI5 August 6th, 2018: The Mount Shasta City Council passed an emergency resolution, joining with other California cities, to appeal the installation of smart meters and for the state’s Public Utility Commission to allow cities to opt-out.

A special city council hearing was held last week with citizens claiming that smart meters are hazardous to their health and create “dirty electricity”.

The entire installation process was called “failed” by Mount Shasta Mayor Kathy Morter. Citizens of Mount Shasta and Siskiyou County are now calling for support and action on the issue.  Read more.

Smart Meters Rejected in New Brunswick, Canada

Cumberland News Now:

The New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board apparently thinks the remedy to be worse than the disease when it comes to reading electric power meters.  The EUB has turned thumbs down on a multi-million-dollar proposal by New Brunswick Power to convent all residences to so called “smart meters”.

The provincial power company had been proposing to spend more than $90 million over the next 15 years to install some 355,000 smart meters on N.B. homes.  But the EUB has put the kibosh to that at least for the present.

In a lengthy ruling, which also rejected a number of other proposals from the power company, the Energy and Utilities Board says there is simply not enough evidence to prove the benefits of the plan when compared to its costs.  While acknowledging that there might be some “non-quantifiable” benefits to the conversion, such as better billing processes and hopefully greater customer satisfaction, these benefits did not “overcome a negative business case.” In other words, they weren’t worth the cost. In the same decision, the Energy and Utility Board rejected NB Power’s bid for  a $1.3M program to establish electric vehicle chargers because they are already being established by the private sector and it would not be in the public interest for the utility to also be doing it. In a third decision made in the same release, the Board also rejected a proposed smart homes project because of delays in getting the program underway.

The decisions show a rare appreciation of the need for real consideration of the impact on consumers of these expensive proposals, something which does not often seem apparent in such adjudicative decisions.

Nova Scotia Power and the Utilities Review Board in this province would do well to read these decisions carefully. In these cases, the little guy actually won!  Read more.

SMART METERS MAINE: Berry: Report ‘a little soft’ on CMP

The Times Record, Aug. 7th, 2018:

State Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, thinks a Public Utilities Commission report about Central Maine Power’s handling of its system during the October 2017 wind storm took it too easy on one of the state’s largest utility.

The report released Friday concluded the company acted reasonably in its restoration efforts, considering the circumstances, though it recommended improvements be made to how the company provides information to customers.

“The preparation for and response to the storm by CMP and Emera Maine were reasonable,” the report states. “The October Storm did, however, reveal areas for improvement, including with respect to coordination and communication, as well as accuracy of outage and restoration time information provided to customers.”

“CMP needs to level with us, admit mistakes, and keep their story straight if they are ever going to rebuild trust with Maine people,” said Berry, House chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology, last week. “How can we believe them when their story flip-flops every few months?”

CMP spokesperson Gail Rice responded by maintaining that the company’s smart meters provided important information on outages that allowed the company to restore power after the “unprecedented” storm. In fact, the company claimed, the smart meter technology gave it more information about the scope of storm damage than during previous storms when it didn’t have them in place.

Berry argues that claim flies in the face of the company’s earlier statements on what data they had following the storm. He said CMP spokespeople have testified at various points over the past year that the smart meter system had “flatlined” during the storm and the company was “flying blind” in its response efforts.  Read more.

Thanks to Ed Friedman and Maine Coalition to Stop Smart Meters for these updates

Posted in California, Canada, Citizen rebellion, Maine, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Four Asheville NC Families Disconnected By Duke for Refusing Smart Meters on their Homes

Posted on July 9, 2018 by Josh Hart

August 1st, 2018 update: We have received an update that families who have been resisting in Asheville, living without electricity, have given in to Duke Energy’s demands to install electronic meters on their property in exchange for resumption of their electricity service.

July 18th 2018 Update :

See videos and back story here.

From: Citizens For Safe Metering <ashevillesafemetering@gmail.com>

Update on our process: It’s now Day 19 and we still are without power. But there’s some movement. We are about to do a press release and interviews. And creating a pamphlet to hand out around our neighborhood with the information for how to protect ourselves from the Smart Meters and what your options are. 
 
The big news is that a state legislator contacted Duke Energy on our behalf and they called us yesterday and explained that they can turn our power back on but first we need to have the city inspectors look at our meter base and approve it, and the city requires a licensed electrician to look at it before they will look at it. 
 
So lots of coordinating and costs. And then Duke is asking for a hefty re-connection fee once the inspection is done. But I went over the whole thing with the associate on the phone, our intent behind our actions, that we were acting out of concern for our health and waited years for Duke’s compliance yet could not let ourselves get pulsed every 30 seconds any longer. And how we handled it in a very professional way that assured no power was stolen, and yet how they were completely unavailable to support our health concerns and respond to our requests and notifications which invited them to assist us.
 

And so she said she is going to speak to someone higher up. We’ll see, and I’ll let you know. We are so grateful for each one of you assisting us. Really amazing and greatly supportive. However, please forward on to others our fundraiser as we are still quite significantly short from all our out of pocket expenses and potential upcoming ones in order to get our power back on and more. We still need to get Doctors notes as well to assure that we have a strong case to push for analog meters on our houses. And working to assure that others will have that choice too.

Sincerely, with much gratitude,

Michael Brasunas

Things are literally heating up for at least four families in Asheville, North Carolina after Duke Energy disconnected their homes last week simply for refusing smart meters on their homes (a choice many of us in the rest of the country take for granted).  The Raleigh ES site has been tracking developments, and are raising money for the families affected in this case.

Here is an excerpt from their diary:

“It’s also very hot today and so we are trying to power some small fans with the generator, but it’s also very loud and the other neighbors on the street will probably get quite tired of this situation. For sure having our power abruptly cut off was a shock and has caused a major shift in everything we do, there are lessons in it, but also unfortunate circumstances that are quite a challenge. In order to work on editing all the footage we have from 7 different cameras that were running each for about 15-20 minutes it took a lot of coordinating and time and patience to put it all together, and since we didn’t have generators yet our computers died so we sometimes had to go down to another neighbors house who let us sit on her back porch and plug in. We were up late last night, after midnight, and then I was up again at 4:30 this morning working on the footage, fixing things, preparing for the day before my kids wake up….”

Stop Smart Meters! stands in solidarity with this group resisting smart meters in Asheville and all around the world. We ourselves have lived through plenty of utility abuse, living 18 months without electricity as retaliation for our refusal to pay opt out fees (we prevailed in court and they were forced to turn our power back on and cancel all extortion charges).

Remember, the utilities have ZERO legal right to force smart meters on your property. It is, after all, YOUR property– not theirs. Utility companies typically resort to bullying tactics like depriving people of electricity to their homes, and levying extortion fees, in order to pressure the public to accept their deeply unpopular wireless meters. Increasingly, though, people are just not buying it.

With any luck, public support, and resolve on the part of those standing their ground in Asheville, Duke will be forced to back down, or lose their customers to increasingly economical off-grid power systems.

Stop Utilities’ Criminal Assaults on Paying Customers!

 

Posted in Cancer, Changing a Meter, Citizen rebellion, Democracy, health effects, legal issues, neighborhood organizing, North Carolina, radio-frequency radiation, Safety, Smart Grid | 2 Comments

Leading EMF Expert Martin Blank Passes

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Josh Hart

Dr. Martin Blank PhD, eminent EMF researcher and advocate for safer, precautionary-based telecommunications policies, has died aged 85. His 2003 book, Overpowered, introduced many people to the subject of EMF health impacts.

We thank Dr. Blank for his important work and contribution to the truth about the biological impacts of wireless technology and other types of EMF, and send condolences to his friends and family.  Read Dr. Blank’s full obituary here.

Posted in Cell phones, Electro-Hyper-Sensitivity, EMF Mitigation, health effects, Health studies, radio-frequency radiation | 1 Comment

Palo Alto Approves “Close Proximity Microwave Radiation Antennas” Despite Popular Resistance

Posted on May 16, 2018 by Josh Hart

Improvements made to an (unwelcome) addition on a Santa Rosa, CA street

Things are heating up in the neighborhoods of  Silicon Valley where Verizon just obtained approval from the Palo Alto City Council to install “small cells” with big radiation outside people’s homes. Residents continue to resist these intrusions on their streets, and vandalism has occurred at some locations in the Bay Area where small cells have been installed near people’s homes (see photo to left).

Whatever your opinion of wireless, industrial cellular equipment in residential neighborhoods is bad business. The time to stand up against this madness is now.

More info, download flyers, stand up for your street and for your community- click here.

Posted in California, Citizen rebellion, Democracy, health effects, neighborhood organizing, radio-frequency radiation, Smart Grid | Leave a comment

Pacific Power “Believes the Science it Wants to Believe”

Posted on April 16, 2018 by Josh Hart

Betty Kreeger of Siskiyou County with the digital meters that PacifiCorp wants to replace with transmitting smart meters.

The following article was submitted by Betty Kreeger in Siskiyou County, California, describing a recent public meeting that raised more questions than providing answers (a familiar situation for many of you!).

On December 6th Pacific Power sent Regional Business Manager Monte Mendenhall into the senior community at Eskaton Washington Manor in Mount Shasta, for a presentation and Q&A about the new “Smart” meters the utility plans to install next year.

It turns out residents appeared to be better informed than Mr. Mendenhall, who could not answer basic technical questions, such as about the 10,000-190,000 radiofrequency (RF) pulses with which each “Smart” meter transmits data every day in some wireless mesh networks.

Mendenhall responded he’s “not into the science of this thing,” leaving one to wonder why he was chosen to present on something he knows nothing about. Since we cannot rely on Pacific Power to provide even the most rudimentary information about what it plans to unleash on our community, we consulted the actual science on this technology, and share our findings with readers here.

Of special concern in our fire-prone region, “Smart” meters have been known to start fires, which is unheard of with analog meters. In 2010 Larry Nikkel became the first person killed by a fire caused by such a meter on his Vacaville home. Power surges from trucks crashing into power poles exploded meters in Stockton in 2015, and October 2017 in Discovery Bay. “Smart” meter fires have been reported throughout the U.S., Canada, and Australia, and in recent weeks several related lawsuits were filed against PG&E in California.

The RF radiation emitted by “Smart” meters and other wireless technology has injured, disabled, and displaced many. Most have heard of the cellphone cancer studies, but RF also causes numerous other health problems, including neurological, as recently demonstrated by German scientists who measured disturbances of brain waves of drivers using wireless technology, sufficient to cause headaches, decreased concentration, and slowed reaction time.

Mendenhall claimed that several agencies conducted studies showing no harm to health from RF exposure, including the World Health Organization (WHO). But the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has in fact listed RF radiation as a possible carcinogen since 2011, and to date 220 scientists from 41 countries have signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, submitted to the United Nations in 2015, which cites 2,000 studies that clearly demonstrate harm. But Mendenhall dismisses this information out of hand, stating “you have to believe the science you want to believe” – or trust the studies he quotes.

Other studies show environmental impacts, such as interfering with the navigation of migratory birds, bats, and insects, including bees and butterflies, and growth impediment and other injuries to trees and other plants.

On a practical level, “smart” meters are often inaccurate and there have been many reports of massive overbilling, in some cases resulting in meters being recalled. They also violate residents’ privacy with the many unnecessary details they capture, and are easily hackable and therefore an individual as well as community security risk.

Far from the energy conservation tool advertised, they waste energy as they run on batteries and require more data storage. Analogs last decades, but “Smart” meters will need to be replaced every 5-7 years, and that cost will be passed on to customers and the environment.

Automating meter readings also eliminates healthy, outdoor jobs of meter readers, as well as the regular presence of these utility professionals who are trained to recognize dangerous infrastructure malfunctions like gas leaks or loose wires.

Unlike our old reliable analog meters, these “Smart” meters endanger our homes, health, privacy, wallet, community and environment at large. Pacific Power has indicated that customers who opt out before installation of the new meters can do so for free, but afterwards intends to charge residents a fee for the privilege of protecting ourselves from harm.

Mount Shasta Neighbors (and everyone else too): Say No to “Smart” meters! You can contact Betty Kreeger at bjreeger@att.net

Posted in Animal Harm, Bees, California, Citizen rebellion, Democracy, Electro-Hyper-Sensitivity, Environmental Concerns, health effects, neighborhood organizing, radio-frequency radiation, Smart Grid, World Health Organization | Leave a comment