Thank you to EON for producing this in depth video about the protests last week, including interviews with Sandi Maurer about FCC non-compliance of the meters and discussion with the PG&E manager outside the Santa Rosa service center.
If you have questions about the smart meter program, and would like to organize a group of your neighbors and friends to travel to a PG&E office, you can find one near you here.
Company Fails to Disclose ‘Smart’ Meter Radiation Levels as Growing Numbers Sickened
Santa Rosa- Demonstrators today blocked trucks from leaving PG&E’s Rohnert Park ‘smart’ meter installation yard and later shut down the company’s Santa Rosa customer service center for 3 hours, demanding an immediate halt to ‘smart’ meter installation, full disclosure of the microwave radiation emissions from the meters, and hearings at the state level on the health impacts of the meters.
PG&E refused to provide the requested information and shut down their offices, declining to have police make arrests, essentially allowing a handful of concerned Bay Area mothers to shut down their business for half a day. The demonstrators speculate that the reluctance to order arrests was an attempt to minimize press coverage of health problems that have increasingly been associated with the new meters. Many PG&E customers are reporting headaches, dizziness, nausea, tinnitus and heart palpitations that began when the new wireless meters were installed.
PG&E Hunkering Down Out of the Media Spotlight
While PG&E claims that the meters are ‘only 1/6000th the amount of radiation of a cell phone,’ independent experts measuring the radiation say the meters put out powerful pulses 2-15 times per minute that are between 2 and 3 times the strength of cell phones, which are being linked with brain tumors and other health impacts. According to Joshua Hart, Director of Stop Smart Meters! a group that is fighting the mandatory wireless meter program, “PG&E has been using time averaging in a slick attempt to hide the real strength of this radiation. The intense spikes of microwave emissions- unlike the continuous waves from a cell phone or wifi router- may be what are making people sick.”
We apparently stayed longer than they were expecting....
At a community meeting in West Marin on Monday evening, dozens of angry residents expressed their willingness to risk arrest in order to stop the forced deployment of the wireless meters after hearing firsthand accounts of health impacts suffered by their neighbors.
“I’m here to protect my children,” said Katharina Sandizell-Smith of Pt. Reyes Station, one of the women risking arrest. “These wireless meters are untested on human populations and they are making people sick. We need hearings on health damage, and we need an immediate halt to installation. If they didn’t have anything to hide, why not disclose the peak radiation levels and hold open public hearings?”
Credit: EON
At least someone in power is doing something!
This just in from yesterday- CA Assemblymember Jared Huffman has introduced a bill- AB 37- that would require the CPUC to offer an opt out for their customers. The bill would require that PG&E disclose details of the meters’ radiation and require a moratorium on further installations until the opt out program is in place. Coverage by the Marin IJ and the San Anselmo/ Fairfax Patch was available online as of Monday.
As we’ve said before, an individual opt out is not the solution. But providing consumers choice IS a small step in the right direction. Huffman’s bill deserves your support. You can contact his office to express your gratitude at (415) 479-4920 and ask that the bill be amended to include the ability for whole cities and counties to opt out. In addition, residents of apartment building need meaningful opt outs that would use shielded cabling for the entire apartment building if there is one unit that opts out. The legislation also has to be retroactive to provide for hard wiring of those people who are currently being forced to live with a wireless meter against their will. If you live outside his district, you can find your assemblymember’s contact info here.
The problem is that this bill will likely take 3-4 months to be signed into law, and PG&E and other other utilities can install a lot of meters in that time. Ten thousand per day times 120 days is more than one million more meters.
We have a word of advice for the utilities- the writing is on the wall. You’re going to have to hard wire your meters. You can do it the easy way voluntarily, or you can do it the hard way, wasting everyone’s time and money. In the meantime, while industry removes any teeth from his bill, perhaps Jared Huffman would care to join us in blocking Wellington trucks to protect his constituents.
You can read the legislation as introduced here, and enter “37” in the bill number field.
This is video coverage just sent to me of a November 22nd protest at the Rohnert Park Wellington installation yard. Kind of disturbing how when people stand up for their rights to refuse a radiating device being forced onto their own homes, men with guns show up to ensure that the installation continues.
Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I used to think that the government (and the police) were there to protect us. May these protests swell and force a halt to this insanity.
