1) Another fire on Monday in Saskatchewan. Now they are offering to remove smeter and return the analogs.
– http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saskpower-identifies-2-more-smart-meter-failures-1.2720359
Eighth smart meter failure in Sask – The Star Phoenix – July 28, 2014:
– http://www.thestarphoenix.com/technology/Seventh+smart+meter+failure+Saskatoon/10069084/story.html Please comment. They need to know what is happening in BC.
2) A member in Kamloops reports that a BC Hydro installer said that 100 faulty $$meters are being replaced. I have written to Greg Reimer asking for information about this, including costs and reasons that necessitated this action. I’ll let you know when I hear back.
3) Another story of someone getting an analog, but she had to go through some hoops. The “new” analog could have an expiry date several years away, as many have, or just a couple. But any extension gives us time to complete this battle, and to get the right to have analogs permanently.
A friend of mine just got several replacement analog meters in the complex where she lives.
She said at first they refused to assure her the replacements would be analog, then when she made a fuss and spoke to someone who asked her all kinds of questions such as if she had Wi-Fi, etc., she said he seemed to understand. He said she was a “special case” and assured her the meter replacement would be analog only and told her when the installers would come. When they came, they put in analog meters and told her they would only be good for a year or so. When she again spoke to the man who had been understanding and assured her the meters would be analog, he was still very nice, but he said that when meters expire in a year or so, they will not replace them with analogs. She asked if she could buy analog meters herself, but he said they would not use them. He didn’t say what they will replace them with, but did say they are getting rid of all analog meters.
4) A girls’ camp on Salt Spring wrote a letter to Health Canada and was kind enough to share with us. Please see it below.
5)A very interesting interview with Cindy Sage about RF exposure in hospitals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y58c2V3THig
Letters:
Cell Phone Towers and Property Values by Jerry Flynn – July 26, 2014
To: dmartin@comoxvalleyecho.com
[- http://www.comoxvalleyecho.com/contact-us]
Dear Editor,
I hope you agree that the public has a right to know this.
New York Times news story, “A Pushback Against Cell Towers,” published in the paper’s Real Estate section, on August 27, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/realestate/29Lizo.html?_r=1&ref=realestate.
In December 2009, 27 Burbank real estate professionals signed a petition/statement offering their professional opinion that the proposed T-Mobile cell tower at Brace Canyon Park would negatively impact the surrounding homes. http://www.getthecelloutatl.com/2012/08/yes-cell-tower-will-lower-property.html
“The effect of distance to cell phone towers on house prices” by Sandy Bond, Appraisal Journal, Fall 2007, see attached. Source, Appraisal Journal, found on the Entrepreneur website, http://www.prres.net/papers/Bond_Squires_Using_GIS_to_Measure.pdf
The Observer (U.K.), “Phone masts blight house sales: Health fears are alarming buyers as masts spread across Britain to meet rising demand for mobiles,” Sunday May 25, 2003 or go here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2003/may/25/houseprices.uknews
“Cell towers are sprouting in unlikely places.” The New York Times reported on January 9, 2000 (fears that property values could drop between 0 to 40 per cent because of neighboring cell towers)!http://www.getthecelloutatl.com/2012/08/yes-cell-tower-will-lower-property.html
Regards,
Jerry Flynn
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Permission given to share the author’s name, Girl Power Camp in Salt Spring.
From: Oona McOuat
Sent: July 14, 2014
To: safetycode6codedesecurite6@hc-sc.gc.ca
Subject: Submission re: Public consultation on Revision of Safety Code 6
Dear Health Canada,
We may be children, but because the guidelines you set for EMF safety and protection today may greatly affect our tomorrow, please accept our submission to the review process of your revision of Safety Code 6.
We have just spent a week studying exposure to EMF – surveying community members on their exposure levels to and experiences with EMF, and conducting an experiment on how direct WIFI exposure affects cress plants.
Most importantly, we examined how EMF exposure affects us personally – we listened to our bodies and shared with one another. We discovered that we are all listless and lacking in energy when we spend more than a few hours at a time on our digital devices. We noticed that some of us were physically and emotionally addicted to our cell phones – staying up late into the night talking and texting – and that when we slept with powered-on devices near our beds, we awoke tired, cranky, and un-refreshed. We wondered what the long-term effects of almost constant exposure to WIFI, cell phones, smart meters, microwaves, cell phone towers, and more, would be to our health and well-being. We learned there is no conclusive evidence that tells us we have nothing to worry about. We decided it was better to be safe than sorry.
We are concerned that Health Canada bases its guidelines for RF exposure on levels established by ICNIRP, an organization who, according to a 2011 parliamentary report by the Council of Europe is an: “NGO whose origin and structure are none too clear and which is furthermore suspected of having rather close links with the industries whose expansion is shaped by recommendations for maximum threshold values for the different frequencies of electromagnetic fields.”
We are also noticed that on your website you claim: “Health Canada scientists have concluded (and the Royal Society of Canada has agreed) on the basis of current scientific data, that no adverse health effects will occur from exposure to RF fields at the levels permitted by Safety Code 6”, and yet, only 16 of the 64 references used in the bibliography of the 2013 Safety Code Revision have been published since 2009 when the code was last revised. Some of the materials listed in the bibliography date back as far as 1982!
We ask you to look beyond the paradigm that claims that EMF has only a thermal – or heating – effect on the body, and to please recognize that our personal experiences and the attached experiment tell us that there is much more that needs to be learned before we truly know what safe levels of EMF exposure are.
With Best Regards,
Oona McOuat & the Participants of Girl Power Camp 2014
Sent: July 27, 2014 11:28 PM
To: john.horgan.mla@leg.bc.ca; mike.farnworth.mla@leg.bc.ca; andrew.weaver.mla@leg.bc.ca
Subject: Obsolescence of smart meters
Dear MLA’s
See below where nearly half of European countries are refusing to implement smart meters based on a cost/benefit analysis.
Why is BC Hydro allowed to proceed on this destructive program?
Why are MLA’s not objecting to the discrimination wherein analog meter users are being billed outrageous amounts for meter reading when frequently readings are estimated whereas smart meter users have their meters read but are not billed!!!!!
Is there nothing you can do to change this policy, even taking legal action if necessary?
Sharon Noble
Director, Coalition to Stop Smart Meters