Opt out of Smart Meters/Take Back Your Power

watch the documentary and decide for yourself

When it comes to electromagnetic radiation (EMR) - which emanates from cellphones, cell towers and smart meters among other things - the science is both unsettled and unsettling. And industries that profit from these technologies continue to look the other way as more infrastructure goes up all around us.

The 2017 documentary Take Back Your Power sheds lights on a variety of concerns related to smart meters including, privacy/surveillance, health, public safety, expense, regulatory capture and environmental impacts.

The film opens with a clip from a Maine Supreme Judicial Court proceeding from 2012 that exemplifies the industry’s regard for our health:

Attorney: If Mr. Friedman has a concern about the safety of smart meters, he does not have to have one.

Judge: Is it PUC’s decision that by allowing an opt-out, it can duck and obligation to consider the health or the trespass issues?

Attorney: Your honor, all of this issues were before the commission on the earlier proceedings…

Judge: But it didn’t decide on any of these issues… The (Maine Utilities) commission in fact declined to do the analysis to make the decisions about health and safety. *emphasis mine

Attorney: The remedy in all of those concerns in those proceedings was to offer an opt-out.

Judge: How about all of the members that are not opting out? Isn’t it the commissions responsibility to look after their health and safety and to make a judgement as to whether they’re being unreasonably exposed to RF?

Attorney: Your honor, nothing in the world can be made absolutely safe.

Judge: So, are you admitting that they are not safe? Is the PUC’s position that these are “safe enough?… What the commission is doing, as you present it is saying it has declined to do the health and safety analysis. You’re on your own.

Yup. You’re on your own.

With regards to the dangers of smart meters, Public Health Physician, David Carpenter has this to say:

The question to ask them (Central Maine Power) is “What is the evidence that smart meters are safe and have no adverse effects?” And the answer to that question is that there is no such evidence.

And in fact, while no one has actually done human health studies in relation to people living in homes with smart meters, we have evidence from a whole variety of other sources of radio frequency exposure that demonstrates convincingly and consistently that exposure to radio frequency radiation at elevated levels for long periods of time increases the risk of cancer, increases damage to the nervous system, causes electrosensitivity, has adverse reproductive effects and a variety of other effects on different organ systems. So there is no justification for the statement that smart meters have no adverse health effects.

The Environmental Health Trust, EMF Safety Netowork, Bioinitiative.org, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Physicians for Safe Technology and other organizations warn of a concerning list of adverse health impacts from wireless technology and seek to revisit outdated FCC guidelines from 1996 that fail to recognize how chronic exposure to increasing levels of electrosmog are affecting our health and our environment.

Outdated Science

Children’s Health Defense’s 6 minute video explains much of our current predicament.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/electromagnetic-radiation-wireless/

The regulation for RF radiation currently in place are almost 3 decades old, and they’re based on research that is even older. They assume RF radiation can only damage the body if it raises the temperature of biological tissue by some arbitrary amount. But current research shows that this is not the only mechanism of harm. Studies show that RF exposure way below levels that produce a thermal effect can also damage the body, producing a plethora of negative health effects. Basically, we need a whole new set of rules that reflect what we know now.

In 2019, the FCC opted not to update its 1996 radiofrequency (RF) radiation exposure guidelines and terminated a legal inquiry process of examining scientific evidence of adverse biological effects.

In 2021, in a case petitioned by CHD and Environmental Health Trust, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that the FCC failed to consider a “vast amount of scientific and medical evidence” regarding adverse health effects of wireless technology when it decided to maintain current radiofrequency emission guidelines.

Last year, CHD petitioned the FCC to comply with the court-ordered mandate requiring the agency to explain how it determined its guidelines protect the public against harmful effects of radiofrequency radiation exposure.

We’re still waiting for answers.

Meanwhile, the National Toxicology Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has announced it will no longer study the effects of radio frequency radiation, despite the evidence from its own prior studies linking RFs to cancer and DNA damage.

Why the stonewalling? And why are these agencies reluctant to do follow-up studies?

Science-denying Regulatory Agencies

In 2013, the EMF Safety Network published its report on the Biological Effects from RF Radiation at Low-Intensity Exposure and the Implications for Smart Meters and Smart Appliances.

The report determined that current FCC maximum permitted exposure limits provided no protection from the biological effects in the 67 studies it referenced and a RF exposure levels from a single smart meter can cause most of the biological effects included in the studies. The new biologically based RF exposure limits proposed by the Bioinitiative 2012 Report, which would protect against nearly all of these biological effects studied, are 1 milllion times lower than current FCC limits.

The purpose of the Biological Effects Chart is to show the radiofrequency (RF) exposure levels at which biological effects were found in 67 studies from the RF Color Charts of the BioInitiative 2012 Report, and then to compare those exposure levels to the following: (1) current FCC Maximum Permitted Exposure (MPE) limits that govern Smart Meters and Smart Appliances in the United States (2) new biologically based RF exposure limits proposed in the BioInitiative 2012 Report (3) calculated RF exposure levels produced by a single Smart Meter at various distances (4) calculated RF exposure levels produced by a single Smart Appliance at various distances

This comparison indicates the following: (1) The current FCC Maximum Permitted Exposure (MPE) limits are so high that they provide no protection for the public from the biological effects found in any of the 67 studies. (2) New biologically based RF exposure limits proposed in the BioInitiative 2012 Report are 1 million times lower than current FCC limits and would protect against the biological effects found in nearly all of the 67 studies. (3) A single Smart Meter on a home can produce RF exposure levels that caused the biological effects found in either most or many of the 67 studies, depending on the distance from the Smart Meter. (4) A single Smart Appliance in the home can produce RF exposure levels that caused the biological effects found in nearly half or fewer of the 67 studies, depending on the distance from the Smart Appliance. Multiple Smart Appliances in a home multiply the total exposure. (5) A single Smart Meter on a nearest neighbor’s home can produce RF exposure levels that caused the biological effects found in many of the 67 studies. A given home may have one to eight nearest neighbors, each with a Smart Meter, multiplying the total exposure in the given home.

Other observations: (1) Most biological effects of RF exposure cannot be sensed by human beings. Examples are the onset of cancer, DNA damage, and fertility effects. One category of effects that can often be sensed includes neurological effects on sleep, memory, learning, and behavior. (2) Unborn and very young children may be more affected by RF exposure than adults.

NOTHING.

Since 2015, EMFScientist.org has invited scientists from all over the world to sign its international appeal calling for “protection from non-ionizing electromagnetic field exposure.”

https://emfscientist.org/index.php/emf-scientist-appeal

From their letter to UN and WHO authorities:

We are scientists engaged in the study of biological and health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF). Based upon peer-reviewed, published research, we have serious concerns regarding the ubiquitous and increasing exposure to EMF generated by electric and wireless devices. These include–but are not limited to–radiofrequency radiation (RFR) emitting devices, such as cellular and cordless phones and their base stations, Wi-Fi, broadcast antennas, smart meters, and baby monitors as well as electric devices and infra-structures used in the delivery of electricity that generate extremely-low frequency electromagnetic field (ELF EMF).

Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines. Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.  (emphasis mine)

These findings justify our appeal to the United Nations (UN) and, all member States in the world, to encourage the World Health Organization (WHO) to exert strong leadership in fostering the development of more protective EMF guidelines, encouraging precautionary measures, and educating the public about health risks, particularly risk to children and fetal development.  By not taking action, the WHO is failing to fulfill its role as the preeminent international public health agency.

CRICKETS.

Two years later, more than 180 scientists and doctors from 35 countries, made an additional appeal and recommended a moratorium on the roll-out of the 5G "until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from industry.”

ZZZZZ…

The FCC continues to cling to selective science from almost 30 years ago, when most of our current technology was not even available, as the grid expands.

Maintaining Plausible Deniability

While alphabet agencies continue to look the other way, energy companies can defer to their obsolete standards when making assurances like this one from First Energy Corp:

Be assured that the smart meter technology being implemented has been rigorously tested and proven by manufacturers to be accurate, safe and secure in systems throughout the country.

Here are some other messages from utility companies:

PSE&G NJ: Smart meters are safe. They use low power radio frequency (RF) that is generally far less than RF used by devices already in the home such as baby monitors, cell phones, microwaves, TVs and wireless routers. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, there are more than 110 million smart meters already installed at about 70% of homes across the country.

RG&E/NYSEG: Trusted organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the World Health Organization have determined that the small amounts of RF signals intermittently emitted by smart meters do not pose a public health risk.

PSE&G NY: Smart meters transmit data only four times per day with relatively weak radio signals as compared to those emitted by cell phones, baby monitors and laptop computers with wireless Internet connections. Radio waves from a Smart Meter, at a distance of 10 feet, are only about one one-thousandth (.001) as strong as those of a typical cell phone. To match the impact of radio wave exposure from a typical cell phone in one month, it would require more than 1,000 years of exposure to a Smart Meter.

However, in Take Back Your Power (40:20), Dr. David Carpenter explains:

Under court order, Pacific Gas and Electric admitted that their smart meters generate 14,000 spikes of communication per day. Utilities have often held that smart meters are not a problem because they communicate with the utility rather infrequently - maybe a couple of times an hour. It doesn’t matter how frequently they communicate to the utility. What matters is how frequently do they generate radio frequency fields. And clearly the utilities have been hiding the fact that these smart meters generate these radio frequency fields almost continuously. They’re pulses, but they’re very, very frequent.

Documentarian Josh Del Sol elaborates:

So, according to PG&E’s court documentation, the average smart meter is one for 45-60 seconds/day. But they’ve conveniently withheld from us that these 45 or 60 seconds are split up into 10,000 or more pulses, each at a bout 4.5 milliseconds in duration, emitting all the time, every few seconds, 24/7. And some meters are up to 190,000 pulses/day.

Now consider “110 million smart meters already installed at about 70% of homes across the country.” Then add the rest of the toxic soup.

Opt Out and Raise Awareness

Don’t wait to be living proof of the harms of RF radiation.

While we deserve more than opt-outs, they’re a start. Reach out to your utility companies to opt out of smart meters. Most companies will require you to pay an additional $12-15/month if you opt out (and about $45 to remove a smart meter if you already had one installed), but until we can create sufficient change, it’s money well spent.

New Jersey PSE&G customers can opt-out of smart meter installation by calling  908-325-4020 or visiting the website. (PSEG Long Island customers:1-800-490-0025)

As of August 1, 2022, customers with a non-communicating digital meter will have to pay a monthly service fee of $11.53. The fee is calculated at $0.38 per day and will vary based on total days billed per cycle.

First Energy Corp customers can opt out here.

If you decide you don’t want a smart meter after one is installed, there is an $44.46 charge to exchange the smart meter for a digital non-communicating meter, and a $15.00 monthly meter reading fee. Some customers may also choose to have the transmitter in the AMI meter disabled and avoid the meter exchange fee of $44.46, though the monthly meter reading charge of $15.00 still applies. 

Here’s to a future that’s less “smart” and more wise.