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The following Op Ed is from Cindy Sage, owner, Sage and Associates, an expert on RF and EMF. Cindy consulted for the city of Mission Viejo, at our citizen request, on excessive EMF emitting from the Edison Viejo System Project running through the northern section of Mission Viejo. Ms Sage issued her project evaluation in her July 26, 2006 report to the city.
OP-Ed by Cindy Sage, Sage Associates.
Montecito Messenger
July 7, 2011
No Straight Answers from SCE on Smart Meter Rollout
Tuesday’s packed Board of Supervisors meeting was a wake-up call to our elected officials and local environmental groups that people are worried about many aspects of the so-called ‘smart’ meters from both SCE and PG&E.
After sales-pitch presentations by both utilities, it is clear that there were few straight answers from either Ken DeVore of SCE, or the PG&E representatives.
Ken Devore is the head of the SCE SmartConnect program in southern California. Devore is SCE’s go-to guy on smart meter questions. He said that smart meter installation will not take place here on the south Coast before 2012. SCE delayed its original date of May-June 2011 in our area.
So, when local residents countered with testimony and photographs of smart meters that have already been installed without their knowledge or permission – some within the last few weeks, DeVore categorically denied they exist. CORIX, SCE’s installation subcontractor denies any knowledge of these mysterious new wireless meters. So there is no confusion, these are operating wirelessly (we measured them). Some carry the FCC Identification TEP-AIRPT622, the SCE brand called FOCUS. Maybe it’s the meter-fairy at work.
Despite DeVore’s assertion that the ‘SCE process’ is to notify residents before installation (door-hangers to alert them to contractors coming onto their properties to replace their electric meters with wireless meters) this clearly has not happened, if you believe our local residents. And, you can be sure that raises the ire of these folks, listening to SCE talk to our Supervisors about how well their public notice and outreach programs will work.
Worse, DeVore said that SCE has no opt-out program in place, and SCE does not intend to institute one. Meanwhile, SCE is installing smart meters on a random basis in Hope Ranch, Sycamore Canyon and Montecito while denying that this is occurring.
SCE recently rebranded its product, calling it an automated electronic device. This sleight of hand (or mouth) distances SCE’s rollout from the horrendous publicity PG&E generated from the botched public relations campaign during its smart meter rollout. A name change isn’t going to do it.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck….you know the saying. A rose by any other name, or … a wireless meter is still a wireless meter. SCE can dance around that but no one is fooled.
The CPUC has told PG&E to come up with an opt-out plan. They have, but it costs plenty. Why should residents have to pay to get out of a program they never wanted, couldn’t prevent, and now are being told to pay the high initial fees, then monthly fees, and then exit fees. It is a failed corporate plan, but the CPUC may stick consumers with all the costs. Double financial jeopardy? Pay for it, then pay to dismantle it?
If the CPUC ever gets around to mandating an opt-out plan for SCE, how many new meters will be installed by then? Right now, you have no recourse but to put up a couple of signs saying “No Smart Meters” and put Granny on the porch.
Serious questions exist about the apparent conflict of interest between SCE and the CPUC, which ostensibly regulates investor-owned electric utilities in California. The president of the CPUC is Michael Peevey. From 1995 until 2000, Mr. Peevey was President of NewEnergy Inc. Prior to that, Mr. Peevey was President of Edison International and Southern California Edison Company, and a senior executive there beginning in 1984. How can anyone believe that Peevey is able put the interests of consumers in California above those of SCE or any other electric utility?
Peevey should be replaced or retired. His baggage is too heavy, his reputation too tied to SCE, and he exerts a chilling effect over the Department of Ratepayer Advocates. That is a watchdog group housed under the CPUC. Insiders at DRA say that with Peevey’s presence and attitudes, little support can be mustered for a fair opt-out plan or a moratorium on future meters.
Cindy Sage, MA, is the owner of Sage Associates, an environmental consulting firm in Montecito, CA. She is an expert on electromagnetic fields and radiofrequency radiation health and policy issues. She is the co-editor of the BioInitiative Report and author of Tragedy of the Commons Revisited: Wireless World in Reviews on Environmental Health.
*Since we already have “digital remote sensing meters” right here in our town of NB….
well, you can’t blame SCE for trying to get “the folks” to pay for the new meters and
then fire all the meter readers and profit the difference. Good business….we suppose.
PG & E…..did “screw the pooch” in SD and continue to pay for it.
No biggie….whadya’ goin do…..hold up the wheels of progress?
MUST-SEE 4-minute youtube video on Smart meters:
put up your own solar panels and disconnect yourself from the grid.
cook. Several friends have done that in our city including some of my neighbors.
Don’t tell Stanley but installation of solar panels on our homes was OKd by our HOA Board.
In response to the video, we did send a certified letter to Edison on August 29th, 2011 prohibiting installation of the Smart Meter. A company called Corix Group is the company Edison contracted to install the Smart Meters. On 2/21/12, a Corix representative literally broke into our back yard and installed the meter. I know this because I was home when my power cut off. Headed out to the meter to see if a circuit popped. My german shepherd ran out ahead of me with her fur raised and barking. I heard a guy holler woa, woa!! As I made it around the corner to confront him, I demanded to know what he was doing in my yard. He said he just upgraded my meter. I told him Edison was sent notice that they were not authorized to do so and demanded that he remove it. He refused and left me a card with a number to call and would only give me his first name.
I contacted Corix, Edison, and the CPUC. I have filed a complaint with the CPUC demanding that the meter be removed, but I doubt seriously that anything will be done. Edison flat-out told me that my certified letter didn’t count because they didn’t actually start keeping an “opt out” list until September 2011 and I sent my letter in August before they had the list.
We have video surveillance on our home and we have the Corix employee on video illegally accessing our property. No notice was ever given to us to indicate that they were planning on installing the meter.
Not sure what else to do at this point to get this removed.
Larry, down here in San Juan Capistrano, we’ve all be “under surveillance” for about a year now. SDG&E replaced all the meters in this community without much in the way of fuss. We’re all now bathed in 900 MHz telemetry flowing from these devices.
The arguments being made by those opposed to smart meters seem to take two forms, 1.) they are an intrusion on privacy, or 2.) the radio transmission is dangerous. Both arguments interesting, but dubious.
The privacy argument rests on the premise that somebody will be able to remotely determine what you are doing inside your house based on the near real-time information flowing from these meters. Well, the meters sense power consumption. They cannot determine what is consuming the power — or who. The load imposed by an air conditioner, a hair dryer, electric oven, a computer server and a marijuana crop all look the same to the meter. They are indistinguishable. In a house full of automatic electrical appliances, the information generated by a smart meter looks like noise, except for the key figure of overall consumption, which is used to print your bill. Time-of-day and day-of-use consumption figures are made feasible by these devices, but use of these numbers to calculate your bill are controlled by the PUC.
As for for the dangers associated with the radio, this argument is simply designed to scare people. Radio signals have two characteristics: 1.) frequency and 2.) power. These meters operate at the same frequency as most cell phones and their power output is similar. However, the meter is on the outside of your home (not next to your head, held in your hand). In fact, many things we use everyday (wireless key for car, bluetooth headset, phone, WiFi, microwave oven, wireless security system, etc.), that are considered benign, actually expose us to more powerful radio fields simply because they are so near to our bodies. Unless your electric meter happens to be in your bedroom, it is at least as safe as all these other things we use everyday.
More to the point, there are people who believe that Electro-Magnetic Fields (EMF) from utility power can be dangerous. There is some truth to this, but this EMF originates with the electricity itself. Smart or dumb, your electric meter has no influence over EMF. There is plenty of literature to support that idea that long-term exposure to EMF is harmful. But in a residence, the closest thing that resembles a long-term industrial exposure could be an electric blanket. After that, our houses and appliances are designed to physically separate users from dangerous electrical currents and fields.
My only concern regarding smart meters is the loss of human presence in our neighborhoods. Meter readers, postal workers, UPS, Gas Co, etc. These people are the watchful eyes in our neighborhoods. They report fires, crime, lost children, dangerous dogs, etc. The introduction of the smart meter probably saves the utility money, though I doubt this savings is being passed along to customers. Instead, the PUC will allocate the saving to some social engineering project that really serves no purpose. And in the meantime, somebody will break into my house mid-day because there is nobody around the place.
jr How are you? We are aware that these meters are in your neighborhood. The debate on safety has been growing over the past decade led by activists in Europe. Notice that after fighting to deny possible cancer health risks associated with cell phones we are now told not to directly place them against our face and ears. We have heard that young children are the most vulnearle to leakage.
Southern California Edison is/are notorious for deceiving the rate payers !!!!
*Hmmmm…don’t use your cell phone, ipad …..don’t use your wi-fi internet connections…don’t use your electronic iginition and black box on your new car….don’t touch that remote…..don’t stand next to that wireless tower for hours either. Reality bites folks……Jamie Lee Curtis could make a huge comebacki in an electronic version of Friday the 13th! ” Jason…..is that you?” “Don’t look in your closet…their could be electronic devices waiting to capture synops in your brain. They had a movie like that in the 50’s called the “Brain Eaters”! Of course we like the “The Blob” with Steve McQueen and that very cool light purple ’40 Ford Coupe…better. “The Attack of the 50 foot Woman” was good, but not a cool as the “Incredible Shrinking Man”. But then again….that’s just our Opinion. “Mothra” and “Them” were pretty good too!
I have a question. Our smart meter went in about 3 months ago. Since then we have
changed batteries in all of our smoke detectors. This week end we have had 2 go off again. They do not stop even with new batteries now. Could this have anything to do with the smart metter????
The California Public Utilities Commission’s mission statement is to defend, protect and “better the lives of all Californians through … policies and regulation.”
The California State Constitution also states Article 1 Declaration of Rights § 1. “ All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.”
The California Public Utilities Code § 328.2 states “The Legislature finds and declares both of the following: (a) In order to ensure that all core customers of a gas
corporation continue to receive safe basic gas service in a competitive market, each existing gas corporation should continue to provide this essential service. (b) No customer should have to pay separate fees for utilizing services that protect public or customer safety.”
According to the above CPUC code customers should NOT have to pay any $$ to opt out of unconstitutional, Big Brother Smart Meters.
If these public servants do not put the safety, health & welfare of the public at first place and do not abide by their constitutional, ethical and lawful duty to protect & defend the public from harm then these entities must be brought to swift Justice.
Folks, here’s what coming: Since SCE can read my meter whenever they feel like it, eventually they will come up with new expensive “pricing tiers” to charge you more. With the old meters they simply cannot do this. So if the new peak tier is from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, for example, when most come home from work and start cranking up the usage, you pay $X more. Just watch…
“Please strip down and proceed directly to the nice friendly shower rooms. Oh and don’t worry, you have been misinformed. No those showers are not gas chambers. It is simply a matter of policy that you must be clean. This way to the showers. Work Makes Free”
As of September 24th., 2010 the weight of evidence of harm from EMFs – which had been “missing” for many decades – was provided to Health Canada by Curtis Bennett. As of that moment they were obliged to act and to notify the WHO. In failing to do so, they are about to be hooped, legally.
AS a result of Curtis Bennett, the harm from EMFs is now a matter of irrefutable record of INDISPUTABLE proof of harm.
These frequencies are dangerously INCOMPATIBLE with HUMAN and all BIOLOGICAL creatures.
Artificial man made frequencies enabled by smart meters, collector meters, aggregators, and every single component of the “outsmarting griddle” are funded by the taxpayers.
This means we are facing mandatory harm while paying to off ourselves in stages.
The grid will harm billions and kill fast, slower and slowest, those subjected to electrical induction from frequencies which induces in even those who do not “feel” this invisible harm a gradual electrical failure of the body called frequency or microwave disease.
These frequencies cause unavoidable conflict with our own, known as frequency conflict, very harmful when they interact with the dynamic subtle human electrical “grid” as well of that of all creatures which can no longer “hear” the natural magnetic lines of flux of the planet on which we all depend to survive.
The result of frequency conflict is called the thermal heating effect. The frequencies do to you what they do to your dinner in a microwave oven, just slower.
There is an extremely detrimental effect on human biological tissue via excitation from atoms and molecules. This in turn leads to nerve and muscle depolarization (similar to induced Parkinsons, MS, fibromyalgia, cognitive impairment, all of it now proven)
These are frequencies in the 900 MGZ range which penetrate particularly deeply and were chosen precisely because they travel long distances, go through all obstructions, least of all walls. They most certainly do not stop at skin.
These are frequencies which break FEDERAL law.
In Canada that law is Health Canada’s EMF Safety Code Six. However, the equivalent to that law exists in every so called democratic country.
We are talking here about total absence of due diligence and a case of criminal negligence at all levels of government.
FACT: These and a countless number of other remotely added frequencies which are and can be enabled by smart meters have been proven indisputably to cause electrical induction, thermal heat effect, nerve and muscle depolarization, and gradual electrical failure for all biological entities, and outcome for everything natural from navigational biological creatures such as pollinators to human beings. To slow cook from the core out is the inescapable outcome.
The law is on our side to stop those willing to conduct this vile, ruthless experiment on a global scale.
Once ES or EHS has been induced there is NO GOING BACK. The rest of your life is going to be about prudent avoidance of such ILLEGAL frequencies
And exactly how are you going to prudently avoid a cybersmog drift net planned for every inch of the earth?
This scheme will nuke your child’s ovaries, alter DNA, and ultimately kill off all biological creatures even faster than humans are culled, which means all pollinators.
This outcome will destroy all food except for Frankenfood, the non food called GMO.
Defend you family.
Remember this: It is not difficult to defeat electronics.
PLEASE Wrap your frequency device meter in layers of heavy duty foil and carbon sheets and shield the entire interior of the meter wall with foil. then shut off all but essential circuits at the circuit box and only use when needed, since these frequencies co-opt the wiring in your house and use everything inside it for an antenna and at the same time they co-opt your body and use it for a conductor. This is proven. There is NO tolerable limit for electrical induction which is 100% against the law.
Your government has gone rogue.
Fight back now before it is too late.
Research German scientist Wilhelm Reich. Learn how to convert deadly energy from cell towers,smart meters, nuke plants etc. After he fled the Nazis in Germany he was killed by the nazis here,(FDA) for his work. His books were burned folks.If that doesn’t spark your interest….Create simple orgone devices by layering carbon based(organic) and non-carbon based.(inorganic) ..Orgonite! Place around smart meters and create life energy from the microwaves. Don’t forget to gift the cell towers in your area while your at it! Bees and birds will give you clear signals of it’s effectiveness. Or if you are sensitive you’ll feel the change,How cool is it to turn death energy devices into life force generators!
Good old crazy Wilhelm Reich, and The Mass Psychology of Fascism!