• 12 JAN 11
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    New 1338: Update to Sage Associates statement on smart meters

    NOTE: In the previous post of the Sage Associates statement an incompatibility in transferring the file over to this list resulted in the auto format going berserk. Following is the correct statement. Please delete previous post.

    Don

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    Declaration of Cynthia Sage, Sage Associates
    January 4, 2011

    My name is Cynthia Sage. I am the owner of Sage Associates, an environmental consulting firm. My business address is 1396 Danielson Road, Montecito, California, 93108. I am providing a declaration in support of A.10-04-018.

    I have been a professional environmental consultant since 1972. I hold an M.A. degree in Geology, and a B.A. in Biology (Zoology) from the University of California, Santa Barbara. I am a Senior Fellow, Department of Oncology, School of Health and Medical Sciences, Orebro University, Orebro, Sweden (2008-2011).

    I served as a member of the California Public Utilities Commission EMF Consensus Group (1990-1991), the Keystone Center Dialogue for Transmission Line Siting (a national group developing EMF Policy 1991-1992), and of the International Electric Transmission Perception Project. Between 1977 and 1981, I served as a member of the California Board of Registration for Professional Engineers (Department of Consumer Affairs). I am a full member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society. I am the co-editor of the BioInitiative Report, and a founding member of the BioInitiative Working Group, an international scientific and public health research collaboration. I was a Lecturer in the Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara and a founding member of that program, and developed and taught classes in environmental impact assessment from 1972 “” 1981. My publications are attached.

    My professional involvement in this area includes constraint analysis, environmental planning, and impact assessment on EMF and radiofrequency radiation siting issues for more than 30 years. My company has provided professional consulting services to city and county planners, private developers, state and federal agencies and schools with respect to measurement and assessment of EMF as a part of land planning and environmental constraints analysis since 1972. I have been an expert witness who testifies on EMF computer modeling, impacts on people and property, EMF policy, public perception, visual impairment and land use issues, and have qualified both in state and in federal court proceedings as an expert witness in this area.

    1. Sage Associates has prepared the Assessment of Radiofrequency Microwave Radiation Emissions from Smart Meters to document radiofrequency radiation (RF) levels associated with wireless smart meters in various scenarios depicting common ways in which they are installed and operated.
    2. The Report includes computer modeling of the range of possible smart meter RF levels that are occurring in the typical installation and operation of a single smart meter, and also multiple meters in California.
    3. FCC compliance violations are likely to occur under normal conditions of installation and operation of smart meters and collector meters in California, because the public has access to smart meters installed on their homes.
    4. In addition to exceeding FCC public safety limits under some conditions of installation and operation, smart meters can produce excessively elevated RF exposures, depending on where they are installed. RF levels are predicted to be substantially elevated within a few feet to within a few tens of feet from the meter(s).
    5. RF levels associated with smart meters under some conditions of installation and operation will produce RF power density levels that exceed those reported in some scientific studies to result in adverse health impacts, including headache, sleep disruption, restlessness, tremor, cognitive impairment, tinnitus, increased cancer risk, and cardiac problems at distances less than 500 meters from cell antennas, or at levels over 0.1 microwatts per centimeter squared. 1.2.3.4.5.6
    6. Consumers may also have already increased their exposures to radiofrequency radiation in the home through the voluntary use of wireless devices (cell and cordless phones), PDAs like BlackBerry and iPhones, wireless routers for wireless internet access, wireless home security systems, wireless baby surveillance (baby monitors), and other emerging wireless applications.
    7. People who are afforded special protection under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act are not sufficiently acknowledged nor protected. People who have medical and/or metal implants or other conditions rendering them vulnerable to health risks at lower levels than FCC RF limits may be particularly at risk.
    8. Neither the FCC, the CPUC, the utility nor the consumer know what portion of the allowable public safety limit is already being used up or pre-empted by RF from other sources already present in the particular location a smart meter may be installed and operated.
    9. Consumers, for whatever personal reason, choice or necessity who have already eliminated all possible wireless exposures from their property and lives, may now face excessively high RF exposures in their homes from smart meters on a 24-hour basis. This may force limitations on use of their otherwise occupied space, depending on how the meter is located, building materials in the structure, and how it is furnished.
    10. In summary, no positive assertion of safety can be made by the FCC, nor relied upon by the CPUC, with respect to pulsed RF when exposures are chronic and occur in the general population. 3.5.6 Indiscriminate exposure to environmentally ubiquitous pulsed RF from the rollout of millions of new RF sources (smart meters) will mean far greater general population exposures, and potential health consequences. Uncertainties about the existing RF environment (how much RF exposure already exists), what kind of interior reflective environments exist (reflection factor), how interior space is utilized near walls), and other characteristics of residents (age, medical condition, medical implants, relative health, reliance on critical care equipment that may be subject to electronic interference, etc) and unrestrained access to areas of property where meter is located all argue for caution.

    References

    1. Khurana VG Hardell L Everaert J Bortkiewicz A Carlberg M Ahonen M, 2010. Epidemiological Evidence for a Health Risk from Mobile Phone Base Stations. Int Journal of Occupational Environmental Health 2010;16:263″”267

    2. Kundi M Hutter HP Mobile phone base stations””Effects on wellbeing and health. Pathophysiology 16 (2009) 123″”135

    3. Sage C. Carpenter DO. 2009. Public Health Implications of Wireless Technologies. Pathophysiology 16 (2009) 233″”246

    4. Hardell L Sage C. Biological effect from electromagnetic field exposure and public exposure standards. Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy 2008;62:104-109. doi:10.1016/j.bipha.2007.12.004.

    5. BioInitiative Working Group, Cindy Sage and David O. Carpenter, Editors. BioInitiative Report: A Rationale for a Biologically-based Public Exposure Standard for Electromagnetic Fields (ELF and RF) at www.bioinitiative.org, August 31, 2007.

    6. Carpenter DO Sage CL. 2008. Setting Prudent Public Health Policy for Electromagnetic Field Exposures. Reviews on Environmental Health 23(2) 91-117.

    Under penalty of perjury, I declare that the facts set forth above are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.
    Dated January 4, 2011, at Santa Barbara, California.
    /s/
    Cynthia Sage

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