Page 6 - May 2017 Edition

apS puSHeS Smart meterS + rate IncreaSe —
6 • MAY 2017 | the NOISE arts & news | www.thenoise.us
Since 2011, Arizona Public Service Corporation (APS) — the largest electricity provider in the state — has been aggressively installing digital smart meters for both commercial and residential customers. In 2013, the City of Sedona sent a letter to APS stating its support for resi- dents who wished to refuse smart meter installation and keep their analog meters without having to pay extra fees to the utility.
The city then became an intervener in the formal rate case APS now has before the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC). While the amount of the fees APS is requesting has been reduced, the utility still insists that smart meters pose no risks, and that those who refuse them be required to ac- cept a non-transmitting form of digital meter and pay ad- ditional fees for opting out.
Those who have been working to stop the widespread installation of smart meters cite health, safety, security, and accuracy issues that utility companies continue to deny.
So just what is a smart meter and why all the fuss? A smart meter provides two-way communication between your home and your utility company, which allows the meter to be read and programmed remotely. These meters utilize radio frequency (RFs) microwaves that produce electromag- netic fields (EMFs) to wirelessly transmit information. The use of these wireless meters may also require the placement of signal boosters and data hubs (equipment for collecting data from multiple meters) that will increase the EMF emis- sions throughout neighborhoods.
HealtH ISSueS
Health concerns about smart meters center on these EMF emissions. Utility companies have maintained that smart meters emit far less radiation than the average cell phone and that they only transmit data a few times a day. How- ever, utility companies’ claims that the meters transmit for less than 60 seconds per day can be deceiving, say smart meter opponents.
In 2011, California utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) stated their smart meters only broadcast a ratepayer’s usage six times per day. The utility later filed a document stating that the meters they installed pulsed between 10,000 and 190,000 times per day on average.
But when tested with an RF measuring device, smart me- ters show high RF pulses happen every few seconds. Many of these pulses have nothing to do with the home to which the meter is connected. But instead are the result of “net- work chatter” and system redundancies that keep meters communicating as they share user data amongst them for backup purposes.
The pulses emitted by the meter last for just a few mil- liseconds each but cumulatively could mean that the me- ter is transmitting most of the day. StopSmartMeters.org offered the following calculation: “If they claim the meter only emits ‘60 seconds a day’, then you can calculate the ap- proximate number of pulses. Sixty seconds of 3-millisecond pulses (typical) equals about 20,000 pulses. There are about 85,000 seconds in a day. If the rate of pulsing were con- sistent (though it never is) that would be about one pulse every 4 seconds.”
The safety of RF exposure is something that is hotly de- bated amongst scientists, consumer advocates, wireless equipment manufacturers, and utility companies. In May 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a World Health Organization (WHO) specialty agency, declared RFs to be a “possible human carcinogen.” While APS has maintained that WHO “has concluded that no known adverse health effects can be attributed to low- level radio frequency,” the health organization also noted more research is needed to accurately assess the health risks involved.
Dr. David Carpenter, a Harvard-trained physician and former head of the New York State Department of Public Health for 18 years said: “We have evidence that exposure to