Study: CMP's smart-meter emissions well below federal safety level
Feb 04, 2013 (Menafn - Portland Press Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --An independent study of radio-frequency emissions from Central Maine Power Co.'s new smart meters has found maximum power levels that are well below what the Federal Communications Commission considers safe.
The study, reviewed Monday by the Portland Press Herald, concluded that the exposure level averaged over time is 4.6 percent of the FCC limit. The agency regulates equipment that broadcasts radio-frequency signals.
The report was done by True North Associates and C2 Systems and overseen by Maine's Office of Public Advocate.
The results, however, provide little comfort to people who complain that the meters are hurting their health, causing symptoms that include headaches and fatigue. They say the findings were expected, and are meaningless.
"The question is, are there biological effects at levels lower than the FCC guidelines?" said Ed Friedman, the Bowdoinham man who led a court suit last year on behalf of smart-meter opponents. "Our evidence submitted proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt."
Friedman said the testimony he has received from international experts will document health effects from smart meters. That evidence has been submitted to the Maine Public Utilities Commission for an ongoing case meant to resolve health and safety questions about the new meters.
But to CMP, the study confirms the utility's position that smart meters are safe and that opponents actually have a wider target that includes all wireless technology, incudling baby monitors and garage door openers.
"This is not a case about smart meters," said John Carroll, a CMP spokesman. "It's a case about people who think radio waves and radio technology are making them sick."
The study is part of a case that's slowly progressing at the PUC. In 2010, regulators approved plans for CMP to switch out old-style electric meters for its 615,000 customers with digital smart meters.
The commission thought it had addressed health and safety questions at the time, when the issue was first raised. But last summer, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court sided with opponents of the new-technology meters, who argued that regulators ignored their legal mandate to ensure the delivery of "safe, reasonable and adequate" utility service.
Two weeks later, the commissioners voted to investigate the wireless devices.
CMP argued that the scope of the review should be narrow and focused on the legal requirement. But opponents succeeded in pushing for a fully litigated case, which involves reams of written and oral testimony from expert witnesses and aggrieved residents, rebuttals and discovery, hearings and, finally, deliberations.
Those hearings have been set for May, with deliberations later this year.
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