Left Behind

One night last summer, I was walking down the Main Street of a neighboring town when I noticed one of the many lamps along the sidewalk was blinking steadily. Because this was a prominently placed light right in front of a well-respected restaurant, I assumed that this would be spotted and fixed quickly by the town. A week, a month, and then 6 months later, it was still blinking. At that point, I went to the town and asked if it could be fixed. A week later it was back to normal; properly illuminating that section of street once again.

In a different town, after a Selectboard meeting one evening, I noticed a small square panel on the side of the building with a tiny LED light. I certainly wouldn't have noticed it in the daytime. I grabbed my RF meter and discovered this was a microwave antenna pointed across the road to create a communications link with the town garage. It was generating a constantly high RF field in both parking lots and the road, which were highest right next to the handicapped entrance for the town office. I brought this to the attention of the town, but unfortunately, nothing has changed over a year later.

Because I am electrosensitive, blinking (especially fluorescent) lights and high levels of radio frequencies are excruciating to be around. I also understand that both these sources of pulsed EMR have the ability to cause health problems for everyone else as well. So why do these insidious hazards persist in so many public places, even when the issue is raised?

On a recent episode of Vermont Edition, Sarah Lunderville spoke to this:

"We hear it a lot from people with disabilities who need to make that complaint and step up and that's a really difficult position to be in when you're trying to navigate a world that's unaccessible to you, and on top of it, you're the one who has to go out and fight for your rights. That's a very difficult position to be in."

So often, the "solution" is that people who are made ill or bothered by elevated EMR in public areas just avoid those places to avoid any conflict or debate. The obvious result is that those areas are only occupied by people who don't notice or are unconcerned by the radiation, so the problem is rarely fixed. For 97% of the population, sensory fatigue simply sets in, leaving the remaining 3% unable to live a full life or participate in our democracy.

It has been more than twenty years since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, but it's time for a thorough "21st Century" update as a growing subgroup of the population becomes "electrosensitive" to the ever-rising tide of man-made electromagnetic fields.

A Green Mountain Power RF smart meter hidden from sight, a
few feet away from a bandstand, very close to an elementary school.

My last anecdote is a story about a certain smart meter placed in a beautiful park on the very edge (within 50 feet) of Green Mountain Power's service territory. Because this meter generates RF pulses a few times a minute, rendering an area 50 feet around it unsafe by precautionary standards, I called the power company to ask if it could be replaced with a non-transmitting analog meter, even though it was unclear to whom the meter belonged. Vermont State Law "allows a customer to require removal of a previously installed wireless smart meter for any reason and at an agreed-upon time, without incurring any charge for such removal."

I was told by the friendly customer service representative, "[you] would need to talk to the owner of the meter [and they] would need to contact [GMP]... It's a valid point and an interesting one at that; what happens when people do have issues with that kind of thing? I apologize, that's a very interesting point that I have not come across yet... [If you] follow the money... whoever's paying for it, that's who you've got to talk to."

So, if you live in Vermont and have found wireless Smart Meters invading public space you frequent, find out who's paying the bill and ask them to opt-out.

It is 100% free to do so.