IMMEDIATE RELEASE (July 04, 2011)
“Privacy, Security and Health”
Objections to BC Hydro’s “Smartmetering and Infrastructure” Program
Prompts Action by Islands Trust Council
The Gulf Islands Trust Council – representing all Island residents – has unanimously endorsed the call from constituents for BC Hydro to delay forcing wireless smart meters on the public and to engage in consultations with Trust Area residents regarding smart metering.
Following a delegation presentation on June 15th from the anti-“smartmetering” group, Gulf Islanders for Safe Technology, at the quarterly Council meeting on Denman Island, the Islands Trust Council has recommended to BC Hydro President & CEO, David Cobb and to the BC Liberal government:
“… delaying the installation of Smart Meters until the public concerns about privacy, security and health issues can be resolved.” The Council’s position statement recommends that “If wireless meters are creating concerns about health and privacy, then wired transmission is an alternative to consider.”
“The Council’s position and action here, in calling for a delay in implementing this dangerous wireless technology is constructive and supportive of a growing belief that BC Hydro’s current plan makes no sense at all,” says Chris Anderson, spokesman for the Gulf Islanders for Safe Technology citizen group. “This ‘smart’ plan is ‘smart’ only for BC Hydro. The only benefits are to this corporation while citizens stand to lose from higher electricity bills, huge provincial debt, and vast increases of electromagnetic pollution which the World Health Organization has just classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans,” says Anderson.
The Municipality of Colwood and Lake Cowichan District have also written to the Premier, BC Minister of Energy & Mines, and BC Minister of Health in response to their constituents’ concerns about privacy, security, safety, and health. Presentations by B.C. citizens to other municipalities and districts are being planned.
Contact: Chris Anderson (250-537-5102)
[email protected]
Gulf Islanders for Safe Technology www.gifst.ca
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Town council backs anti-Smart Meter stance
by Tyler clarke – July 04, 2011
BC Hydro did not do an adequate job of educating the public as to the Smart Meters they are currently installing.
That is the message mayor and council had to share, following an impassioned anti-Smart Meter presentation by Mesachie Lake resident Mary Lowther.
“I’m a little concerned that BC Hydro is dumping this on us without educating us,” mayor Ross Forrest said.
“I think they should have started this off by sitting down with each municipality,” councillor Tim McGonigle said, in agreement. “I think it’s prudent to investigate all angles, both good and bad.”
During her presentation, Lowther outlined several concerns around Smart Meters, including the potential for increased monthly billing; security, in that the Smart Meters can be hacked into; and radio frequencies, which she said BC Hydro may be understating the significance of.
“Even if the radiation level was small, it would still be detrimental to our health,” she said. “Which straw will break the camel’s back?”
Councillor Bob Day then inquired about the town’s water meters, and whether or not the radiation from them is significant enough to raise alarms. Mayor Ross Forrest responded by stating that they send signals only once every six months, and shouldn’t be of concern, compared to the much more frequently-emitting Smart Meters.
Council hopes to meet with BC Hydro representatives to further discuss the Smart Meters.
So far, in addition to the Town of Lake Cowichan, Lowther has gained the support of the Cowichan Valley Regional District Cowichan Lake South/Skutz Falls Advisory Planning Commission. She plans on visiting the Cowichan Valley Regional District’s Tuesday, July 5, Electoral Area Services committee meeting to garner their support.
www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/lakecowichangazette/news/124979674.html
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Trust Council backs anti-smart meter campaign
By Elizabeth Nolan – Gulf Islands Driftwood
Published: July 06, 2011 10:00 AM
Opponents of BC Hydro’s smart meter program have received support from Islands Trust Council.
Gulf Islanders For Safe Technology chair Chris Anderson made a delegation to the Trust’s quarterly meeting on Denman Island in mid-June. His group has pointed to problems with the plan to install smart meters across the province, including unknown health risks posed by electromagnetic radiation, the risk of information hacking and increased costs.
Anderson’s presentation clearly made an impact on the Islands Trust Council, whose members unanimously passed a resolution to let BC Hydro know about concerns in the Trust area.
A June 30 letter from the council to BC Hydro CEO David Cobb asks the utility to delay implementing the program until public concerns about safety and security are resolved.
“You may find it of interest that in 2008, the Salt Spring Island Official Community Plan included an advocacy statement encouraging BC Hydro to implement smart meters, net-metering and off-peak metering,” writes chair Sheila Malcomson. “That endorsement was intended to promote energy conservation and did not refer to particular transmission technology. If wireless meters are creating concerns about health and privacy, then wired transmission is an alternative to consider.”
While smart meter programs are rolling out in districts across the United States, citizens groups in several areas have made inroads opposing local programs. On May 25, Maine customers won the right in court to opt out of the program. According to Anderson, however, opting out is not really effective for individual homes because radiation will be emitted from neighbouring houses and the network of transmitters.
GIFST will hold an information rally at the gazebo in Centennial Park this Saturday, July 9 beginning at 10:30 a.m. Speakers include Una St.Clair-Moniz, chair of Citizens for Safe Technology, Sharon Noble of CAUSE (Citizens Against Unsafe Emissions), Walt McGinnis from the Electromagnetic Radiation Health Alliance of B.C. and local trustee George Ehring.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/saltspringislanddriftwood/news/125052069.html
#1 by Mia Nony on July 10, 2011 - 11:51 am
“SMART”
stands for
“SURVEILLANCE MONITORED ARTIFICIAL RADIATION TRANSMISSION”.
Islands Trust and Smart Meters:
The Trust is on record as saying:
“Salt Spring Island Official Community Plan included an advocacy statement encouraging BC Hydro to implement smart meters, net-metering and off-peak metering. That endorsement was intended to promote energy conservation and did not refer to particular transmission technology.”
SAY WHAT?
AND THEN THE KISS OFF:
“I encourage you to continue to communicate your concerns to the Provincial government, since it regulates both BC Hydro and public health, which are issues outside local government jurisdiction.”
Since when is it anything but a case of transparent political expediency for the Trust Corporation to sign off after the fact on having aggressively endorsed all of this well before the fact, cheering it on in advance right up until the day before the “official” local deployment of the so called Smart Grid throughout the Trust area and everywhere else?
Since when can the Trust get away with claiming ignorance after the fact and set about to surmise that they get to simply wash their hands of that same Trust endorsement of an electrosmog inducing ubiquitous microwave radiation transmission system?
The Trust has been the cheerleader of exactly what we all now face.
The Trust revised the Saltspring OCP to encourage this same mesh radiation network, a system which has already been proven to destroy the magnetite in the brains of all airborne creatures and with it destroys their sense of direction until they die off.
Since when are those living in the Trust area so naive as to allow the Trust Corporation to glibly reframe this issue post mortem and write it off as a “health” issue beyond their own jurisdiction?
This is not ONLY a “health” issue for humans, this is a health issue for the entire environment, and the environment should be, at least hypothetically, the concern of the Trust Corporation.
Give us a break.
We really are not interested at this stage in listening to one more self serving power focused Corporation tell us all that they “only mean well” even while they do proven harm.
Electrosmog science has been available to the pubic and to the Trust Corporation for many years. Did the Trust even once do the necessary homework or stand up with us and against this proposed lethal mesh net to be dropped down over and to entrap all nature, not just humans?
No, in fact they did exactly the opposite.
As for the Islands Trust Corporation’s JUne 30th, 2011 letter?
TO ALL OF THE TRUST “RECOVERING AND REFORMED” RADIATION CHEERLEADERS:
YOU ARE NOT OFF THE HOOK SO EASILY.
The Trust, not us, endorsed this not SMART scheme officially. And now they want to take that back? It is not that easy. The Trust not only endorsed it but colluded with all of this green wash nonsense for years in advance.
Now they try to weasel out of that culpability for corporate collusion at the eleventh hour?
Sorry but it would seem that the Trust Corporation’s attempt at PR and damage control differs very little from that of B.C. Hydro Corporation’s own version.
Now that a grass roots revolt is well underway, only now is each one of these Corporations scrambling to woo us retroactively with PR spin.
However, the radiation spider’s web is already built and paid for by all of us by the same mechanism, first involuntary corporate usurpation of our taxes- and then involuntary corporate usurpation of our environment.
In each case, as with Fukushima power plants, the people have either been ignored or outright gagged by law and have had their voice silenced, no say in being entrapped in the radiation net.
The Trust is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Too little, too late, way too token and so self serving.
There is no “next time” for them to get it right.
All of nature is facing untold damage
One expects little else from B.C. Hydro.
However. the Trust had to get it right before all of this was put in motion. Instead they Islands Trust was an advocate for every bit of it.
Why should anyone be fool enough to trust the Trust when it has utterly failed its mandate, the Trust area residents and has betrayed nature, right from the get go?
Where was the Trust Corporation when the Trust area most needed to be Preserved and Protected from “optional” radiation exposure?
It may be oxymoronic to add that perhaps the Islands Trust should have done the necessary research beforehand instead of endorsing the green wash smart grid from the get go, and especially before proactively endorsing as policy the smart grid’s implementation in an island OCP. Too late now.
The Islands Trust is not unique at all in being a slow and cumbersome bureaucratic dinosaur which specializes in cover up, reaction and abstraction.
The Islands Trust sent this letter below out exactly one day before the official deployment of the biggest and least well understood technological roll out in history.
We Don’t Trust The Trust.
SO CALLED SMART SURREPTITIOUS SPIN IS NOT SMART, IT’S SHORT SIGHTED AND STUPID
June 30, 2011 File Number: GF/T-1-2011
Via e-mail: [email protected]
Chris Anderson
Gulf Islanders for Safe Technology
Dear Mr. Anderson:
Re: June 2011 Islands Trust Council Delegation
Thank you for your informative presentation to the Islands Trust Council on Denman Island.
Your presentation and your work with Gulf Islanders for Safe Technology resulted in Trust Council unanimously passing a resolution to convey to BC Hydro concerns received from Trust Area residents regarding the Smart Metering Program; and to encourage BC Hydro to engage in consultations with Trust Area residents regarding smart metering.
You may find it of interest that in 2008, the Salt Spring Island Official Community Plan included an advocacy statement encouraging BC Hydro to implement smart meters, net-metering and off-peak metering. That endorsement was intended to promote energy conservation and did not
refer to particular transmission technology. If wireless meters are creating concerns about health and privacy, then wired transmission is an alternative to consider.
I encourage you to continue to communicate your concerns to the Provincial government, since it regulates both BC Hydro and public health, which are issues outside local government jurisdiction.
Thank you again for travelling to Denman Island to present to Islands Trust Council, and best wishes
on your campaign.
Yours sincerely,
Sheila Malcolmson
Chair, Islands Trust Council
Attach: letter to BC Hydro
pc: Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee
MLA Murray Coell, Saanich North and the Islands