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Gulf Islands Driftwood – Opinion

Viewpoint – Smart meters are a bad idea

By Contributed Opinion – Gulf Islands Driftwood

Published: May 04, 2011 10:00 AM

By DULCY WILSON

I am very concerned about BC Hydro installing smart meters all over Salt Spring Island.

I think it is a very bad idea for many reasons.

As I see it there is no real benefit for us, the customers.

There is no choice offered. Hydro just plans to install them without our agreement. We can choose to have wifi in our homes or not. We can choose not to have a cell phone.

In this age with so much remote technology available and so little safety research done, we are the guinea pigs.

There is much evidence that smart meters and similar technology have adverse health effects, not just for humans, but for animals and plant life.

Salt Spring has much natural life that should be also considered.

Many of us chose to live here because it is rural and still has much natural habitat.

We all know cell-phone reception is spotty on Salt Spring because we have such lovely trees and mountains.  That is fine with me.

If smart meters are installed, Hydro will have to install many more “receiving towers,” thereby blanketing us with much more electronic smog, more EMR exposure.

And these meters are installed on the homes we live in, exposing us to much more and closer EMR.

Many people are already sensitive to this type of technology and have experienced adverse health effects.

Europe has used similar technology longer than the west and now realizes that it has adverse health effects.

The Paris, France public library system even removed wifi from some of its libraries

The pro smart meter people say there is no problem, that there is no “proof” of any adverse health effects.

The “proof” will only come many years from now. We are the guinea pigs who get to generate the data needed for “proof.”

Think of all the money the smart meter manufacturers will make from every house and business having one installed.

And the power used to run the meters as they send out their EMR signals is paid for by the customer, billed from your meter!

Statistically, all communities who have had smart meters installed experience a raise in their electric bills.

And then there is the non-revealed content of the software inside them. If they are just to read our electrical usage, then why the secret? Our current meters work just fine for that.

There are also the lost local jobs of the meter readers.

And then they say it is to stop the grow ops from stealing electricity. Why should all of us have to suffer because Hydro cannot keep track of usage? It all smacks of Big Brother breathing down our necks.

Apparently the smart meters can tell what kind of appliance we use and when.

Is that possibly for some commercial marketing use? I for one do not like it.

I moved here to get away from pollution of all kinds, including less technology, and to live in relative peace.  Let the mainland have smart meters if they must, but leave Salt Spring Island free from this unsafe technology.