No To Smart Meters

Why so many are saying no to smart meters?

Smart meters are about gathering and recording detailed, personal information about you and your habits, and selling it to whoever pays the price, such as insurance companies .

B.C. Hydro plans to install 1.8 million smart meters by December 2012!

”A complaint has been filed under Section 47 of the Utilities Commission Act requesting an injunctive freeze on the wireless component of the Smart Meter Program without delay.” Read more here.

Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan calls B.C. Hydro smart meters “waste of money; the City of North Vancouver is calling on the provincial government to halt plans to install Smart Meters or bring the program under the oversight of the B.C. Utilities Commission (Dec 2nd, 2o11).

Still, BC Hydro insists that the program will continue, and the smart meters are ‘safe’ and ‘green’. Your best chance at this point is - if you are lucky enough to still have your analog meter – to prevent the smart meter installation on your property. Unfortunately, a simple sign “no smart meter ” will not do the trick. In some cases, Corix installed smart meters, ignoring the signs. The installation does not take a long time, and you will not be informed. Due to the growing concern and public resistance, new techniques such as late hours installation are often used. Click here to order custom-made enclosures (single or double) to help prevent smart meter installation or, if you are handy, check the list with necessary materials lower on this page. If you live in British Columbia, Canada, check this site: http://www.stopsmartmetersbc.ca/. You will find valuable information, including update regarding the legal action against smart meter installation in the area, or how to recognize a smart meter.

Also, if you wish to sign the official petition against the smart meters, check the following link: ww.stopsmartmeters.ca. Having smart meters on the walls of your home can lead to a number of illnesses, like immune system damage, neurological disorders and cancer.Dr. Hallberg, one of the leading researchers on the topic of EMR/EMF has done modeling which shows that if usage continues as it is today, a major pandemic of brain tumors will be seen in 15 years.

Solution:

A great way to say no to smart meter installation is to build an enclosure with locks, metal bars or boxes that will prevent Corix to access and remove your existing analog meter. My advice is to build a sturdy enclosure . Something fragile, such as a regular lock, that is easy to cut or remove is not enough. It is very important to keep the meter visible for reading.

I am a General Contractor in Vancouver BC; recently I built an enclosure to cover my own analog meters. It was a bit tricky, considering the bunch of wires under the siding, and the telephone boxes on the right side of the meters, not leaving enough space for an easy installation. I have to mention that you must be very careful not to damage the wires when you attach the enclosure to the wall. If you are not sure that it is safe, do not do it yourself, to avoid personal and property damages.

Below is a list with materials necessary to create a box similar to the one I just built (see the picture gallery . If you can’t, or don’t have time to build your own enclosure, you can contact me via the order link mentioned above.

2″x4″ spruce studs
body: 24″x 18″ for a double box (covering 2 meters ) or 24″ x 12″ for one meter box, 3/4″ plywood
3″ strong screws #10
bolts and nuts
2 strong hinges
3 sturdy locks with case-hardened steel shackle
3 rotating post hasps
4 steel brackets

Click here for picture gallery

Tips: bend the screws so it will be impossible to remove them. It is imperative to make sure that the enclosure cannot be opened or removed without damaging the wall.

Recent Posts

“Smart Meters: an Uncontrolled Experiment on Public Health”

VANCOUVER COURIER DECEMBER 9, 2011 2:22 AM This week, The City of North Vancouver called on the provincial government to halt plans to install smart meters or allow the program's inspection by the B.C. Utilities Commission. In California, 43 cities, towns or counties have publicly opposed the devices, with 11 jurisdictions banning them outright. Are civic leaders bowing to pressure from paranoid Luddites, or are they wising up to a multibillion-dollar boondoggle that's outfitting homes with fry-and-spy devices? Or is the answer huddling somewhere in between the contending claims? The public debate about electromagnetic emissions has never moved me that much, for one simple reason: the inverse square law. Move a few feet away from a power source and the emission strength drops off greatly. It comes down to cumulative exposure over time. There might be problem in the making if you hold a cellphone a few inches from your brain for hours every day-or there might not be. It all depends on which expert you ask. Both cell phones and smart meters employ radio frequency electromagnetic radiation, and there is no scientific consensus on the health effects of radio frequency (RF) fields. At Olson manor, our old analogue meter is positioned on the wall outside my wife's office, just inches away from her desk. It is also only a few feet away from our sleeping heads in the main bedroom downstairs. B.C. Hydro insists on replacing it with a smart meter, and the inverse square law has come back to haunt me: emission strength scales up exponentially as you move closer to a radiation source. B.C. Hydro claims that exposure to radio frequency during a 20-year lifespan of a smart meter is equivalent to the exposure from a single 30-minute cellphone call. Not so, according to social scientist Daniel Hirsch, a senior lecturer on nuclear policy at the University of Santa Cruz. At a 10-foot distance, the whole body exposure to radio frequency from a smart meter may be up to 80 times higher than the whole body radio frequency exposure from a cellphone. In an interview on the news site indybay.org, Hirsch was asked what health risks these devices present to the public. "We don't know," he replied. "At the moment it's uncertain what the health effect is from RF radiation. It could turn out to be significant. It could turn out to be insignificant. It's a large experiment on a very large population and a big chunk of that experiment is involuntary."

Did you tell B.C. Hydro to go to hell when it tried to install a smart meter?

The Georgia Straight is interested in YOUR answers to the above questions. Please email us at contact@straight.com and let us know.
Have you told B.C. Hydro—either by phone, letter, email, outdoors sign, or verbally to an installation technician—that you do not want to have a “smart meter” installed at your residence?

Did you state the reasons for your wishes, whether they be related to health, safety, or privacy concerns?

Have you received a reply from B.C. Hydro? Did Hydro threaten to cut off your power if you refused to have a smart meter installed? Did Hydro threaten legal action of any kind?

Was a smart meter installed despite your stated preferences?
(http://www.straight.com/node/562236) _ Leave your comment.