Editor: Re: “Windsong residents say ‘no, thanks’ to smart meters,” (The Times, Dec. 13).
Since this story appeared, the WindSong Cohousing community has been contacted by readers who want help in resisting BC Hydro’s so-called smart meters.
People who have sent non-consent letters to BC Hydro and who have posted Do Not Install signage on their old analog meters have received phone calls from Hydro which they describe as bullying and intimidating, including being told their power may be cut off and the RCMP may be called in to convince them to accept a smart meter.
Hydro maintains that everyone in B.C. will have a wireless smart meter by the end of 2012 — whether they’re carcinogenic or not.
Citizens for Safe Technology has learned that smart meter installers arrived on Salt Spring Island recently in unmarked vehicles, and without any BC Hydro uniforms or ID. Some installers gained access to private property under the pretense of doing maintenance or doing calibration for Measurement Canada.
Installers said it is the Canadian government that requires smart meters. (This is the same Canadian government that refuses to acknowledge asbestos as a hazardous substance, even though it’s been denounced by the world health community.)
Analog meters are currently being destroyed by a U.S. firm called Bay Metals on Annacis Island. That’s too bad, because when the dangers of wireless technologies are more widely recognized, we’ll want the analog meters back. And guess who will pay for new ones?
BC Hydro has cunningly framed its smart meter campaign. A device that emits possibly carcinogenic radiation 24/7 is promoted as smart, green and cost-effective.
With such benign promotion, some may wonder what all the fuss is about, especially when we’re already absorbing harmful electromagnetic radiation from cell phones, cell towers and wireless routers.
The difference is that we have some control over those exposures but no control over smart meters. We may occasionally inhale or eat something toxic, but nobody wants an invisible carcinogen as a constant in their air.
This is a wake-up call for anyone who still trusts a corporate marketing campaign. Wireless technologies are the fastest growing industry in the world and our federal and provincial governments have caved in to the lobbyists.
More and more government whistle-blowers are exposing the truth that there is nobody looking after our interests but us.
Anyone wanting to say “no” to smart meters will find information at StopSmartMetersBC.ca and CitizensforSafeTechnology.org
Valerie McIntyre,
Langley
