By GEOFF DALE
It's been a long time coming but the recent decision by the Ontario Energy Board to deal with the contentious issue of stray voltage on farms is welcome news for former dairy producer Lee Montgomery.
"This all started for me more than 36 years ago when I first noticed problems with the animals," he says. "Patience has been my best ally. I had to get rid of my cows because of the stray voltage – it put me right of business."
Montgomery, who now grows beans, wheat, hay and corn, began experiencing problems with his animals in the 70s including skittish behaviour, poor eating habits, lower conception rate and a higher mortality rate in calving.
On Dec. 12, 1980, he took part in a roundtable discussion at his kitchen table and the next morning he learned he had stray voltage in his barn.
When veterinarians, engineers, water testers and farm equipment dealers were unable to determine the root cause, he came to the conclusion, by a process of elimination that stray voltage from Hydro installations was responsible.
This month's amendments – resulting from the OEB's nearly two-year-long stray voltage consultation – include:
• Distributors must investigate farm stray voltage complaints using qualified people.
• When a system is found to contribute to stray voltage on a farm in excess of a specified threshold, the distributor must work to reduce the voltage to acceptable levels.
• Distributors serving livestock customers must make available a farm stray voltage customer response procedure that sets out the process to respond to customer complaints and inquiries.
Explaining the phrase "in excess of a specified threshold," OEB spokesperson Paul Crawford says an investigation will be triggered when more than two milli-amps or one volt of voltage is detected.
"If the distributor is found to be contributing more than one milli-amp or half a volt to that amount, then the distributor has to take steps to investigate or mediate the problem."
Barry Fraser, former Ontario government agricultural representative for Kent County, who took part in the process as a private citizen, says one of the most important points is that the acceptable level of voltage on the farm to start an investigation has dropped from to 0.5 volts from 10 volts.
"This ensures electricity to farm customers is of a quality that will not unduly impact the health and safety of livestock operations," he adds. "I'm very pleased the amendments will be in operation by mid-September."
Montgomery, who was involved in the consultation process from day one, adds while there were "a few more things" he would have liked to have seen resolved, he is very happy with the results and is expecting calls from other farmers on the issue.
"I've had phone calls from away as British Columbia," he adds. "This is all about people being the bottom line." BF
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Stray voltage law to take effect in September
Posted By BOB BOUGHNER, THE DAILY NEWS
It's another victory for 73-year-old Dover farmer Lee Montgomery.
But the celebration is bittersweet.
The former dairy farmer is pleased the province has finally recognized ground current pollution. New legislation will take effect in mid-September that will contribute to the health and safety of livestock and human beings.
"I'm very happy,'' said Montgomery, who claims stray voltage ruined his life and took the life of his wife, Donna.
Montgomery has spent the past 30 years trying to make the government aware of the seriousness of the problem.
His first breakthrough came in 2006 with a private member's bill by Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Marie Van Bommel.
The bill received all-party support at second reading.
That was the first time he was able to celebrate victory.
Last week the Ontario Energy Board announced amendments to the distribution system code in relation to farm stray voltage.
Montgomery said it ensures that electricity to farm customers is of a quality that does not unduly impact the health and safety of a livestock operation.
He said the Ontario Electrical Authority has been named as the third party mediator in case there is a dispute case over mitigation.
Montgomery claims his farm was affected by stray voltage from an Ontario Hydro substation on Highway 40, south of North Maple Mall.
He said the day the substation was shut down his electrical problems ceased.
Montgomery credited Barry Fraser, a consultant and former Kent agricultural representative, as well as Van Bommel, for helping win the battle.
Fraser said the new amendments lower the threshold level for mitigation from 10 V to 0.5 V-a factor of 20.
"This is the lowest of any jurisdiction in Canada and probably North America,'' he said.
Fraser said the ruling "vindicates'' Montgomery, who was chastised at the time as a trouble maker.
Montgomery said his problems began in the early 1970s.
"It cost me the life of my wife, the loss of my dairy herd, the loss of my milk quota and I was forced to sell a 100-acre farm,'' he said.
In the 1970s and 80s, Montgomery traveled throughout Canada and the U. S. showing his award-winning Holstein cows.
Montgomery claims that stray voltage is not only an Ontario problem, but is one that faces people and farm animals throughout North America.
The new amendments call for fully-trained and qualified investigators under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Fraser said the new amendments will ensure that electricity to farm customers is of a quality that does not unduly impact health and safety on livestock operation, especially dairy farms.
"It permits the accurate determination of the contribution from the distribution system to total measured farm stray voltage at animal contact points like the feet and mouth,'' he said.
Article ID# 1632476
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Electromagnetic expert in town
An expert in the biological effects of electromagnetic fields will speak at a public meeting in Langley on Friday, July 17.
The event, open to the public, will be at the Langley United Church, 5673 200 St., starting at 7:15 p.m.
Dr. Magda Havas is an associate professor of environmental and resource studies at Trent University where she conducts research on the biological effects of electromagnetic fields, dirty electricity, ground current, radio frequency radiation and electrical hypersensitivity.
Havas provides advice to the public and expert testimony on radio frequency radiation from wireless telecommunication antennas and electromagnetic fields from power lines in the U.S. and Canada. She helped draft Resolution 15 for the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) regarding cell phone antennas on fire halls.
The issue of electromagnetic fields was raised recently by Una St. Clair-Moniz, whose children attend the Langley Fine Arts School in Fort Langley.
St. Clair-Moniz raised concern for the health of students after the school district began to install wireless Internet service in that and other local schools.
Invisible to the human eye, electromagnetic fields are present everywhere. In nature, they are produced by a buildup of electrical charges in the atmosphere, usually during a thunderstorm.
Plenty of manmade sources of electromagnetic fields exist, and many are in the home: toasters, microwave ovens, televisions, and vacuum cleaners. Cell phones emit these fields, and the jury is still out on whether the devices are linked to brain cancer.
St. Clair-Moniz started a web site, www.citizensforsafetechnology.org, for parents, grandparents, teachers, health professionals, business people and students concerned about the rapid spread of untested and unregulated wireless technologies in schools and communities in Canada.
Havas will answer questions from the audience at the July 17 meeting.
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Dangers of Wi-Fi in Schools
By Walter Graham, Chairman, Northern Ireland Opposing Masts (NIOM) (waltergrahamwalter@yahoo.co.uk)
http://www.voicetheunion.org.uk/index.cfm/page/_sections.content.cfm/cid/1326/navid/434/parentid/330
(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. Reproduction on the Voice Website is for readers' information. Voice is not responsible for the information, opinions or links provided.)
Wi-Fi networks wirelessly connect to the Internet – they transmit through the air using microwaves rather than through a conventional telephone line.
The government are installing wi-fi laptops in most schools in Northern Ireland without any safety testing or warnings that there could be wide ranging side-effects. Drugs undergo years of testing before they are released to the public.
Below are the first three paragraphs of a report byDr Andrew Goldsworthy, lecturer in biology (retired), Imperial College London, which illustrates the scientific concern:
"Do not believe the Government or the Health Protection Agency when they say mobile phones (and by implication Wi-Fi) are safe; they are not. They can cause excruciating pain to some 'electrosensitive' individuals, they interfere with normal brain function and have been shown to shatter the DNA in living human cell cultures. All of this can be found in peer-reviewed scientific journals but, until now, has not been in the public domain (see also www.bioinitiative.org ).
"The government and the Health Protection Agency are under huge pressure from the mobile phone industry (from which the government receives tens of billions of pounds in tax and licence fees) to deny that there are any health effects at all. They usually hide behind out-of-date "official" safety guidelines that were drawn up when it was thought that the only way that living organisms could be harmed by electro-magnetic radiation was if it were sufficiently strong to cause significant heating.
"This is totally false. There have been countless papers in scientific journals over several decades that show very clearly that there are non-thermal biological effects (some of them extremely harmful) of electromagnetic fields that are well below the official safety guidelines."
You would think that with all the health and safety laws in schools that the government would require safety testing of equipment before it exposes children and staff to any risks – unfortunately this isn't the case with Wi-Fi. You would also think that the government wouldn't take the risk of litigation should teachers or children take ill and it is proven to be Wi-Fi microwave radiation caused – unfortunately it may be the principal of the school who takes the liability as the education authorities have merely offered the equipment to the school; it is the principal who chooses to install it.
This leads to the question: Is there a safer way of delivering internet connections? Yes, simply wire the classroom with multiple telephone and power outlets, thereby doing away with the risks. A school in Northern Ireland recently hardwired the school at a cost of £1,200. Not an unbelievable amount when weighed up against the possible health damage!
A BBC Panorama programme Wi-Fi: A Warning Signal [transcript video] showed that Wi-Fi in the classroom was 3x stronger than a phone mast in the beam of greatest intensity! Also featured on Panorama was Professor Olle Johansson who lectures in neuroscience at the Nobel prize-winning Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
Professor Johansson presented at Stormont in Belfast on 28 October 2008.In a presentation lasting two hours, he read from scientific papers demonstrating health effects such as depression, learning impairment, behavioural problems, migraines, infertility, cancers, etc. Professor Johansson told 70 delegates to the Stormont meeting that he believed the microwave radiation emitted by the equipment used to provide wi-fi in schools posed a significant threat to the well-being of children and teachers.
He showed his audience a dramatic series of images depicting the effects which microwave radiation can have on human cells and claimed that long-term exposure to wi-fi networks represented a very real risk to health. He said the long term side-effects may not turn up for years, possibly generations.
Using asbestos as an example, he stated that: "the victims weren't known until 50 years after exposure; since Wi-Fi is so new no studies have yet been done. Since there are thousands of studies proving harm from microwave radiation and none proving it safe, we must err on the side of safety especially where developing children are concerned."
He called all wireless equipment "dangerous toys". Prof. Johansson pointed out that if all this equipment disappeared, life would go on fine without it. He said: "Can we take the risk of infertility in our children when there is a safe alternative?"
What is happening elsewhere:
- The European Environment Agency is calling for immediate action to reduce radiation from Wi-Fi, mobile phones and their masts, 16 September 2007 The Independent.
- The German Government warned citizens to avoid Wi-Fi for fear of health damage. 09 Sept. 2007 The Independent.
- Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada, with 7,400 students, has removed Wi-Fi because of what its Vice-Chancellor, Dr Fred Gilbert, calls "the weight of evidence demonstrating behavioural effects and physiological impacts at the tissue, cellular and cell levels"
- France National Library has disconnected Wi-Fi over health fears: The Parisien, 4 April 2008 (pdf)
- The Government of Salzburg has warned its citizens not to buy Wi-Fi.
The education authorities have a duty of care to protect teachers and students in school. Action must be taken now to put health before profits – ban Wi-Fi until proven safe.
November 2008
www.voicetheunion.org.uk/wifi
