2011-2012 Speaker Series

Smart Meters: The Big Lie!
Smart Meter Safety Coalition
Wednesday, October 12, 7:00 p.m.
Bowdoinham Town Office –Selectmen’s Room

Join Friends of Merrymeeting Bay (FOMB) on Wednesday, October 12th at 7pm for the 1stpresentation of their 15th annual Winter Speaker Series. This program, “Smart Meters: The Big Lie!”, features Smart Meter Safety Coalition members: Elisa Boxer Cook, Sue Foley-Ferguson and Dianne Wilkins.

Stewards of the environment are often the first to find conflicts with man-made technologies that outpace safety standards. “Smart” electric meters, the devices Central Maine Power (CMP) is currently installing are one such technology. There are a number of reasons for concern with CMP’s smart meter program. Probably the two biggest issues are adverse health effects and infringement on the constitutional (Fourth amendment) right to privacy. CMP’s meters communicate by wireless radiofrequency non-ionizing radiation (man-made RF radiation). Thousands of studies of the effects of man-made radiation on plants, animals and humans have been alarming. The unusual signaling characteristics and higher power intensities of radiofrequency (RF) radiation are very different than naturally occurring radiation. Alarmingly, data increasingly show RF radiation from cell phones, smart meters and other wireless devices cause all sorts of adverse health effects in humans, including cancer. Recently the World Health Organization elevated non-ionizing [not heat producing] RF to their possible carcinogen status.

Personal data gathered by smart meters raises constitutionally related privacy issues including identity theft, determination of personal behavior patterns, determination of specific appliances used, real-time surveillance, information from residual data, targeted and or accidental home invasions and censorship. In the old days, one needed probable cause and a search warrant to collect this information.

Smart Meter Safety Coalition members have researched these issues extensively and have all been complainants before the Public Utilities Commission. Coalition members have worked and continue working hard to educate and inform Mainers on this issue. Growing movements are spreading rapidly across the country in opposition to the widespread deployments of smart meters, deployments fueled in large part by state funding from the Department of Energy. More and more critics are calling this a massive experiment foisted on the American people and a problem that may become the next asbestos or second-hand smoke.

The FOMB Winter Speaker Series takes place monthly from October-May on the second Tuesday or Wednesday. The series, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Friends of Merrymeeting Bay with support and valuable door prizes from Patagonia Outlet in Freeport. The next FOMB presentation on November 9th at the Bridge Academy in Dresden entitled: “9,000 Years Ago in Dresden” will feature Art Spiess, Senior Archaeologist from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission and is co-sponsored by the Dresden Conservation Commission.

To receive more information on FOMB’s programs call Ed Friedman, Chair, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, at 666-3372 or edfomb@comcast.net. Full speaker schedule and speaker biographies are available on the web at www.friendsofmerrymeetingbay.org.