The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to prevent PG&E from installing Smart Meters in unincorporated parts of the county until more information about the devices can be collected. The moratorium will last through Dec. 31. Failure to abide by it could result in misdemeanor charges for the power company.
In its decision, the Board of Supervisors stated that the new Smart Meters posed a threat to the peace, health, or safety of county residents. PG&E immediately dismissed the charges, citing a recent study by the Structure Group, a utilities consulting firm in Houston, which found that smart meters are just as accurate as regular meters now that all the problems with them have been fixed. The study determined that any spike in rates seen recently has to do with the warm summer weather, and not the quality of the devices.
They also argued that radiation emissions from smart meters are significantly less than cell phone emissions and just one-sixtieth of the federally approved safe level. This is reportedly backed by a World Health Organization study, which found that there are no health problems immediately linked to Smart Meters.
PG&E did not send a representative to the Board of Supervisors meeting, prompting Supervisor Neal Coonerty to remark, “It’s a little dismaying to note that this is a community discussion and PG&E is not here answering questions or participating in this.” He went on to indicate that the problem with PG&E in the past had been their lack of transparency in dealing with the public, and hinted that the vote may have gone differently if they had chosen to present their own conclusions to the Board. Read more at KSBW and Santa Cruz Sentinel.
