SCE and SDG&E- smart meter opt-out approved!

The California Public Utilities Commission approved a smart meter opt out program for Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) customers, similar to the PG&E opt out program approved in February.

SCE:  Starting May 9, customers may opt out by calling 1-800-810-2369.  For customers already on the delay list, calling the number will enable them to enroll in the opt-out program and keep their current meters. Customers who have a smart meter, but would like to opt out, can have their meter exchanged for the type (i.e., electro-mechanical analog meter or non-analog, non-smart digital meter) that was previously in place.

SDG&E: Similar opt out program approved, using analog meters.  SDG&E will begin removing smart meters within 20 days.  Call 1-800-411-7343

Unfortunately, the punitive, arbitrary, and likely illegal fees to opt out continue to be imposed by the CPUC.  Approval was given to interim fees of $75 for set-up and $10 per month for meter reading, and CARE fees of $10 for set-up and $5 per month. A second phase of the CPUC proceeding will be held to evaluate cost, and community wide opt-outs.

Meanwhile the CPUC also approved new metrics to track how the smart grid projects are delivering value to customers. These metrics include tracking: load and demand response programs, home area network usage, customer complaints, malfunctioning meters, and others.

What to do-PG&E’s May 1* smart meter opt-out deadline

If you have a smart meter: Tell PG&E  to remove it!  1-866-743-0263 

If you have an analog meter:  Tell PG&E you plan to keep your analog meter. When they ask you to agree to the charges tell them,  “NO,  the fees are arbitrary, punitive, likely illegal, and the fees are being legally contested at the CPUC!”

Be assertive. Here’s the legal scoop:  PG&Es Advice letter 3278-G/4006-E was posted on the CPUC Energy Division website as NO ACTION.   NO ACTION means they cannot act on the advice letter, therefore we believe they cannot legally charge the fees at this time.  If they ask you about access to your property, tell them they need to make an appointment.

If you agree to the fees, you can express that you are only agreeing under duress.  If and when they charge, write “paid under protest” on your check, and keep a copy. Or don’t pay.**  PG&E’s online opt out form does not force you to explicitly agree to the charges.

You can also send PG&E a certified letter to: Pacific Gas and Electric, PO Box 997315, Sacramento Ca 95899-9900.

* May 1 is a PG&E deadline for people on the “delay list”.  Any PG&E customer can opt out for any reason at any time.

**RISKS and BENEFITS of NOT paying the fees:  This is a form of direct action that can be helpful.  PG&E may turn off your utilities, or install a smart meter. If this happens we can bring media attention to the issue.

*** The advice letter was removed from the CPUC website on April 30.

Neighbors meters: Talk to your neighbors about these choices. Some people,  if needed-will offer to cover the costs of neighbors opt out, to protect themselves and their children. Print out this flyer and talk to your neighbors: Neighborhood flyer

PG&E smart meter assessment report

In a recent Smart Meter Semi-Annual Report PG&E provides an overview of their current smart meter deployment status.

Highlights of this report include:

  • By the end of 2011 PG&E had nearly 9 million electric and gas smart meters installed in California. (roughly 91% of its customers)
  • There are 835,711 meters remaining that have not been replaced with smart meters.
  • PG&E claims to have “pioneered” an opt out alternative for their customers.
  • Customers protesting smart meters are principally concerned with the radio frequency (RF) smart meters emit.
  • In April 2011 PG&E established an extended delay list that includes customers who:    1) refused PG&E’s attempts to install;  2) notified PG&E that they intended to remove their smart meter upon installation;  3) failed to provide PG&E with access to their residences (e.g. locked gate, unleashed dog), despite multiple attempts;  4) called PG&E to request the smart meter be removed;  5) removed their smart meter on their own.
  • Roughly 175,000 customers were sent a certified letter informing them of the opt out program.
  • 14,904 customers have asked to opt out of smart meters, and 6,730 have agreed to have a smart meter.
  • 5,042,000 smart meters are “activated” which means the wireless data is transmitting and recording properly. [That leaves over 3.5 million smart meters  NOT performing as intended]
  • The PG&E smart meter program is expected to exceed the CPUC authorized cost cap of 2.206 million.
  • 22,000 customers showed an interest in accessing their utility data online.  [In the CPUC Decision that authorized smart meters the CPUC expected a 21% customer participation in monitoring utility use through the Home Area Network ]
  • [Supposed] Benefits of “activated” smart meters totaled just under $2.00 per meter per month for electric and just over $1.00 for gas.  [The benefits is mainly due to “meter-reading savings”, ie:  jobs lost]
  • In 2011, roughly 33,000 electric smart meters were removed due to suspected hardware failures, and approximately nearly 16,000 gas smart meters have failed.  (see chart p.26)
  • PG&E is also having problems with billing and data collection failure. They note thousands of meters where complete data was not retrieved.  [Although they point out that an “accurate bill can be generated in most cases.”

[In all the PG&E documents I have read they always put the best case scenario on paper.  I believe we are now starting to see an indication that millions of CA customers have footed the bill for a program doomed to fail,  due to cost overruns, consumer revolt and disinterest, and poor equipment performance…and there’s no mention of the inevitable security problems, yet…]

Ban wireless smart meters- Petition to sign

Please sign this petition created by Donna Bervinchak, from San Francisco, addressed to: P.G&E., Governor Jerry Brown, C.P.U.C., President Obama:  “Remove and Ban all SmartMeters from the state of CA and the entire U.S.A. The carcinogenic emissions from SmartMeters are making once healthy, functioning Americans, sick, mentally unstable, unable to live in their homes and unable to function and hold down a job.”

Donna’s statement on why this is important:

I lived in San Francisco, CA for 22 years and l loved my life there. In October of 2011, P.G.&E. turned 12 SmartMeters on, outside my apartment without my knowledge. In November I started to sleep more than usual and I thought it was because it was getting dark early so I brushed it off. In December I broke out in hives all over my face and the skin on my face became unusually dry. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before but I brushed it off again and blamed it on stress.

By January I was sleeping so heavily I felt like I was drugged and this is when I started to think maybe someone in my apartment building started to use WiFi again (last year everyone in my apartment building stop using WiFi on my request due to my sensitivity to wireless). By the middle of January I couldn’t sleep. I also began to have trouble breathing because the air felt too thick. My face started to become numb as well as my scalp and gums of my teeth. I began to have a lump in my throat that made me loose my appetite and thirst. I developed an intense pressure headache that felt like a vise pressing on my temples.

This is when I discovered the SmartMeters and called P.G.&E. and asked them when they turned them on. I asked them to remove them because they were giving me all the symptoms I described above and they told me that they could not do that for me because they were federally approved.

I tried to stay in my apartment and over time I got weaker and sicker. I began to have trouble concentrating and thinking. I moved out of my apartment on Jan. 29, 2012 and stayed with a friend who didn’t have a SmartMeter. I slowly got better but I still would get sick walking down the street in San Francisco from all the SmartMeters emitting their microwave like waves into the streets. I started having heart palpitations and shortness of breath just from walking down the street.

I went to the country for one week in Comptche, CA and spent time with a friend on her 64 acres of land. She lived off the grid and I immediately got better. I felt like my normal, healthy self again. This is when I knew I would have to move out of San Francisco.

Please sign this petition. People may not know that SmartMeters are affecting them. People need to know that SmartMeters are dangerous to the health of all living beings. Children and animals can’t speak for themselves so I am speaking out for them now!

Donna

Open letter to the Premier from a doctor

The health complaints from wireless radiation utility smart meters are a global problem. Here’s an open letter to the Premier from a doctor in Victoria Australia:

Posted on Stop Smart Meters Australia:

22nd February 2012

To the Premier of Victoria

Mr Baillieu,

Since the completion of the smart meter roll-out in my area, I have been very, very sick.  I have continuous palpitations, chest pain, a weird taste in my mouth, loss of appetite, lethargy, dizziness, faint attacks, inability to concentrate and complete insomnia.

I have the feelings at home, in the street, in all the streets of my area and at the shops. I am not able to function. I can’t work, I can’t look after my family, I need my husband, who is now the only breadwinner, to take care of me.

My symptoms only disappear when I am in an area without smart meters, in a large park or on the beach. When my husband drives me through the Melbourne suburbs, I tell him when I feel my symptoms abate, he stops the car and looks at house fronts and, sure enough, he sees the old-style meters. This can be reproduced very predictably.

We now have to sell our home and find a place to live, where I get few or no symptoms. In the long-term, we have no choice but to leave the state of Victoria, as even if I find a ‘symptom free’ home, my life would still be very limited, as I could not roam most streets, go to most shops, visit friends, work etc.

My family’s life has been completely ruined. We have lost everything we had worked for. My two teenage kids have to cope with the trauma and grief of the overwhelming loss that awaits us on a daily basis. I already can no longer work as a doctor, eventually my kids will have to leave their school, university, grandparents and friends behind.

This is all senseless and monstrous. Even in the big scheme of things, my life matters and so do the lives of those who depend on me, especially my family and friends, for whom I am not replaceable.

What happened to me was avoidable and clearly a breach of human rights – the right to health and the right not to be subjected to experimentation without my consent.

The community has never been consulted on the need for smart meters, or even well-informed.  With the mandatory Victorian smart meter roll-out we will have irreversibly compromised those democratic values that have defined Australia so far.

Dr Federica Lamech

Dear Ms. Burt

Ms. Helen Burt
Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer
Pacific Gas & Electric Company
PO Box 997315
Sacramento, California 95899-9900

Second address: PO Box 770000   Mail Code B27L
San Francisco, California  94177

April 29, 2012

Dear Ms. Burt:

We received your unsigned certified letter about your SmartMeter Program. This letter is to inform you that, despite your coercive attempts to force ratepayers into your program, we refuse to have SmartMeters installed at our house. The so-called “choices” you offer are no choices at all. Since we have never had Smart Meters, we find it outrageous that you should now try to charge us initial plus monthly fees for a service that we have paid for and you have delivered trouble free (and at minimal costs) for decades!

To be clear, we never opted into your SmartMeter Program. One cannot be said to “opt in” where coercion and pressure is used. And because we have never opted into it, we cannot opt out. Therefore, your proposed “choices” and associated fees do not apply to us.

Indeed, the choice whether to enroll in the program is properly left to the customer, per the Energy Policy Act of 2005, under Title Xll, Subtitle E, Section 1252, (a), (14), (C). It states:  “Each electric utility subject to subparagraph (A) shall provide each customer requesting a time-based rate with a time-based meter capable of enabling the utility and customer to offer and receive such rate, respectively.”

We hold our position because, among many other compelling reasons including data corruption, cybernetic insecurity, privacy violations, unreliability, lack of billing transparency and discrepancies, fire danger, and negative health impacts, your rollout of Smart Meters is patently illegal for several reasons:

1. The operative FCC Grant of Equipment authorization for SmartMeter installations OWS-NIC507 expressly stipulates that these meters be professionally installed. The personnel hired by your subcontractors to perform meter installations are temporary workers with minimal training, not California licensed electrical contractors.

2. The same FCC stipulations also require that the antenna(s) used for the transmitter must have a minimum “separation distance of 20 centimeters from all persons and must not be colocated . . .”

3. Moreover, “End-users and installers must be provided with antenna installation and transmitter operating conditions for satisfying RF exposure compliance.” Without barriers or written warnings/notices posted near your SmartMeters, PG&E is out of compliance with these FCC requirements.

Yes, we operate life support and other sensitive medical equipment in our home. The growing consensus supported by truly independent studies as well as World Health Organization findings is that Smart Meters operating in conjunction with a Smart Grid pose a serious and unwarranted public health hazard.

Heretofore there has never been a surcharge for having an analog meter. Our meters are the same reliable ones that have been in service here all along, unchanged. If you now insist on extorting us for our refusal to opt into your program,  you will be in further violation of California Public Utilities Code Section 453(b) which states:  “No public utility shall prejudice, disadvantage, or require different rates or deposit amounts from a person because of ancestry, medical condition, marital status or change in marital status, occupation, or any characteristic listed or defined in Section 11135 of the Government Code. A person who has exhausted all administrative remedies with the commission may institute a suit for injunctive relief and reasonable attorney’s fees in cases of an alleged violation of this subdivision. If successful in litigation, the prevailing party shall be awarded attorney’s fees.”

We do not consent to PG&E usage of existing on-premises gas and electric  meters as the basis for a claim of entitlement to install digital mesh network antennae and transceivers for third-party data at current meter locations. If PG&E wants to build out a digital wireless mesh network infrastructure for for-profit use by third parties, it can do so in the same way that every competing digital wireless data network operator has done:  by purchasing or leasing property for this purpose, and/or by negotiating and obtaining permission to place equipment on non-PG&E property.

To reiterate, we refuse to opt into your Smart Meter Program and we furthermore refuse to pay extortion fees to retain the reliable analog meters. If you ignore our refusal by proceeding with installation of Smart Meters without our consent, we shall initiate litigation  for recovery of damages. Said damages will occur when your company effectively takes valuable radio transceiver and antenna siting rights on our property without compensation, which we would otherwise be entitled to reserve, to exercise for ourselves, or to sell or rent to parties and on terms of our choosing.

Furthermore, we have not seen or received a copy of your mandatory letter to the CPUC’s Executive director requesting authority to install a SmartMeter at the affected customer’s location. Nor have we seen any written authorization from the CPUC Executive Director approving such installation at any affected customer’s location. We have learned not to trust PG&E’s word without proof. We have seen no such proof to date.

A complaint has been filed with the CPUC over this issue and the promised response has not yet been forthcoming. Until the response is made, we do not consider this issue settled.

When we consider that you long ago had rates approved by the CPUC to cover the costs to read and maintain the standard analog meters, we can only conclude that you wish to increase your profit margins with this program. Besides driving up unemployment in a severe recession, we, having no choice regarding what utility provider we wish to use, find it contrary to the concept and intent of a regulated utility to impose health and security risks on us, your clients, without our agreement.

Since you “fully support individual choice when it comes to the meter at your home,” we’re confident that you will wholeheartedly approve of our choice to send you this notice in lieu of your form, and to continue the service agreement we have had for over 30 years with the analog meters.

Notwithstanding your published schedule of meter readings, your company and any of its subcontractors will be held liable as trespassers for any violations of your written promise, “We’ll call you prior to any required work at your home.”

Sincerely,

_________________________________

Account Number
Cc: CPUC

 

Health risks of nuclear and wireless radiation compared

An article recently published in the Environmentalist, by Cindy Sage, compares the biological effects of nuclear radiation to biological effects of common everyday wireless radiation exposures.

Nuclear radiation fallout is expected to recirculate in the environment from the Fukushima Japan disaster for another 40 years.  Meanwhile, we are surrounded with ubiquitous and harder to avoid levels of wireless radiation from cell towers, cell phones, wi-fi, DECT phones, etc.  Sage concludes that both types of  exposures present similar biological effects:

“There is long-standing scientific evidence to suggest that low-dose ionizing radiation (LD-IR) and low-intensity non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation (LI-NIER) in the form of extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields and radiofrequency radiation share similar biological effects.”

“Reducing preventable, adverse health exposures in the newly rebuilt environment to both LD-IR and LI-NIER is an achievable goal for Japan. Recovery and reconstruction efforts in Japan to restore the communications and energy infrastructure, in particular, should pursue strategies for reduction and/or prevention of both kinds of exposures.”

Sage writes, “In both kinds of exposure (chronic, low-level), these effects include genotoxicity and DNA fragmentation with chromosome aberrations; immune and inflammatory reactions (allergic reactions and development of hypersensitivity); reduction or suppression of the immune system or disregulation of the immune system; effects on lymphocytes and increased risk for lymphoproliferative diseases;and increased risk of other cancers in adults and in children.”

Link to the science: The similar effects of low-dose ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation from background environmental levels of exposure

SMUD smart meter shenanigans

Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is implementing a smart meter opt-out program that’s intentionally designed to intimidate and discourage customers from opting opt.  The audiotape from SMUD is a unique inside look into industry plotting against their customers.

SMUD is charging $127 upfront and $39.40 per month, and they will cut off customer rights to opt out by Dec. 31, 2012.  They plan to only notify those who’ve already complained, which is 2,500 of their 600,000 customers.   SMUD will not notify the rest of their customers, nor post about the smart meter opt out program on their website, because they don’t want them to know about it.  In addition the ‘radio-off’ smart meter is their only opt out option, and if you move, you lose the right to opt-out.

Even though SMUD is very concerned about their ‘reputational risk’ at [01:51:54] the directors make fun of people who don’t want utility smart meters on their property.

One director says, “The $166 upfront will convince them they can really afford a lot of tin foil hats” [laughter]…Another director says, “But they are already wearing them!”

In closing Director Posner says, The less that’s said about this, the better off we are.”  The last thing they want is a social media campaign that exposes them as unfriendly to their customers.