A32—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, May 24,1980
UTITZ - No matter
where you travel across the
United States, sometime or
another you are bound to
find yourself driving under
or flying over those tall gray,
or environmental green,
towers of steel that support
our nation’s power lines.
There is a controversy
going on about the effects
these electrical fields have
on people, animals, and
crops. Some research groups
say they’re harmless, about
like falling in love, and
others say they are ex
tremely hazardous.
According to Penn State
animal behavionst and
researcher H.B. Graves,
four years of studying the
biological effects of animals
exposed to the electric fields
under high-voltage tran
smission lines is about the
same as watching a football
game, waking up to a ringing
alarm clock, or falling in
love. In other words, the
impact on health is virtually
nothing.
In experiments using
rats, mice, pigeons, and
clucks, Graves and ms
students created electrical
fields stronger than those
under the highest-voltage
transmission lines.
“Changes m physiology
and behavior are mostly
transitory and minimal, if
there are any changes.
Heart rates and blood
pressures may rise at the
beginning of the experiment
and then gradually decline
toward normal levels even if
the electrical field remains
on. When the field is swit
ched off, these health in
dicators return to normal.”
Another Penn State
professor, Guy W. McKee,
said the electrical field
impact on vegetation is also
negligible. The agronomist
said he had to use fields
several times the strength of
those under power lines
before he found damage, and
that was mostly to needles
and sharp-pointed leaves. He
pointed out that “elec
trostatic fields concentrate
them strength at high points
and tips of objects.”
“No economically
significant damage to crops
grown under transmission
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High voltage lines, love’em
lines is expected,” he stated,
citing cases wnere Indiana
farmers routinely grow
crops under 765-kilovolt lines
(the highest voltage lines in
theU.S.).
The controversy of health
effects created by
powerlmes has been gomg on
since 1972 when Russian
powerlme workers com
plained of headaches,
nausea, and loss of sex drive.
Graves pointed out that
people are routinely sub
jected to similar but weaker
fields from electric blankets,
toasters, and hair dryers.
The Electric Power
Research Institute funded
Westmghouse Corporation,
which is turn hired Graves
and McKee to perform the
studies.
In experiments that used
different kilovolts per meter
electrical fields, Graves said
“birds and animals most
likely ‘feel’ the field in
vibration, mini-shocks, or in
stimulation of their hair and
feathers,” similar to the hair
standing up on a person’s
arms when standing in an
electrical field.
In contrast to the Penn
State report, science writer
Lowell Ponte writes in the
January issue of Readers
Digest of an episode in
upstate New York where
people carried “eerily
glowing glass tubes” under
an ultrahigh-voltage power
line.
“We’re scared,” said one
of the people. “There’s
enough electricity m the air
200 feet from those wires to
light these flourescent
bulbs.”
“At issue is elec
tromagnetic pollution
‘electric smog’ the unseen
energy waves that spread
outward like ripples in a
pond around every electrical
device we use,” said Ponte.
“The United States is wired
with half a million miles of
high voltage power lines.”
He explained that the typical
American today gets 200
million times more intense
electromagnetic radiation
from television and radio
broadcasting, CB radios,
and microwave ovens, than
what his ancestors took in
High voltage lines, like this one near Brickerviile,
are the subject of scientific controversy concerning
animals, crops, and people.
from the sun, stars, and
other natural sources.
“It feels like a spider
crawling on you,” says
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Marilyn Gruber, describing
to Ponte the sensation of
being underneath a 765
kilovolt line that utility
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across her Minnesota farm
in 1978. “You can hear it, you
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husband Werner, “but you
can’t see it.”
Ponte described standing
50 feet below the 765 kilovolt
wires and said, “You
become coupled with a
10,000-volt-per-meter elect
romagnetic force field. You
can hear the crackle of air
being cooked into ozone, a
molecule found in smog.
“Energy within the field
can bum leaf tips of plants
under the line. It can send a
painful spark jumping
between your hand and a
nearby tractor. Hairs on
your scalp and arms twitch
from the electrical forces at
work.”
'■r
Ponte cited research' he
said indicated the exposure
to levels of electric radiation
once considered safe had
disquieting results.
“Andrew Marino, a
biophysicist at the Veterans
Administration Medical
Center in Syracuse, N.Y.,
has studied people and
animals exposed in
laboratory experiments to
electric smog simulating
that around high voltage
power lines. ‘Exposure
levels like those under the
wire can cause a stunting of
growth,” Marmo reported.
‘Levels like those 300 to 500
feet away cause
physiological effects such as
changes in blood chemistry
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and heart rate. At 100 feet
there are behavioral effects
such as drops in human
reaction tune.’”
Ponte also cited research
done by W. Ross Adey m
1973, at the Brain Research
Institute at UCLA. Adey
exposed laboratory monkeys
to electric radiation of
frequencies present around
human beings every day.
The results of the ex
periments the monkeys’
behavior changed and their
sense of time was distorted.
According to Ponte, Adey
believes that electric smog
alters natural biological
rhythms, the internal clocks
that regulate waking and
sleeping and thousands of
more subtle body processes.
This may put stress on the
body with a resulting
general resistance break
down, Ponte reported.
“A person may fall victim
to diseases he otherwise
would have fought off. This
may explain why, according
to University of Colorado
medical researchers, the
death rate for certain
cancers such as leukemia is
twice the average in homes
within 130 feet of high
voltage power lines.”
Ponte also recalled the
Russian incidents where
electro-magnetic fields were
said to cause a host of health
problems, including
hypertension, heart attack.
(Turn to Page A 34)
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