Editor:
Last week I stopped to have a discussion with a B.C. Hydro sub-contractor employee and asked him some questions about Smart Meters.
Part of the information he disclosed was that these meters will not be up and running for at least a year.
The reason?
The cell phone like transceivers they need to communicate with Hydro will not be in place until then. (That answers the question about why it took a phone call to tell Hydro about “the source of the power outage”).
These Smart Meters(?) aren’t talking yet. When they do begin to talk our neighbourhoods will be inundated with microwave signals.
When I expressed my concerns about radiation he asked, “Do you have a microwave oven?”
I told him that I did, but that the microwaves were contained within the oven, and I was protected by a screen grid in the door. There was no more discussion on that subject. I also asked him about my preference not to have a Smart Meter installed.
His answer was that if I were to leave a note on my present meter stating that I needed more information before an installation, the sub-contractors would not install one, and that I would get a phone call from Hydro to discuss my concerns.
Then they would offer to come out and change my analogue meter for a digital Smart Meter, no charge. If I said no thanks again, then I could expect to be charged $200 for a return visit. If I still refused to take the meter, then Hydro would simply come to my home, remove their old meter, and cut me off their power grid.
In an old Lil Abner cartoon there was a corporate bully named General Bullmoose, whose motto was, “What’s good for General Bullmoose is good for the U.S.A.”
To paraphrase, “What’s good for B.C. Hydro is (apparently) what’s good for all of us.”
Bob Haslett
Smithers