SAMPLE TESTIMONY:
Subject Line: Comments for Docket No. 2018-0141
Include your name and the docket number. #2018-0141
Or click the button below to fill out the PUC online comments form. Either way, email or online comments form, your choice.
Sample testimony:
Please choose 1-2 points to focus on. Mix and match and ADD YOUR WORDS. Why does this matter to you? Why do you care about the environment, or your health, or your property? Tell your story!
It may be tempting but please don't do it - DO NOT copy/paste the entire list!
If comments look "canned" we lose impact.
YOUR words are important. Here you go:
Wireless networks, which smart meters require, are energy hogs. Our streets and neighborhoods will be littered with wireless network boxes and hubs. Advanced meters are not clean, not green, not sustainable. Energy consumption of wireless networks are incompatible with Hawaii's energy goals. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5783987
We are not anti-technology! We want Safe Technology! www.SafeG.net
Here's more detailed sample testimony if you prefer. Again, pick and choose 1-2 points to focus on, DO NOT copy/paste the whole list! Add YOUR OWN WORDS and SENTIMENTS:
In their letter the Commission strongly recommends informational advanced meter post cards with safety facts and resource links be sent to customers. Yet Hawaiian Electric balks at this saying it will cost too much! With a record net income of almost $170 million in 2020, when Hawaii families
struggled through the pandemic, the estimated $164,000 to send post cards is nothing.
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The Commission encouraged the post card should include a link to Hawaiian Electric's landing page further explaining the health and safety of "advanced" meters. Unfortunately Hawaiian Electric's landing page itself contains no information about health and safety of smart meters. Customers have to click deeply into the website to find such information which is located in several different places.
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The page that Hawaiian Electric plans to include states that "RF is electromagnetic energy that includes frequencies used for everyday communications such as radio and TV broadcasting, cell phones and Wi-Fi routers." This statement is misleading as advanced meters do not use the same frequencies as radio and TV broadcasting. That is a
different frequency band. In fact, smart meters are prohibited from broadcasting at radio and TV frequencies so as to avoid interference with those devices.
I ask that Hawaiian Electric remove the misleading reference to radio and TV broadcasting.
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Statement #2 on the Hawaiian Electric "Understanding Radio Frequency" page is extremely misleading. It states: "Advanced meters transmit data several times a day for a few seconds at a time, totaling no more than a few minutes a day." What they don't tell us is that "several times a day" can mean multiple times per
minute. Here is a video of a Hawaiian Electric smart meter in Kihei, Hawaii, in real time going off every few seconds and emitting at levels that have been shown to be harmful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXixMrlPkUo
I ask that Hawaiian Electric remove the misleading language in #2 and accurately describe that advanced meters can emit several times per minute throughout the day and night, that you cannot turn them off, that you cannot move them, and that the radiation penetrates through the walls of your home or business.
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The Hawaiian Electric webpage contains minimal information about health and safety. In quoting the Hawaii State Department of Health on safety, it states: "A large number of studies performed over the past two decades have not shown a direct health risk from short or long-term exposure to typical amounts of RF energy".
This is a completely unsubstantiated claim.
I ask that Hawaiian Electric be required to back up this claim with actual evidence, including "a large number", at least 13, peer reviewed scientific research studies showing no harm to human health. Please require that these be listed to back up their claim. If not, the unsubstantiated claim must be removed.
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We ask that Hawaiian Electric remove any references to, or quotations from, the deeply flawed DOH "Fact" Sheet.
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Man made, manipulated frequencies emitted by smart meters are not "fundamental forces of nature". This is extremely misleading. The emissions from smart meters have been altered in modulation, waveform, frequency, pulsation, exposure times, exposure duration, and power. Further, such statement does not take into account the cumulative effects of multiple sources of man made radiation. In modern day, wireless radiation has nothing to do with
"nature" and in fact is harmful to nature.
I ask that Hawaiian Electric remove this misleading statement.
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The Hawaiian Electric webpage contains a link to "Learn more" about electric and magnetic fields. When navigating to that page, we find this shocking statement: "For over 25 years, scientists have been investigating whether EMF produce harmful effects. To date, there has been no conclusive evidence established by the scientific community confirming a causal link between EMF exposure and adverse health effects". This is
false.
On the contrary, the largest cell phone study of its time, conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Toxicology Program (NTP), which cost $30 million and took ten years to complete, found “clear evidence” of heart and brain cancers due to cellphone radiation. This research was published in 2018 making Hawaiian Electric's claim completely false. Further, in Italy, the Ramazzini Institute replicated the research
with lower exposure levels in the world’s largest study and found similar results of carcinogenicity.
I ask that Hawaiian Electric remove the erroneous information and include the NTP and Ramazinni Institute studies, two comprehensive, extremely important and directly relevant research studies. Here are the links:
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The Hawaiian Electric "Learn more" page, under "Additional EMF Resources", contains a link to the Hawaii State Department of Health and Public Utilities Commission's EMF Policy Statements, a document
dated January 19, 1994. Apparently, the DOH and PUC have not updated their EMF policy statements in almost 30 years. At a time when there were no cell phones, no cell towers, no WiFi, no Bluetooth, no FitBit, no smart watches, no Alexa, no Siri - the list goes on and on - do you think things have changed since the 1990s?
I ask that the PUC update its policy statement to reflect the current state of scientific research on wireless radiation and withhold Hawaiian Electric's smart meter opt-out until such time as a new, up to date policy is in place.
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Hawaiian Electric has an outdated understanding of wireless radiation. On the Grid Modernization Technologies webpage they prominently display a PDF packet, called EMF Reviews, that
focuses only on magnetic fields and contains exclusively research from the 1990s on power lines. There is not a single reference to mesh grids or "advanced" meters in the entire document.
I ask the Hawaiian Electric update its webpage with current, accurate, up to date scientific research and remove the old, outdated packet.
