In the North Country, Minnesota farmers have organized a sustained and strong-willed campaign for four years now in opposition to an 800 kV (± 400 kV Direct Current) transmission line which is now 40 percent completed. The line is being built by two power cooperatives to meet their projection of need for the 1980s; when completed it would run from a mine-mouth coal-fired plant in North Dakota 427 miles east to Delano, Minnesota. Initially, the farmers had blocked its construction by organizing enough grassroots opposition to convince local county commissioners to reject the power companies' request for zoning approval. But, with a new law the state assumed final authority on powerline routing through its Department of Environmental Quality, removing the successful element of local control. Since that time farmers have weathered successive rounds of court hearings and meetings with public officials and legislators which have been met with a frustrating lack of responsiveness and legal cul-de-sacs. A high point in their popular movement came this spring when over 6,500 people gathered to demand that the governor's proposal for a "science court" to hear health and safety questions be expanded to include the issue of need for power and a simultaneous moratorium on construction of the EHV line while the court took testimony. The science court was subsequently cancelled. This kind of de facto resignation to the inertia of the EHV line has led the rural protestors to intensify their direct action tactics to block its construction, including physical confrontation with construction workers and police, and sporadic vandalism. Some have gone as far as dismantling transmission towers. The farmers feel they have been deserted in a land grab by the power companies for an undemonstrated need. However, they are continuing with direct action, turning to more political arenas and educating themselves on renewable energy strategies that could effectively eliminate the need for EHV lines. One of their supporters, Alice Tripp, is running in the September gubernatorial primary and she's talking solar energy. In Upstate New York the situation bears many similarities to Minnesota. The opposition to a proposed 765 kV transmission line started with a handful of farmers but now includes all sorts of rural people united in a state network called the KV Alliance. They began by focusing on legal and administrative tactics, taking the Power Authority of the State of New York (PASNY) to court over its EHV line proposal, and then became intervenors in the state hearings 'on the health and safety issue. By late autumn 1976, when preparatory work on the line began, people were feeling betrayed by so much administrative wrangling; they began to use direct action to block construction. They also became involved in a public education campaign which has found a large audience across the state. Part of that campaign has been to emphasize the false economy of generating electricity in Quebec to be shipped over 1,000 miles for use in New York City, and that an EHV line with its enormous capacity will encourage the development of more nuclear power plants in northern New York. The 150-mile leg under construction may survive the remaining legal strategies, but it has become a well-known symbol to rural people across the state and they arc learning how to organize to deal with powerlines planned elsewhere in New York. Electromagnetic Fields and Ion Currents The New York State Public Service Commission hearings begun in 1975 and recently concluded have, at least, served to ear-mark a major concern over the continuing proliferation of EHV transmission lines- what they do to our physical and mental health. August/September 1978 RAIN Page 9 The immediate hazards are as easy to understand as the humming and popping noise lines produce (up to 70 decibels under 765 kV lines) or the way they can make your body hair stand on end. The voltages carried by this generation of lines are so great that they cause small electric currents to flow continuously to the ground, vegetation, as well as bodies of animals and people in the powerline right-of-way. Power companies recommend that all stationary objects such as metal buildings, roofs and fences in the vicinity be grounded, and that vehicles using the right-of-way have grounding chains. But these methods have not always kept people from receiving strong shocks under 765 kV lines, as a grounded person touching a charged object becomes a conductor. This in itself is enough of a danger to cause on'-the-job farm accidents. But if the charge is strong enough it can paralyze the muscles of the hand so that a person is unable to let go. Large vehicles under the lines, such as school buses or combines, can deliver cnough current to exceed the safe let-go threshold for a child. The long-term health effects of EHV lines are much less understood and inadequately researched. Yet evidence is starting to accumulate indicating that regular exposure to the electric and magnetic fields produced by EHV transmission may cause much more serious health hazards. Studies from the Soviet Union investigating the health abnormalities in workers at 500 and 750 kV substations found that long-term exposure has resulted in disruption of the normal functioning of the central nervous and cardiovascular systems, changes in the blood structure and reduced sexual potency. As a result the Soviet government has regulations drastically reducing human exposure to these fields. While much of the American research until recently has found little cause for alarm , it has also been funded by the electric utility industry. But the New York hearings came somewhat closer to acknowledging that a clear danger to human health exists. Extensive testimony revealed numerous studies on the probable biological effects of electromagnetic fields on people. One such testimony compared such effects to chronic stress and claimed that exposing local people to EHV transmission lines was equivalent to performing unauthorized medical experiments on them. The hearings concluded that there was inadequate scientific data at,this time and authorized a new seven-year study. But local powerline opponents agree with the guinea pig theory and are appealing the recommendations of the hearings. This situation surfaced in Minnesota as well , which has had no public inquiry into the littlc known health implications of EHV Direct Current lines. These lines do not have the electric field problem, but do have an effect called iOll current, which may be just as serious a health hazard. One such EHV DC line has already been energized as a part of the " Pacific Intertie," the western world's largest transmission line that connects the power grids of the Southwest to the electricity of the Northwest. A second leg of this energy superhighway is proposed which would include a 1,000 kV DC line. In all, the experiment is already underway. A Land-Based Issue The land factor is equally important to rural people who Jraw their values, lifestyles and livelihoods much closer to thc ground than do city dwellers. The use of EHV lines to further the centralization of energy systems will have high impacts on this land base with largely negative returns. Because federal regulations try to minimize the impacts of transmission lines on scenic and recreational areas, population centers and prime timberlands, and because power companie want the cheapest, flattest. most accessible routes, rural farmlands have become the most likely places to site energy corridors. But EHV lines arc mammoth in scale- four 765 kV
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