A bright yellow, billboard-sized sign posted on a private pasture lit by the setting sun was hard to miss on a recent afternoon for drivers heading east on Guerneville Road past Willowside Road: “Protect your health and privacy rights. Say no to PG&E!” the sign read.
As the utility company continues to roll out its new SmartMeters, North Coast customers who question the technology’s effect on health, privacy and accuracy have kept up their vocal opposition.
“I don’t want one on my property, period,” said Jim Swasey, 64, a retired boat repairman who agreed to let SmartMeter opponents post the large sign on his pasture on Guerneville Road about two weeks ago.
The sign is just one part of a trail of protests, YouTube videos, stickers, letters and online groups compiling a trove of opinions taking issue with PG&E’s claims that radio frequencies emitted by the meters have a negligible effect on the body.
Despite these efforts, PG&E’s SmartMeter installation program is on course to upgrade all applicable gas and electric meters serviced by the company sometime in 2012.
Nearly 60 percent of meters already have been upgraded overall in Sonoma County’s nine cities, according to Paul Moreno, a PG&E spokesman.
However, only about 5 percent of the meters in Sebastopol and surrounding areas, ground zero for a leading resistance group, the EMF Safety Network, have been swapped out for SmartMeters, according to Moreno’s figures.
SmartMeters send wireless data to PG&E once daily via a single-watt radio, according to PG&E’s website. The communication lasts 45 seconds. At a distance of 10 feet, those radio frequencies are about one-thousandth as much as a typical cell phone, the site said.
