Letters to the Editor reflect the views of the author and not the Longmont Leader. Factual claims have not been independently verified by the Longmont Leader.
Longmont’s $14 million smart meter program was sold to residents as a "must have," "green" investment, number one on the Climate Action Task Force's wish list. But now, the city’s own data portrays a different story: that Longmont's sustainability goals around these meters are slipping. This, in parallel with some of your neighbors suffering the imposition of a digital meter on their house, or from a threat by our city-owned utility of having one's power shut off. (That is, if you refuse to relinquish your trusty, decades-old, "never-gave-you-a-problem" electromechanical analog meter!) There is no middle ground, nothing between black and white... no grey zone, no wiggle room.
These few residents, these digital meter “resisters,” find themselves somewhere between a rock and a hard place, their arms twisted into either accepting a "smart" or digital "opt-out" meter or having their power shut off. How many of the public realize this is going on? Not many, one would assume. Some of these residents have medically quantified conditions and doctors' notes requiring the retention of an electromechanical (analog) meter, others have family members with medical conditions where the addition of either digital "smart" or "opt-out" meter could prove a hazard; on the other extreme, the shutting off of one's power could prove deadly, as well.
To which I ask: what the heck is going on in Longmont? How is it that certain parties in and employed by Longmont's government have decided to behave like petty tyrants towards members of the public wishing to protect their own health and the health of their loved ones?
Between 2023 and 2024, Longmont’s progress on Sustainability and Climate Action targets dropped by 5% — a regression publicly acknowledged by city staff at the February 19 Sustainability Advisory Board meeting, and also written about in local media. When asked why, staff admitted that smart meters haven’t changed energy behavior. “We have more information,” they said, “but knowing when you use energy and how much doesn’t change the fact that you’re still using it.”
What?!! You say, the public just needs to be more fully informed on how to more efficiently steward their energy use at home to save energy? And this requires the RF irradiation of an entire city to boil back down to a simple education that doesn't really require the presence of a digitally broadcasting meter alleged to reduce your energy use? Elementary, my dear Watson! This frank admission by city personnel should spark alarm. If smart meters aren’t motivating residents to reduce their energy use and are not living up to the hype that brought them here, why on earth are residents being forced by city agents to accept them at threat of having their power cut — even when they cause documented harm? What is the motivation behind this type of draconian power play?
Resident Susan Foster, among others, will give her first-ever public comment at Longmont's August 26 City Council meeting on her experience of being one of these residents with medical reasons to NOT have a digital meter, who asked to retain her analog meter but was denied. She, too, faces having her power cut. As a nationally recognized medical writer and researcher (with over 25 years of experience protecting firefighters and the public from telecommunication and wireless harm), Foster knows whereof she speaks. She's worked on telecommunications zoning ordinances since 2001; she organized the early 2000s' pilot study of SPECT brain scans of San Diego firefighters exposed to cell tower radiation 24/7 in their stations, who exhibited noticeable cognitive/neurological impairment that interfered with on-the-job functioning. (Young, fit people with impaired functioning; little things like remembering where the fire was, in a city you grew up in and used to know like the back of your hand.) She helped secure the first health exemption for firefighters regarding cell tower placement, now embedded in California law. Due to this work, a resolution for keeping cell towers off of fire stations was also adopted by the International Association of Fire Fighters.
Since the AMI meters were installed there are some residents, like Susan, who've managed to retain their analog meters in Longmont. Now the City has given them an ultimatum after having denied all twelve accommodation requests: either accept a digital meter or we'll shut your power off. One resident with electromagnetic radiation sensitivities was denied disability accommodations and told by utility staff that people like her “shouldn’t be part of society.” Her story began nearly a year ago, with debilitating symptoms from this exposure (including convulsions and heart palpitations) after the installations of digital meters where she resides. Another resident, a disabled woman in a wheelchair hoping to keep her analog, continues to experience extreme daily discomfort in the parts of her house that are most exposed to other smart meters nearby. Reports of "signal tinnitus" in some residents arose when neighborhood mesh networks were activated. A resident who resisted the meters and who eventually succumbed to city pressure, suffered a setback in her health and healing process, even with a digital "opt-out" meter. Other residents hoping for accommodation and pressed into recent panel hearings conducted by the City have alleged questionable-to-poor treatment during and around their hearings.
Scientific research among other supports what these residents are reporting. A 2017 review by Kivrak et al. found that EMF exposure can trigger oxidative stress and neurological symptoms including fatigue, headaches, and cognitive impairment. A quick online search shows that smart meters and EMFs can compromise the blood-brain barrier, leading to neurological impairment. This one is a little harder to find, but Prof. Beatrice Golumb, MD of San Diego School of Medicine conducted a survey of "a little over 200 electrosensitive people and about 50 healthy controls…..we asked the (ES) people if they recognized an inciting or triggering event, and close to 70% did – and by far the most commonly reported trigger was smart meters."
Yet Longmont residents were never given informed consent about these risks by their own city officials. Quite the contrary. In response to this situation, a group of highly intelligent residents who were already well informed on this issue found each other, and education began to grow in the community. More people began to speak out at City Council and the Sustainability Advisory Board monthly meetings, to inform the public and to call for a halt to the program. And still, the meters rolled in. Having the city concede an opt-out option was a "sort-of” win, but the only opt-out option offered is another (alleged-to-be) radiation-emitting meter — one that can be every bit as harmful to some residents as the broadcast "smart" meters. Some react to radio frequency, some to the “dirty electricity” (aka conducted emissions) these meters create. Some react to both! And from what I hear, the digital meters all contain a lithium ion back-up battery, something that is currently under scrutiny by at least one well respected insurance adjuster, Norman Lambe, as a potential (and actual) originator of smart meter fires.
How can a city claim to champion an “Equitable Society” when vulnerable residents asserting their rights are prevented from protecting themselves from predictable harm? Insult to injury: all of that, on top of the smart meters not performing as expected. What is wrong with this picture, Longmont?
Sincerely,
Doe Kelly
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