Power Over People

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Fbwer Over PeopL

Louise B.You ng

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York Oxford
 Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town
Melbourne Auckland
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan

Copyright © 1973, 1992 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

First published in 1973 by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1974
Reissued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1992
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Young, Louise B.
Power over people / Louise B. Young,
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-19-507578-1 (pbk.)
1. Electric lines—Overhead—Environmental aspects.
I. Title.
RA569.Y68 1992 363.18'9—dc20
92-4396

Photo by Eliot Porter from In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World,

Sierra Club © 1960. Used with permission.
Photos by Cedric Wright from Words of the Earth,
Sierra Club © 1960. Used with permission.

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid free paper
To my son, my two daughters, and the other members of
their generation who understand that the pursuit of profit
at the expense of the beauty and integrity of our environ-
ment is impoverishing us all.
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 Contents

Introduction vii
Foreword xi
1. A Quiet Place 3
2. Power Transmission Pollution 13
3. The People Protest 36
4. "The Government Will Protect Us" 41
5. A Bend in the Line 52
6. Trees or Towers 57
7. David and Goliath 70
8. Little Tranquilizing Pills 73
9. Field Tests, Country Style 98
10. Abuse of Discretion 105
n. Ohio Power Company versus Clovis Strasbow 135
12. Earthspace is Precious 143
13. A Question of Power 151
14. What Are the Alternatives? 155
15. Progress Comes to Zilchville, U.S.A. 181
Epilogue: 1992 189
References for Original Text: 1973 219
Bibliography: 1973 229
References for Introduction: 1992 239
References for Epilogue: 1992 241
Bibliography for Introduction and Epilogue: 1992 245
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 Introduction

It has been suggested that Power Over People was a book written
before its time because it anticipated several problems that have now—
twenty years later—become important issues. But on the other hand,
if this book had not been published back in 1973 these problems
would not have surfaced as early as they have and their significance
might not be recognized even today. In this sense it was a seminal
book, containing some seeds that have taken root and grown until
their presence cannot be ignored. Other seeds fell on hostile ground
and have not yet germinated.
Because it is a book that is interesting in this historical context and
because it contains some less well-recognized environmental issues
that may become important, Oxford University Press decided that the
book should be reprinted just as it originally appeared with the addi-
tion of this Introduction, a few up-dating notes at the end of certain
chapters,* and an Epilogue telling the story of the slow unveiling of
information about the health hazard of electromagnetic radiation.
The consequences of the chemical changes in the atmosphere
caused by the discharge of electricity along a high voltage transmission

* Superscript numbers in the text refer to these endnotes. References for

the original book are found beginning on p. zig; References and Bibliog-
raphy for the Introduction and Epilogue begin on p. 2.39.
 Introduction viii
line was covered in some detail in Power Over People but this concern
has not been adequately addressed by either the power industry or
the environmental community. It has been swept under the rug, al-
though there has never been any doubt about the reality of this process
which produces ozone, nitrogen oxides, and other highly reactive
chemicals. Furthermore, there is no doubt that they cause biological
damage and are among the most important factors in the air pollution
which has become a serious problem throughout the whole industrial
world. But those who favor the installation of these big transmission
lines maintain that they do not produce sufficient quantities of these
chemicals to represent a health hazard. The data that has been used
to support this claim is based on relatively few measurements taken
directly under operating transmission lines in fair weather. But these
measurements do not provide a responsible assessment of the problem.
Air is heated as the chemical changes take place and this air rises.
Winds carry it away from the line by the time it has cooled enough
to descend to ground level. Thus ozone and related chemicals are
continuously produced and widely dispersed, adding to the general
air pollution problems that in many rural as well as urban areas are
already exceeding safe levels. The amounts created by this process are
not negligible. According to an estimate made for the Environmental
Protection Agency, the amount of ozone produced by high voltage
lines in the United States in 1990 was expected to be 87000 tons a
year. The patterns of distribution and the rate of decay as this ozone
enters into reactions with other components of the atmosphere are
complex phenomena that have not been thoroughly researched. So it
is impossible at the present time to assess the impact of these electro-
chemical reactions on our general pollution problems. But they are
certain to increase in importance as more lines of this type are installed
around the country and as existing lines are used to carry more voltage.
In the same year that Power Over People was published an event
occurred that brought dramatically to the attention of people all over
the world the vulnerable nature of our dependence on fossil fuel
reserves. The oil-producing nations of the Mideast decided to limit
ix Introduction
the amount of oil made available for export. As a result all the indus-
trialized nations suddenly realized the importance of reducing their
extravagant use of energy resources, although it had been obvious for
some time that the limit of the earth's resources must soon be encoun-
tered. During the previous half century we had been using each ten
or twenty years more energy than had been used throughout the entire
history of man up to that time. It was fortunate that the energy crisis
was precipitated by a sudden change in the distribution of resources
rather than by the imminent exhaustion of all our reserves. By com-
pelling people to adapt to lower rates of consumption and focusing on
the finiteness of our resources, the energy crisis did have a beneficial
effect. Ways to reduce waste and utilize energy more efficiently were
developed and these made an important difference in the projections
for future growth. The power industry had expected a doubling of
demand in the next decade and they were planning the construction
of many more plants and even higher voltage transmission lines
(1500,000 or 2000,000 volts) to meet this demand. The conservation
efforts reduced the usage of electricity quite dramatically. By 1981 the
residential sales of electricity were 105 billion kilowatt hours less than
projections based on historical trends. Plans for building more facili-
ties were put on hold and the plan to construct ultra-high-voltage lines
(15oo-kv or more) has not been implemented.
Unfortunately, the move toward conservation was reversed in the
mid-19805 and now, with only a brief pause during the war with Iraq,
the demand for power has been increasing. More public involvement
and pressure must be brought to bear to prevent an escalation of
all the hazards associated with the generation and transmission of
electricity.
Technological progress which has caused so much destruction of
our environment has also given us new alternative methods of con-
serving the stores of energy riches that lie buried in the earth and to
halt the disfiguration of our land. There is a certain finite but still
glorious amount of beauty in the world. Unlike our fossil fuel re-
serves, the total amount of beauty cannot be stretched by learning
 Introduction x
to use it more efficiently. The loveliness of nature is easy to despoil
and impossible to recreate. When the radiant complexion of our land,
like a young child's face, is mutilated by scars the most heroic efforts
and plastic surgery can remove the marks themselves but the fragile
perfection of nature can never be truly recaptured.
 Foreword

The beauty of this book is that its author, Louise Young, has given
us a graphic, saddening description of what happens when the so-
called necessities of a giant electric power company conflict with the
desires of countrymen and their community. As one would expect in
this era of surging "progress," the company wins and the people lose.
However, Louise Young was there, and her jarring account of the
classical conflict that arises when government and industry give
greater importance to "progress" than to the living values of the
people is the story of Power Over People.
The setting of this conflict is an Ohio village—population 104. It
could instead be any part of rural America which is richly endowed
with natural beauty—and citizens who want to live out their lives in
an unsullied environment. In the 1960'$, Mrs. Young tells us, this
town possessed essentially the same character it had had fifty years
earlier. Her homeland was off the beaten track, and it had accepted a
few of the benefits of modern technology without abandoning the
closeknit fiber on which the community's life was built.
So in 1969, when the people of Laurel learned that one of the
world's largest electric transmission lines was planned to plow through
their backyards, they banded together to oppose it.
With misplaced trust, they sought at first the relief of the law and
 Foreword xii
the regulatory agencies that had been created to protect the "public
interest." To their surprise, they found that these indifferent agencies
had no authority to respond to their complaints and that the law had
given the electric power company almost unlimited power (we call it
"eminent domain") to alter the landscape at will. As the citizens of
Laurel struggled to engage the company in battle, it finally became
clear that their interests were really being sacrificed to the electric
power "needs" of two growing metropolises hundreds of miles away
Ironically, the power to be transmitted over the new line was des-
tined for Detroit and Chicago, cities whose inhabitants would not
tolerate the construction of additional coal-burning plants within
their boundaries. So instead, the power company decided to export
its pollution to the countryside and to build a huge mine-mouth gen-
erating station and transmission lines to get the electricity to market.
This is a common practice now, and one which in recent months has
aroused bitter disputes in many parts of the United States, as environ-
mentalists, who believe that cities have no right to turn the country-
side into wastegrounds in order to accommodate further urban sprawl,
fight against the further degradation of unspoiled America.
In the end, the citizens of Laurel made an important impact but
failed to save their own community. One of America's technological
feats will soon overpower their scenic landscape—a tribute to an in-
dustry that has been obsessed with the goal of "cheap power," with
virtually no concern for anything else. The long-prized character of
this town is doomed, although the traditional wisdom of government
and industry decisionmakers tells us to accept this in the name of
"progress" and other material benefits.
This is a disturbing book—as Mrs. Young intends it to be. Little is
being done today by government and industry to prevent the destruc-
tion of more and more of the country's Laurels. By making the
single-minded argument that the projected demand for electricity
must be met, some industry spokesmen are working under the as-
sumption that angry environmentalists are at the root of the escalating
national energy crisis.
I agree with Mrs. Young that the nation is making a wholesale
xiii Foreword
sacrifice of environmental values to serve the burgeoning demands of
unprecedented exponential growth in energy consumption, some of
which is inherently wasteful.
In my view, the answer lies in another direction. As a nation, we
must adopt national energy policies predicated on conservation rather
than on waste. We must open the doors of democratic debate to all
concerned citizens, not let the energy industries bulldoze their critics
by arguing that the lights will go out unless their ill-planned projects
move forward forthwith. We must provide balance between the
forces of industry and environment and curtail such sledge-hammer
threats as the power of eminent domain. And, above all, we must
learn to live with restraint; to accept nature's limits as the first prin-
ciple of creating a livable human environment; and to support those
who are fighting to slow down population growth and make it pos-
sible for us finally to concentrate fully on the quality of life for
America's future.
Mrs. Young's book will help educate the public on the plight of
ordinary citizens who challenge the wisdom of "semi-secret" govern-
ment and industry decisionmaking. Her perspective is sharp as she
writes with conviction and idealism:
As we put into orbit satellites that beam messages around the earth
in seconds and see on our television screens views of the earth that
encompass three continents in a single shot, it is impressed upon us
that our home is limited both in space and in time. Earthspace is
precious. There will never be any more of it. It can only be stretched
by learning to use it more wisely.
As the push for greater energy production continues to intensify,
we can only hope that the nation adopts this principle and uses our
land more wisely, and that the broader quality-of-life values that
Mrs. Young writes of so well will supplant the single-minded alliance
of technology and economics that has brought us to the environment-
energy crisis of the 1970*8.

Washington, D.C. Stewart L. Udall

October 1972
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Fbwer Over People
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 1
A Quiet Place

As you drive east from Kinnikinnick on Ohio Route 180, the coun-
tryside becomes gently rolling with varied vistas of rich farmland. You
pass over a series of little roller coaster rises, then over a sharp crest,
and you come suddenly upon a small village nestled in a hollow be-
tween two hills. A white sign announces the dimensions of the town:
LAUREL
unincorp
Settled in 1807
Population 104
About three dozen houses of assorted ages are strung out along the
roadside, each with its plot of grass, its dahlias and nasturtiums, its
line of laundry flapping out in back, and in front a porch with a chair
or two for sitting out on a warm day. A steepled church stands at each
end of the village and the center is marked by a pair of red gas pumps
in front of the general store.
The size and personality of this village have not changed appreci-
ably in the half-century that I have known it. Innovations have come
and have been absorbed slowly and inconspicuously, improving its
comforts without destroying its character. The brick one-room school-
house is no longer used for its original purpose. The children are
bussed to a central school eight miles away, but the schoolhouse has
other uses now. It is a gathering place for special occasions—4-H club
meetings, fish fries, and strawberry socials. Almost every house in the
3
 Power Over People 4
village has a well, indoor plumbing, a telephone, television, and elec-
tricity. As a matter of fact, Laurel was one of the last communities in
this part of the United States to receive electric service. For many
years the nearest lines were five miles away, and the power company
said that it was too expensive to extend the lines five miles to service
this small village and outlying farms. As late as 1936 gas and kerosene
were still used to light the homes here. It was not until 1937 under
the Rural Electrification Administration that they were electrified.
Fortunately, however, the town has also been bypassed by most of
the obscenities of progress. It has no neon lights, no billboards, no
housing developments, no supermarkets. The general store is just one
room large but it provides a rich assortment of shopping possibilities.
There one can pick up the mail, collect the evening newspaper, and
hear the local news, as well as buy frozen foods, hardware, nylons,
fresh country eggs, and almost any staple grocery item. There are al-
ways baskets of fresh vegetables and fruits from the neighboring farms
and several specialties for sale such as Pearley Jones's dark clover
honey and the wonderful stuffed sausage made from the proprietor's
old family recipe and sold here for the past hundred years.
All in all, Laurel is a very good place to live—clean and quiet with
miles of beautiful unspoiled countryside right at its doorstep. To the
south and east rise the foothills of the Appalachians. Here are 30,000
acres of state forests with picnic areas, camping grounds, and nature
trails. Here are limestone formations carved by glaciers into spectacu-
lar deep grottos, box-canyons, room-size caves, and hidden waterfalls.
Beyond the state parks lie miles of wooded country, extending nearly
to the Ohio River, covered with forests of oak, maple, and pine. Peo-
ple who live nearby can enjoy the forests in all seasons. They can
walk there in the autumn when the flaming crimson of sumac floods
the little glens and valleys with color, or take a picnic supper to Tar
Hollow in the spring when the park is starred with dogwood and
carpeted with banks of blue myrtle.
On the other side of Laurel, to the north and east, the land falls
gently away and then levels out into a wide bowl of very productive
farmland. This valley was one of the original prairie lands discovered
5 A Quiet Place
by the settlers who came out to Ohio in the eighteenth century. An
unusual characteristic of the Great Lakes region, these expanses of
grassland set in among the hardwood forests seemed especially re-
markable to the early pioneers. Letters and reports sent back east con-
tain descriptions such as these: "I could not help pausing frequently
when I struck the first burr-oak opening I had ever seen, to admire its
novel beauty. It looked more like a pear-orchard than anything else to
which I assimilate it—the trees being somewhat of the shape and size
of full-grown pear trees, and standing at regular intervals apart from
each other on the firm level soil. . . ." "The prairies consisted of level
stretches of country covered with sedge-grass, and dotted here and
there with patches of scrubby burr-oak growing upon the highest
points of land. The sedge-grass grew to an enormous height, sometimes
sufficient to hide man and horse when traveling through it."
The pioneers soon discovered that these small stretches of open
country were particularly desirable as farmland. Crops could be
planted more easily there, without the labor of clearing forests. The
deep sod was hard to break but the dark loamy soil uncovered by the
plow was richer than the lighter colored soil of the forest land. The
larger prairies in Illinois and farther west presented greater difficul-
ties for the homesteader. They were windswept and more exposed to
extremes of climate; there were no nearby forests to provide timber
for houses; and the grasses did not grow as tall as the big bluestem
and the Indian grass of the small eastern prairies.
Naturalists are undecided about the origin of these small eastern
prairies. Why should one piece of land support prairie while another
nearby is covered with maple and beech trees, with trillium and
bird's foot violet in the shade below? Many answers have been sug-
gested. Dense prairie sod, once established, is a poor seedbed for trees.
Frequent fires favor grassland over forest. The roots of many trees
need fungi in unions called mycorrhizae to function well; perhaps
these fungi were absent from the grasslands. One of the most favored
explanations is that these prairies were established during a dry period
following the last glaciation. Grasses flourish and expand at the ex-
pense of forests in dry climates. In more recent times the climate of
 Power Over People 6
this region has become cooler and moister, allowing the forests to en-
croach on the prairies, so that the prairies have become small open
expanses set among woods. If this theory is true, the eastern prairie
represents a relic from very early days. The tall grasses which the
pioneers found there had grown undisturbed for centuries and had
built some of the world's most fertile soil.
The prairie north of Laurel was settled early. My ancestors came
before 1800 and bought 700 acres of property from Isaac Dawson, a
Revolutionary War hero who had acquired the farm by a land grant.
The original property contained a large log barn and a two-story log
house. The upper floor of this house was one enormous room which
served as dance floor and meeting place for the other settlers and their
families. The barn, which still stands, was built of hand-hewn solid
timbers and fastened together with wooden pegs. According to local
tradition, church services were held here before the Lutheran church
was built in the village.
For seven generations the land on this farm has been cultivated
conservatively, the crops rotated year after year, the thistles cut down
by hand, and clover plowed back under the soil so that the cycle of
productivity could begin again. With improved farming methods, the
system has been updated. Rotation was changed from a four-year to a
three-year cycle. Just very recently the prairie fields have been planted
in continuous corn. Since the fodder is no longer removed and used
as bedding for livestock, it can now be plowed back to provide or-
ganic humus. Manure from the feedlots is spread on the land and
chemicals are added sparingly as needed. Year after year the land
responds by putting forth larger crops.
From the farmhouse porch on a midsummer day you can look out
across hundreds of acres of prairie land where row upon row of
young corn converge toward a distant rim of blue hills. Light breezes
stir the green leaves, turning the scene into a rippling sea of light and
shadow. If it is a typical summer afternoon the loudest noise may be
the drone of bees in the honeysuckle and the occasional deep clunk
of a bull frog down by the pond.
This is deep country, where one feels totally immersed in a bar-
7 A Quiet Place
mony of man with nature. It is not a breath-taking scene like the
Grand Tetons or the Amalfi Coast but it is wonderfully peaceful and
restoring. To all members of the family that has lived there for almost
two centuries this view is the heart and soul of the farm. On the day
before my father died, after a long and terrible illness, he asked to be
carried over to the window so he could "look out across the fields once
more." His wife and sister carried him; he weighed only seventy-nine
pounds.
It is easy to write off this kind of affection and personal involve-
ment as sentimentality; and there are many who feel that sentimen-
tality has no place in the world today. These people should be cheered
by the knowledge that there are fewer and fewer places on earth
where a man can experience any creative partnership with a portion
of nature. True, he can still go on a camping trip to Glacier Park, but
that is not the same kind of experience. In two weeks it is not possible
to participate in the intricate interrelationship of living things or to
sense the deep inner rhythms of nature. But the tune of our times is
set to another rhythm—a noisy accelerating rhythm which searches
out every quiet place. Sentimentality is a luxury that cannot be toler-
ated; it might get in the way of progress.

It was September 1969, and in the central offices of the Ohio Power
Company in Canton, a plan was approaching fruition. Several years
of study and computation by Ohio Power and its parent company
American Electric Power had resulted in the decision to build a large
power plant near Cheshire on the Ohio River and to carry this new
power diagonally across the state of Ohio to connect with lines lead-
ing into the Detroit industrial area and with Commonwealth Edison's
lines just south of Chicago. Power could be sold at a good price to
these vast industrial complexes and could be generated with maximum
economy by using the cheap high-sulphur coal strip-mined near the
Ohio River. The Chicago and Detroit areas, and many other parts
of the country, were beginning to enforce regulations forbidding the
use of high-sulphur coal without installation of expensive anti-pollu-
tion devices, but southern Ohio was not one of these areas. Economi-
 Yoichi R. Okamoto

An accelerating rhythm that searches cut every quiet place.

Eliot Porter
 Power Over People 10
cally it appeared to be advantageous to produce the power for these
cities on the Ohio River even though it meant transmitting the power
all the way across the state.
Maximum economy in transmission was a key factor in this plan.
Along the diagonal path of the line there were several places that had
to be avoided. Large city areas like Columbus are expensive to cross,
for lines must be put underground. Avoiding the city would require
a bend in the line; this could be handled most conveniently at a town
named Marysville. A straight-edge laid across the map from the
chosen point south of Cheshire to Marysville intersected the little
village of Laurel. It was a fortunate thing, executives of the power
company observed, that the whole lower third of the line passed
through rural areas and "backwoods" country. They knew from ex-
perience that they were less apt to encounter resistance from poor and
uneducated owners. As one man put it, "It's easier to screw the hill-
billies."
The plan had been a well-guarded secret. It was very important
that no advance knowledge should alert people along the intended
right-of-way; there must be no opportunity for community action
opposing the erection of the line. But each piece of property had been
photographed and plotted from the air. The route representing the
greatest economy had been precisely determined and drawn up in
detail. All that remained now was to notify those concerned and force
as rapid a settlement as possible.
The agents worked in groups. Armed with their drawings and con-
tracts, they fanned out across the countryside near Laurel. Adjoining
farms were approached simultaneously in order to maximize the sur-
prise element and to minimize the possibility of neighbors consulting
with each other. Tempted by the payments offered in compensation—
although these payments were actually very low—a number of farmers
signed on that first day. Others held back, postponing the evil moment
they knew to be inevitable. They were far-sighted enough to under-
stand that the sum of money they would receive would be spent in a
short time but the transmission line would still be there for their life-
times, perhaps for their children's and grandchildren's. The ones who
11 A Quiet Place
held back benefited financially in the long run. Several of the last
ones to settle were paid seven times the amounts they had been of-
fered initially.
An agent knocked on our door that day but found no one at home.
By the time he did find us about two weeks later, we already knew
the basic facts and thought, hopefully, that we had some reasonable
compromises to suggest.
The agent, Mr. Jackson, was a small man with a brisk, decisive
manner. He was anxious to complete this transaction as quickly as
possible. It was already late in the day and he hoped to be back in
Canton that evening. We led him out onto the porch and sat down
facing the view of the prairie. Mr. Jackson spread his drawings on the
table. The route that had been selected for the power line, he ex-
plained, cut diagonally across the widest part of our farm from the
southeast to the northwest corner and passed directly between the
house and the prairie fields. It would cross just to the north of the pond
there, he said.
My eyes followed his pointing finger to where the soft line of wil-
lows ran down along the brook to the pond. The glow of late after-
noon sunshine turned its still surface to a mirror of gold and high-
lighted the yellow leaves of the great sycamore tree. In its shade the
cows stood with heavy udders, rhythmically switching the flies off
their backs, waiting for the evening milking.
Yes, Mr. Jackson admitted, the sycamore tree would have to go.
And the willows. The right-of-way would be 200 feet wide, and in
this strip no trees or shrubs would be allowed to grow. Somewhere
there—perhaps where the sycamore now stood—would be a tower one
hundred and twenty-five feet tall. Two more towers would stand be-
tween the house and the fields.
How much would it cost, we asked, to put the line south of the
house where it would not intercept the view. He smiled at the naivete
of this idea. "A billion dollars," he said, "would not move this line
one foot!"
"This is no ordinary power line," he went on with obvious pride.
"It will carry 765,000 volts, the highest voltage of any line in the
world."
 Power Over People 12
Perhaps he sensed then that he had revealed too much, for we were
unable to obtain any more information from him about the design
and construction of the line. In fact, as we discovered later, no power
company officials would release any technical information concerning
it. Our attempt to find answers to our questions led us, during the
next two years, into university laboratories, technical libraries, and
government offices. The facts we unearthed about the new extra-
high-voltage lines are presented here to the public for the first time.
The hazards associated with this "technological triumph," the short-
sighted and materialistic policies of the industry that lies behind it,
should be matters of deep concern to the American people.
 2
Power Transmission
Pollution

Everyone agrees that electric transmission lines are appallingly ugly,

but suggesting that they may also be sources of audible and electrical
pollution is as surprising as saying that the homely freckle-faced boy
next door is guilty of rape and sodomy. Most electric transmission
lines look innocent enough. No flickering fires play along the wires.
No smoke pours off them. The air in their vicinity appears unaffected
by their presence, and when we pass under them there is no sound or
sensation of the millions of kilowatts that are passing directly over our
heads.
This situation, however, is rapidly changing. Unsuspected by the
vast majority of people, thousands of miles of transmission lines that
will produce a wide spectrum of visual, audible, and chemical pollu-
tion effects are being rushed to completion throughout the United
States. These lines are just the beginning of a new trend in power
transmission that threatens to degrade millions of acres. Unsightly
metal structures will stand as tall as twelve-story buildings on fertile
farmlands-and wooded hills across America.

Visual Pollution
Over the past century citizens of industrialized countries have be-
come acclimated to the visual pollution of overhead lines. Accept-
13
 Power Over People 14
ance has occurred by slow degrees in the same way that all forms of
pollution become established: they begin with very small changes in
our environment, so small that they seem to be totally insignificant,
and increase by tiny increments day by day so that the changes are
hardly noticeable. Lulled by long familiarity with the polluting fac-
tor, we hardly notice the steady but inexorable degradation of our
environment until one day we wake up and realize that the lake is
too polluted to swim in, the air is dangerous to breathe, and the fish
are contaminated with DDT. By this time the damage has gone so
far that to correct it requires vast expenditures of money and effort.
It may necessitate the reorganization of an entire industry—such as
the automotive industry—or the nationwide reconstruction of a pub-
lic service such as the waste disposal system. Because the demand for
the service or the product has escalated along with the source of pol-
lution, crash programs must be undertaken in order to find an accept-
able alternative before the damage can be arrested.
If we are serious about preserving our environment, problems must
be recognized early, potential damage assessed realistically, and alter-
natives considered before any industry or public service has become
very deeply committed with large capital outlay in machinery and
equipment. We should beware especially of those who attempt to
justify new factors known to be damaging by such phrases as: "The
effect is hardly any more than . . ." or "It represents only a small
percentage of the total to which we are exposed" or "It is so minor a
change as to be negligible." Any change which is harmful and which,
by its nature, may increase or be cumulative should not be permitted
to become entrenched.
The acceptance of overhead lines began with the invention of the
telephone. The public's enthusiasm for this remarkable new form of
communication overcame any resistance that might have been felt
against these ugly additions to our landscape. At any rate, telephone
poles are relatively low, partly obscured by trees and buildings. We
got used to them, and after a while we didn't notice them any more.
As telephone service increased and was brought to rural communities,
we became accustomed to seeing the lines stretch out along country
15 Power Transmission Pollution
roads, silhouetted against the countryside. In general, they followed
streets and highways on public property and rarely crossed private
property except to bring service to that person's home. It didn't occur
to many people to object to this minor form of visual pollution.
Then, with the invention of electric lights, lines very similar in
appearance to telephone lines brought this new magic into our homes.
At first, the new lines followed the same paths as the telephone lines.
Five wires were not much worse looking than two. The poles were
a little higher but just a small amount. We got used to that change,
too. Then, as the electric industry learned how to produce power at
higher voltages, taller poles became necessary. This change also took
place so gradually that we didn't really notice. Electrical engineers,
however, knew that power could be transmitted more economically
by running the lines directly from the source of power to the point
of consumption. The newer electric lines began to be constructed
across private property.
About this time, towns and suburban communities recognized that
the tangle of wires and poles along the streets confined traffic pat-
terns and impeded construction projects. Eventually some communities
passed ordinances requiring that lines be placed underground. But
underground transmission was more expensive to install; so, as soon
as the town limits were passed, the electric and telephone lines
emerged again into full view.
In the meantime, the electrical engineers were making rapid strides
in designing higher voltage equipment. Great stress was placed on the
development of this technology because electricity is transmitted
more economically at higher voltages. The power delivered is the
product of the voltage and the current. But the losses caused by heat-
ing along the line are least when the power is transmitted at high
voltage and low current. Then, since high voltages are very danger-
ous, the transmission voltages are transformed to safer levels near the
locations where the power is to be used. It is delivered to the customer
at no and 220 volts.
There is, however, one disadvantage to high-voltage transmission.
The lines that carry the power must be larger, or a different kind of
 Power Over People 16
loss called corona discharge begins to occur. In order to keep losses
to a minimum, either the diameter of the conductors should increase
as the voltage increases or the number of them should be increased.
One consequence of the necessity for larger or more numerous conduc-
tors is the need to build stronger supporting systems. The poles of the
lower voltage lines are not adequate for high-tension lines. Steel or
aluminum towers usually support the conductors that carry high volt-
ages for transmission over long distances.
During the late forties and early fifties these towers began to mush-
room over the countryside, and the heavy lines swooped in long arcs
against the landscape. There was no longer much resemblance be-
tween the relatively inconspicuous telephone lines and the high-
tension electric lines, but the principle of acceptance had been estab-
lished and there was no public outcry.
The towers carrying the i38,ooo-volt lines were just the beginning.
By 1952, lines carrying 345,000 volts were being erected. These lines,
of course, required much heavier conductors and more massive steel
towers. In the i96o's several lines were energized at 500,000 volts and
then, in 1968, construction was started on a network of lines designed
to carry 765,000 volts. The towers for these lines are enormous metal
structures, measuring 90 feet at the cross arms and 120 to 135 feet
high. These are the towers that will stand like so many steel scare-
crows between our house and the view of the valley. Where today we
watch the swallows dip low over the fields in long graceful arcs, to-
morrow we will see the swoop of heavy conductors outlined against the
hills.
"You'll get used to them," a power company official told me. "You'll
be surprised how quickly it will happen. After a little while you'll
hardly notice them at all."
The really frightening thing is, of course, that he is right. This
ability to look without seeing is part of the adaptation we are all
making to a rapidly deteriorating environment. We look around bill-
boards and over superhighways and under transmission lines and
pretty soon we don't really see at all. In an effort to protect ourselves
from the jarring impact of ugliness we are slowly becoming desensi-
17 Power Transmission Pollution
tized. It is alarming to think what this by-passing of our sensory per-
ceptions will do to man's creativity. Can we have artists who do not
see or poets who are not moved by natural beauty?
I am reminded of Ren6 Dubos's wise comment: "Man . . . can
adapt to almost anything. That is the real tragedy. . . . As we be-
come adapted we accept worse and worse conditions without realizing
that a child born and raised in this environment has no chance of
developing his total physical and mental potential."
The next generation of children that grows up on this farm will
not have the same advantage as the generations that went before
them. They will never know the peacefulness of this unspoiled scene
nor look forward to the end of a summer day when they can watch
the golden light of reflected sunlight spread across the fields. They
will have to learn not to see and not to listen in order to live with the
irritation of a constant buzzing noise accompanied by sharp crackling
along the high-power line—because, gigantic as these towers and con-
ductors may be, it turns out that they are not large enough. There
will be a continual discharge of electricity into the air and this dis-
charge will be audible and occasionally visible.

Electrochemical Pollution
It may come as a surprise to many people to hear that the lines that
carry these enormous voltages are not insulated. In fact, no transmis-
sion lines are insulated like the electric cords in our homes. The bare
wires pass overhead, in many cases, no more than 35 to 40 feet above
roads and farms. The theory is that air is a good insulator, and this
is true up to a certain critical voltage. Beyond this point any increase
in voltage causes the air to break down as an insulator, and,electricity
is discharged into the air. The critical point at which this corona dis-
charge occurs depends on a number of factors inherent in the design
of the line, such as the diameter and spacing of the conductors. In
general, the larger the diameter of the conductors and the wider the
spacing, the higher the voltage that can be carried without reaching
the critical voltage.
There is, however, a practical limit to the width of spacing that can
 Power Over People 18
be achieved on an overhead structure. Conductor size also has natural
limitations. An advantage can be gained by using "bundles" of conduc-
tors instead of single ones, and this advantage increases with the num-
ber of conductors in each bundle. But it is offset by the greater
weight, complexity, and expense of the construction. The diameter
of the conductors used in the bundles is also a very significant factor
in determining the critical voltage of that line. For a given design
and spacing the diameter of the conductors should increase as the
applied voltage increases if electric losses from conductor to air are to
remain constant.
These losses are quite different in nature from the heating losses
due to the resistance of the conductor. In this case the electrons are
actually passing out into the atmosphere. You can visualize what is
happening in a very simplified analogy by imagining the electricity as
a stream of electrons racing at enormous speeds along the conductor
(they travel mostly on the outside surface of the metal). A conductor
with a large diameter gives them a less precipitous path to follow. To
the electrons, a large wire looks like a highway with gently sloping
shoulders, while a narrow wire looks like a mountain trail with sheer
drops on either side. Now imagine that the electrons are being pushed
and pressured from behind—the greater the pressure the more likely
they are to stumble and fall off into the abyss. Voltage is electrical
pressure, so when you increase the voltage you have to provide a
broader highway or you will get an increasing number of fatalities
along the line. Any roughness of the surface of the conductor also
increases the likelihood of losing some of the electrons, just as rocks
and ruts along the mountain trail increase the likelihood of a disas-
trous fall as you speed along it.
No man-made conductor can be smooth enough to look perfectly
uniform to objects as small as electrons. There are inevitable varia-
tions along the surface even before the line is installed. After it has
been in use for a while it becomes weathered, corroded here and there,
and encrusted with particles of soot; and these irregularities are more
significant. Rain and snow have an even larger effect on the geometry
of the line. Raindrops collecting under the line look like upside-down
19 Power Transmission Pollution

mountain ranges to the electrons traveling along the conductor; they

increase the probability of the electrons leaving the surface. These
variable factors cannot be controlled, but a line that is designed to
operate with a considerable safety margin will not often produce
corona discharge.
As transmission voltages have steadily risen, it has become increas-
ingly difficult to use conductors of large enough diameter to provide an
adequate safety margin. Engineers are faced with the mechanical
problems of supporting larger and larger structures. The wires be-
come stiffer to coil and heavier to string. One might assume that these
facts would eventually impose a natural limit on the extent to which
voltage increase can be carried.
There is, however, another way of looking at these same facts,
which offers a striking example of what one might call the "techno-
logical mentality" at work. If the situation is studied only as a cost
analysis problem, it turns out that smaller conductors and towers are
sufficiently cheaper than those theoretically required for the job so that
the companies can lose quite a lot of electricity and still come out
ahead. As they go to higher and higher voltages without increasing
the cost of the line in direct proportion, they decrease the unit cost
of electricity. Therefore, they can afford to lose more and more of it,
and so on—in an ever-increasing spiral.
The rationale for this type of engineering goes back more than
sixty years to Lord Kelvin. His "law" stated that the economical size
for a conductor is that for which the additional annual charges on the
investment exactly equal the additional annual cost of the energy lost.
Lord Kelvin lived in an era when prodigality with natural resources
was the rule in industry and the discharge of waste products into the
environment was not recognized as constituting a danger for society.
The power companies are still using this wasteful and oversimplified
criterion in choosing their designs.
The principle of economy through deliberate waste is built into our
whole industrial system. For instance, it is cheaper to build automo-
bile engines that have a poor thermal efficiency than to build engines
that would achieve a more complete use of the fuel. The cars can be
 Power Over People 20
sold cheaper; so more cars are sold. Mass production reduces the unit
cost, and so on—another spiral dependent on the principle of economy
through waste. The examples are endless. It is cheaper to produce
power by burning high-sulphur coal without attempting to utilize the
chemical products of the qombustion. It is cheaper to throw away beer
cans than to collect them and recycle the metal. It is cheaper to allow
old automobiles to rust in graveyards around the countryside than to
transport them to a factory and salvage the materials.
However, there is a hidden price for these economies. The price is
paid by all of us in the form of a steadily increasing load of waste
products poured into our atmosphere, our lakes and rivers—the ex-
haust fumes from automobiles, the smoke from factories, the piles of
trash.
What can we do to prevent these wasteful spirals from becoming
established? It is certain that the earlier they are identified the better
chance there is of controlling or redesigning the processes to yield
more acceptable solutions. As an industry becomes more deeply com-
mitted financially to one mode of operation, its resistance to change
rises exponentially. So whenever a new technological breakthrough is
announced—a cheaper, more "efficient" production method—we should
look to see what is being thrown away in the process. Is the waste
product derived from one of our non-renewable natural resources?
Is it an item that may become scarce in the foreseeable future? Is it
something that will degrade our environment? When these factors are
considered many of the cheap ways of doing things turn out to be
more expensive than advertised.
At first the amount of the waste product produced may be small
and the effect not readily apparent. This is true of the electric waste
on our transmission lines. The majority of the lines we see today are
designed to operate at about 50 or 60 per cent of critical voltage. If
they are properly maintained they rarely produce corona discharge
except under extreme weather conditions. However, the higher volt-
age lines are being designed to operate closer and closer to the critical
voltage and produce corona discharge for a larger percentage of the
time. Because of the conductor size and spacing chosen for the first
21 Power Transmission Pollution

7 65 kv lines constructed by the American Electric Power Company,

they operate at about 83 per cent of critical voltage. With this high an
operating-to-critical-voltage gradient the very smallest discontinuities,
such as tiny scratches or grains of pollen on the line, cause corona
discharge. These factors are always present, even in fair weather.
Therefore, there is a constant crackling and humming sound and,
at times, blue glow along the line. Rain or snow storms result in
sound effects resembling Niagara Falls as electricity pours into the
atmosphere.
Unless action is taken to reverse this alarming trend in high-voltage
transmission design, the discharge of electricity into our atmosphere
will occur in ever-escalating amounts as more 765-^ lines mushroom
over the countryside. And even these are just the beginning. The
electric utilities are already planning transmission lines that will carry
1,500,000 volts.
It is important to recognize, however, that it is not the transmission
at higher voltages per se that causes the unnecessary waste and pollu-
tion. Transmission at high voltages offers an efficient way of moving
electricity; and transmission lines can be built that carry these voltages
without such heavy losses. The fault lies with the principle on which
these lines are designed. This principle dictates the choice of the
cheapest possible construction in order to transport electricity with
maximum economy, trading the cost of the lost electricity for the cost
of the better construction. This economy is achieved at the expense of
our environment.
Electricity is derived from our non-renewable natural resources,
which are expected to be in short supply in the next few years. When
energy enters the atmosphere in the form of high-voltage corona
discharge, it initiates electrochemical processes known to be harmful
to all living things, and at the present state of our knowledge there
is no way of removing these chemicals from the atmosphere at
any price.

In corona discharge, high-energy electrons leave the surface of the

conductor, strike the molecules of the air, and cause them to split into
 Power Over People 2.2
molecular fragments. Air is normally composed of molecules of nitro-
gen, oxygen, and other gases in a relatively quiet, unreactive state.
Each gas molecule is a well-balanced entity and therefore has an
intrinsic stability. Now when such a molecule is struck by a fast
electron coming off a high-voltage conductor, several different things
may happen. The impacting electron may knock off one of the elec-
trons orbiting the nuclei of the atoms. This produces a free electron
and a molecular fragment called an ion. Another possibility is that
the impacting electron can impart additional energy to one of the
orbiting electrons, which creates an excited molecule. But an excited
molecule is an unstable arrangement and may break down into single
atoms. These single atomic configurations are called free radicals. They
are more stable than excited molecules but not as stable as the original
gas molecule.
In general, all the products of corona discharge are more reactive
and have higher energy content than the starting products. The extra
energy, of course, comes from the electrons that pour off the high-
tension lines. These bundles of energy are passed back and forth like
hot potatoes between the various molecular forms as the effect diffuses
into the surrounding air.
These physical changes may involve any of the various types of
molecules present in the atmosphere, which is a mixture of many
different constituents. Oxygen and nitrogen are the principal ones,
but there are traces of other elements as well—helium, neon, argon,
krypton, and xenon. Several compounds, such as carbon dioxide and
water vapor, are always present. Various impurities like sulphur diox-
ide and carbon monoxide are present in varying amounts, particularly
around industrial areas.
When we remember that all the processes mentioned above can
occur with most of these molecules and that each of the fragments can
enter into combination with a large number of the other molecular
fragments, we can appreciate the great complexity of corona chemis-
try. The air surrounding the discharge becomes a veritable seething
cauldron of electrical and chemical activity. It is filled with excited
molecules, free electrons, free radicals, heat, and light, which creates
23 Power Transmission Pollution
the characteristic blue glow. The effect spreads rapidly into the sur-
rounding air as the free electrons go on to impact other molecules and
as the molecular fragments seek out other fragments with which to
recombine. There are many processes involved, and a few of the
chemicals formed are considered to be particularly damaging to living
things.

One of the most important reactions involves the element oxygen,

which comprises about 21 per cent of the atmosphere. The normal
oxygen molecule contains two atoms; when it is struck by a high-
energy electron, excited molecules, free radicals, and ions are formed.
These combine with normal oxygen molecules to form a special type
of oxygen molecule containing three atoms. This molecule, known as
ozone, is much more reactive than oxygen. Ozone can even be ex-
plosive under certain conditions.
It has long been known that the action of the ultraviolet component
of sunlight on the earth's atmosphere produces some ozone. This re-
action occurs primarily at the uppermost level of the atmosphere
where the energetic ultraviolet rays first encounter the oxygen mole-
cules. The layer of ozone formed by this process absorbs the ultra-
violet radiation and thus acts as a screen, filtering out the highest-
energy portion of the solar radiation. This makes it possible for life to
exist on earth; if the earth were not protected by the layer of ozone,
the ultraviolet portion of the solar radiation would destroy the fragile
organic molecules that comprise all living things. It is also fortuitous
that the ozone layer occurs very high above the earth's surface so that
we are not directly exposed to high concentrations of this extremely
reactive chemical.
Eventually a small proportion of the ozone molecules formed at
high altitudes find their way down to the lower atmosphere. In addi-
tion there is a little ozone formed all the time at our level. Simultane-
ously, some of the ozone is gradually converted back into oxygen or
is used up in other chemical reactions. The net result of all these
processes is that our atmosphere has a very minute but measurable
component of ozone, about .01 to .03 parts per million. Normally the
 Power Over People 24
proportion tends to be higher in rural areas than in cities, perhaps
because of the more direct action of sunlight. Recently, however, it
has been increasing in cities, and the discovery has been made that
certain polluting chemicals help to start the process of ozone forma-
tion.
Ozone has a distinctive odor. In fact, the name is derived from the
Greek word ozein, to smell. Its fresh, pungent odor similar to chlorine
is pleasant to some people. This fact plus the association with rural
environments led to the general belief that ozone was a beneficial and
revitalizing element in fresh air. People went to the country to breathe
the ozone. But in the last decade more careful study has led to a com-
plete reversal of this opinion. Ozone is now recognized to be one of
the most toxic elements in our atmosphere and the proportion of it is
increasing due to the various ways in which man is tampering with
the environment.
The man responsible for identifying the role of ozone in air pollu-
tion was the Dutch scientist A. J. Haagen-Smit, .who had come to the
United States about twenty years earlier and had been pursuing his
research on plant hormones at the California Institute of Technol-
ogy. Then one day as he was hurrying to his laboratory through a
;ypical smoggy Pasadena morning his attention was suddenly focused
on a peculiar odor that pervaded the atmosphere. Many people, of
course, were complaining about the smelly gray blanket of smog that
occasionally settled over the Los Angeles basin. But Dr. Haagen-Smit's
nose was unusually well-educated because odors had been occupying
his attention for the past few years. He had been investigating the
chemicals that control odors in plants and was concerned with such
questions as why onions smell different from pineapples. But the odor
that caught his attention that particular morning was not a sweet
fragrance like pineapple; it was sharp and acrid like chlorine.
Before the early I95o's the standard explanation of the smog in the
Los Angeles basin was that it derived principally from factory smoke-
stacks. But why should factory emissions produce a chlorine-like smell'?
To the curious mind of a scientist a question like this must be
answered; and furthermore, Dr. Haagen-Smit had the equipment to
25 Power Transmission Pollution
make the chemical analysis of the air in his laboratory. A condensate
of an air sample proved to contain water with a number of strong-
smelling compounds—acids, aldehydes, and peroxides. None of these
compounds were thought at the time to be products of factory emis-
sion. This discovery diverted Dr. Haagen-Smit from pineapples into
a lengthy investigation of the chemistry of air pollution.
One of the results of his research was the discovery that ozone is
present in surprisingly large amounts during attacks of smog condi-
tions in the Los Angeles area. It sometimes leaches concentrations
about twenty times the normal percentage in the atmosphere. The
reason for this large build-up of ozone appears to be a chain of chem-
ical reactions involving the waste products of automobile exhaust (and
to a lesser extent, factory and power plant emissions) and the ac-
tion of sunlight. At our atmospheric level the sun's rays are not ener-
getic enough to create ozone directly from oxygen but they are
energetic enough to break down one of the oxides of nitrogen, starting
a cycle of chemical reactions in which ozone is produced as well as free
radicals of oxygen and hydrogen compounds.
The products of this photochemical reaction are very similar to the
products of corona discharge. This fact is not really surprising since
both those phenomena involve the addition of extra energy to mole-
cules in the atmosphere. In corona discharge the energy comes from
the impact of high-speed electrons; in photochemical reactions it
comes from the ultraviolet portion of the sunlight. Ozone, nitrogen
dioxide, and various free radicals belong to a family of chemicals
known as •photochemical oxidants, photo because they are created by
the action of light and oxidant because of the type of chemical reac-
tion they initiate. Many of the most violent and destructive reactions
that we encounter everyday are examples of oxidation: the burning
of wood, the bleaching of colors, the rusting of metals, the explosion
of gunpowder. These reactions all occur with the release of energy.
In air pollution chemistry, photochemical oxidants are usually
measured together and reported as "total oxidant." Since Dr. Haagen-
Smit's pioneer work a great deal of study has been devoted to this
group of chemicals. Ozone is found to comprise about 90 per cent of
 Power Over People 26
the total oxidant in air pollution, and has therefore received the most
attention. However, several of the lesser members of the family are
especially interesting and may prove to have biological significance
far out of proportion to their prevalence.
One comparatively rare form of oxygen has recently been recog-
nized as a very lethal factor in air pollution. This is an excited state
of the oxygen molecule known as singlet oxygen. Like other excited
molecules, it is highly reactive and intrinsically unstable so that, on
the average, it exists for only a tenth of a second. This lifetime may
seem too short to be significant; but it is long enough for the molecule
to enter into biologically destructive reactions. Singlet oxygen is pro-
duced directly from corona discharge acting on normal oxygen and
also by the reaction of ozone with either normal oxygen or organic
molecules. Much further research is needed to understand the role of
singlet oxygen but at present there are strong indications that it plays
an important role in smog formation and that, furthermore, there is
a connection between singlet oxygen and cancer. Dr. Ahsan Ullah
Khan of Florida State University has proposed a mechanism by which
singlet oxygen can attack DNA or an enzyme to produce malignant
tumors. According to this theory, ozone breathed in from polluted
atmosphere can react with certain organic compounds to produce
singlet oxygen inside the body. These possibilities appeared real
enough to bring 135 scientists from the United States and foreign
countries to New York in October 1969 for an international confer-
ence on the role of singlet oxygen in the environment. Work is now
in progress in many laboratories on this rare molecule and we will
probably hear more about it in the near future.

Nitrogen, the most common element in air (78 per cent by vol-
ume), is one of the most neutral and benign substances in its normal
state. It is colorless, odorless, and nontoxic, serving as a diluent for
the much more reactive element oxygen. However, under electric
discharge or in high temperature combustion (as in automobile en-
gines and steam boilers used to generate electricity), nitrogen com-
bines with oxygen in various ways, the principal product being nitric
27 Power Transmission Pollution
oxide. In itself nitric oxide is relatively harmless, but it reacts with
ozone to produce nitrogen dioxide, the acrid, whiskey-colored com-
pound of smog. Nitrogen dioxide has been found to cause lung tissue
damage in laboratory animals and to cause increased susceptibility to
respiratory infection.1
The presence of this oxide starts the cycle that Dr. Haagen-Smit
discovered. Nitrogen dioxide is broken down by sunlight (or electric
discharge) to atomic oxygen and nitric oxide. Atomic oxygen com-
bines with oxygen to make ozone. The nitric oxide is converted again
into nitrogen dioxide and thus a cycle is set up, resulting in consid-
erable levels of these pollutants remaining in the atmosphere.
Nitric oxide can also react with water to create nitrous acid, which
is known to cause genetic mutations in plants and lower organisms.
There is considerable concern that nitrous acid in the human system
may produce cancer. This concern led to the banning of the use of
sodium nitrite in foods, because it has been shown that sodium nitrite
is converted to nitrous acid in the stomach.
Finally, there is a class of organic compounds containing nitrogen
(as well as carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen) suspected of playing an
intermediary role in the formation of toxic smog. This group of com-
pounds is known as PAN (short for peroxyacyl nitrates). The forma-
tion of PAN in the atmosphere is not very well understood but it is
thought to involve free radicals of oxygen, nitrogen oxides, and or-
ganic molecules. PAN is destructive to vegetation at extremely low
concentrations.
All of these highly reactive and toxic chemicals can be produced in
the breakdown of air by electric discharge. Yet electric companies
build thousands of miles of lines that create corona discharge without
any attempt to evaluate the effect of these chemical reactions on the
atmosphere along the rights-of-way where many people will spend a
large part of their lives.

Noise Pollution
Most of the dangerous effects of electric discharge take place with-
out any noise or visible signs to warn of their presence. However,
 Power Over People 28
certain phenomena associated with corona discharge are readily ob-
servable. When the air becomes a partial conductor, electromagnetic
fields are set up which interfere with radio and television signals.
Ever since high-power transmission lines have been used, complaints
about interference have been received by utility companies and, there-
fore, they do pay some attention to these problems in designing their
lines. But in order to reduce the radio interference, heavier and more
expensive construction is required. It is to the financial advantage of
the electric companies to build the lightest line that will be tolerated
by the people living nearby. The engineers' estimate of the maximum
interference that the public will accept is known as their "criteria
of acceptability."
In discussing radio reception the important relationship to keep in
mind is the ratio between the signal and the noise levels. The larger
this ratio, the better the radio reception. If the strength of the back-
ground noise is close to the strength of the signal then, no matter how
high you turn the volume, you will not be able to distinguish the
program from the noise.
Because of their proximity to radio stations, urban and semi-urban
areas have signal strengths much greater than do rural areas. There
is always a certain amount of background noise or static. Local atmos-
pheric conditions—storms, electrical disturbances such as corona
discharge—cause the background noise to increase. The standard classi-
fications of radio reception are described as: Class A, entirely satis-
factory; Class B, very good with background unobtrusive; Class C,
fairly satisfactory with background plainjy evident; Class D, back-
ground very evident but speech easily understood.
According to the published estimates of the American Electric
Power engineers, the signal-to-noise ratio at the edge of the right-of-
way of their 765-^ lines in rural areas was expected to be very much
poorer than the ratio of even Class D radio reception. And in foul
weather the noise level was expected to be greater than the signal.
The engineers attempted to justify their "criteria of acceptability"
on the following grounds: they hoped to maintain an average dis-
tance from line to dwelling of about 200 feet, at which distance the
2,9 Power Transmission Pollution

fair-weather radio reception in semi-urban communities would be

"fairly satisfactory with background plainly evident." Foul weather
reception would be Class D or worse.
There are three important reasons why these criteria are not accept-
able:
1. The majority of the people affected do not live in semi-urban
communities. The lines have been sited wherever possible through
rural and remote rural areas in order to avoid the expense of rights-of-
way through suburban property or the expense of underground con-
struction.
2. The line can pass closer than 200 feet to many homes. The elec-
tric utility companies buy a right-of-way 200 feet wide (100 feet on
each side of the center conductor). When they speak of the average
distance from dwelling to line, they include the fortunate homes that
happen to be quite far removed from the line. Obviously, if the aver-
age distance is 200 feet many homes are closer than 200 and some
may be right at the edge of the right-of-way. If so, the owner has no
legal protection even though his radio reception is entirely destroyed.
Furthermore, the land within a loo-foot strip on either side of the
right-of-way will never be suitable as future building sites.
3. Bad weather prevails nearly a fifth of the time. In the country,
people are apt to be out of doors in fair weather. It is during foul
weather that they turn to their homes and depend upon such enter-
tainment as radio and TV.
Just in case these "criteria of acceptability" prove too generous,
however, there is a way in which the standards can be even further
reduced. The power companies have discovered that lines designed
for one voltage can be run at a slightly higher voltage, thereby achiev-
ing an absolute peaking out of economy. For instance, Ohio Valley
Electric Company designed lines to carry power from Kyger Creek
to the Atomic Energy Commission's gaseous diffusion plant near
Piketon. These lines were designed to carry 330,000 volts but they
have actually been operated at 345,000 volts. "The transmission sys-
tem proved its design specifications and then some," they proudly
report. "Operation at 345,000 rather than 330,000 was not only fea-
 Power Over People 30
sible, but even more economical." This increase in voltage results in a
very large increase in radio interference and corona discharge.
I have driven under these lines from Kyger Creek. At a distance
of several hundred feet, the music on the car radio was drowned out
by noise like a million angry bees. The American Electric Power en-
gineers are frank in saying that they expect to increase the voltage on
the 765-^ lines. At first they will operate slightly below this level
until all the problems have been ironed out (such as complaints of
the property owners along the line). Then the voltage will be stepped
up until the line is operating at 775 or 800 kv, thus further over-
loading an already under-designed line.

Television reception is also affected by the electromagnetic fields

occurring around high-tension lines. Interference takes the form of
bright streaks or bands that drift slowly across the screen. Certain
channels are much more severely affected than others. The fre-
quencies used by Channels 2-6 are especially sensitive. Interference
on Channels 5 and 6 has caused many complaints.
American Electric Power Company expects to deal with the com-
plaints that arise by means of a truck set up as a traveling laboratory
to test and "correct" reception problems where they arise. In remote
rural areas with weak signal strength "corrective measures" will be
applied. The measures include the installation of huge antennas on
the rooftops and on nearby hills—more steel scarecrows to match the
towers in the fields.
The truck, of course, cannot be everywhere at once. During a storm
it can answer only a very few of the calls for service. But after a while
most people stop complaining. It is the experience of the utilities
that "many people will not initiate a complaint but would say that
the interference was not acceptable if we asked them." Eventually
the almost infinite adaptability of man will assert itself. People will
get used to looking at screens filled with streaks and obscured with
"snow."
In reality, the main object of the little traveling laboratory is to
help evaluate this project which represents one giant experiment—an
31 Power Transmission Pollution
experiment involving millions of dollars and many thousands of
people as guinea pigs. The designers hoped to "obtain more informa-
tion with regard to TV interference as soon as the first of the 765 kv
lines is energized." They also expect to acquire "experience useful to
possible reevaluation of radio interference bench marks for future and
higher voltage systems. . . . An immediate benefit is the utilization
of conductors which are economically closer to the system load trans-
fer requirements." In plain English, those statements mean that they
did not understand all the factors involved in TV and radio inter-
ference from corona discharge. They expected to learn about these
after they had built the line. They also intended to find out just
how far they could go in exploiting the economy of this type of trans-
mission before they encountered serious resistance from the Ameri-
can people.
It is a cherished belief in this country that we have a higher
standard of living than anyplace else in the world. So it is surprising
to learn that in some other countries the public interest is more
respected in these matters than it is here. Canadian engineers com-
mented that American Electric Power's y6jrkv lines would produce
more corona discharge and more radio interference than any other
lines in the world. The levels of radio interference, they said, would
not be tolerated in many parts of their country. "We would not dare
to build such lines in Canada; the public outcry would be too great."

With the introduction of the 765-^ lines a new noise problem be-
came a significant factor. These lines produce a continuous hum-
ming and crackling sound, which in rain or snow becomes a loud
roar. These audible effects are caused by the impact of air molecules,
like miniature thunderclaps. Surges of high-speed electrons and
charged molecules create little vacuum pockets in the air and other
molecules rushing in to fill these vacuums collide, producing the
sound.
Under the new 765-^ lines, noise levels of up to 70 decibels have
been recorded. At this level it is necessary to shout to be understood
in a normal conversation. Ninety decibels is the legal limit for noise
 Power Over People 32

levels that may be regularly imposed upon people during working

hours. Beyond that level employees must be protected to prevent
deterioration of their hearing. Many city dwellers are now protected
against irritating noise levels. For instance, in Chicago a city ordinance
forbids the installation of appliances that cause noise levels exceeding
55 decibels at the lot line in residential zones.
The first 765-!^ lines that were energized produced more au-
dible noise than the designing engineers had anticipated. Since audible
noise is directly related to corona discharge, it is reasonable to assume
that the amount of corona discharge is also greater than they antici-
pated. The power companies are receiving many complaints from the
people living near these lines. The noise wakes them up at night and
even on a fair day is a constant source of irritation. Unlike radio
and television interference, this audible noise does not diminish
rapidly as one moves away from the line. It changes very slowly
with distance and, therefore, more people are exposed to objection-
ably high levels. The power companies are planning to go to even
higher voltages in the very near future. Audible noise for voltages of
1000 kv, 1200 kv, and 1500 kv will present more serious problems.
But the utilities do not intend to allow this side effect to interfere
with their plans for going to these higher voltages. The most eco-
nomical design for these lines will be determined by the audible
noise levels that the engineers believe people can be forced to accept.
They are talking already about considering 60 decibels at the edge
of the right-of-way an acceptable noise level.

Second-Class Citizens
The attitude of the power industry is that it is permissible to im-
pose these unpleasant effects on rural citizens living along their
right-of-way. What if a few farmers must suffer a little inconvenience
of this kind in order that the rest of the people may benefit? But this
attitude violates the constitutional principle of equal application of
the law. The laws enabling the public utilities to appropriate land
for rights-of-way make it possible for them to impose environmental
33 Power Transmission Pollution
damage on rural property owners that would not be tolerated in
more densely populated areas.
In fact, the criteria of acceptability used by the power companies
make it apparent that they are not concerned with protecting the
rights of rural citizens. Their radio and television interference stand-
ards, for instance, consider only the requirements of urban resi-
dents. "The present basic philosophy," say the AEP engineers,
"places almost all of the weight on selecting a specific conductor di-
ameter that would allow satisfactory radio reception during fair-
weather conditions in urban areas." The application of these criteria
to line design means that the rural resident, living in areas where sig-
nal strengths are lower, will inevitably suffer. At the same time the
lines are being routed to avoid urban areas.
These design practices clearly discriminate against the rural citizen
and are recognized as being discriminatory by the industry. A pro-
fessional group of electrical engineers made the following comment
in a report on radio noise-level criteria: "The noise levels quoted . . .
raise an interesting question concerning the right of a rural listener
to expect quality reception equal to (or better or worse than) his
urban counterpart. Should additional monies be spent on transmis-
sion lines where only a few residences per mile are encountered,
even although the broadcast signals are at a low level? At what dis-
tance from the right-of-way should one expect to attain quality re-
ception? The acceptability of recently completed extra-high-voltage
lines will have to be assessed in the next few years. . . ."

Thus the power of eminent domain makes it possible for the

power companies to distribute high levels of visual and audible pol-
lution across the countryside arbitrarily, while the benefits of
cheaper power are funneled into the large industrial centers and sold
at wholesale rates to large consumers. The degree of protection of an
individual's rights depends upon where he lives (a concept that is
certainly at odds with the principles on which this country was
founded). By these practices the electric utilities are destroying rural
values to increase the wealth of the cities. Furthermore the number of
 Power Over People 34
disadvantaged citizens is increasing every year. The network of lines
already constructed is approximately 1200 miles long and each mile
intercepts, on the average, four or five pieces of property. So we could
estimate that this network now involves approximately 25,000
people. And this is just the beginning. According to official govern-
ment projections, approximately 100,000 miles of new transmission
lines will be constructed each decade for the balance of this century.
By the year 2000 this network will have expanded into a vast steel
spiderweb enmeshing our countryside, .and the people who live be-
side these lines will number in the millions.
Remember also that once the investment has been made in these
lines, they will cast their shadow far down into the future. In the
meantime our civilization is becoming increasingly dependent on elec-
tronic modes of communication. Even today in remote country areas
they actually constitute the major source of information and cultural
exposure. Rural residents depend on television and radio to keep
them in touch with the rest of the world, provide recreation in bad
weather, and alleviate the loneliness of long winter nights. At these
times severe interference will virtually cut them off from this re-
source. It will also mean that rural residents cannot enjoy many of
the new electronic conveniences. Solid-state technology is rapidly en-
hancing the advantages of small portable sets. But these sets will not
be usable in the majority of homes along the EHV (extra-high-
voltage) transmission lines. Electronic intercommunication systems,
educational and shopping services via TV—these and other devices
projected for the near future will be subject to the same degradation
of quality in these locations. Yet these conveniences will mean more
to country people than to urban residents who already have goods
and services at their doorstep.
Imagine that you live in the hill country near Vinton, Ohio, per-
haps in the wooded valley of Little Raccoon Creek. The nearest
movie theater and public library are seventeen miles away by poor
roads; the nearest department store is fifty miles away; the nearest legit-
imate theater and art gallery are a hundred miles away. Several times
during the winter, snowstorms may make it impossible to reach the
35 Power Transmission Pollution

main roads at all. Imagine how you would feel if on those snowy
nights you found you were unable to get anything more than moving
streaks across the TV screen.
As time goes on the presence of high-corona transmission lines will
cause an increasing deterioration in the quality of rural life and will
help to accelerate the exodus to cities, contributing to the increasing
density of urban population, which is already becoming intolerable.
What we should be doing is the exact opposite—improving the con-
venience and opportunities of rural existence, encouraging people to
spread out where there is room to breathe without sucking in one's
neighbor.
Above all, we should be preserving the beauty and quiet of these
country settings, where a man can escape from the distracting roar
of a man-made environment—where he can enjoy the fro/en silence
of a winter landscape or listen to the myriad tiny living sounds of a
meadow on a hot summer day. Living in these quiet country places,
a man can lose himself in a larger organic whole and know the seren-
ity that comes from finding his own place in the endless diurnal
cycles and the slow turning of the seasons.
Country people do not talk much about their relationship to nature
but they know it is their most precious possession. Officials of the
power company, accustomed to thinking that anything is for sale if
the price is high enough, are baffled by the attitude they frequently
encounter: "I don't care that much about the cash. I don't want a
million volts crackling overhead and I don't want your ugly towers.
I'd rather save my view."

Updating Notes, 1992

i. Recent research has shown that nitric oxide plays a complex role in
biological processes. Some effects appear to be negative; so we can no longer
assume that this oxide is harmless.
 3
The People Protest

WE THE UNDERSIGNED ARE OPPOSED TO THE INSTALLATION, BY

THE AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY OR ITS SUBSIDE
ARIES, OF A 765,000 VOLT POWER LINE ON OR NEAR OUR PROP-
ERTY. WE SPECIFICALLY PROTEST AGAINST THE INSTALLATION
OF SUCH A LINE BECAUSE OF THE HAZARDS TO HEALTH AND THE
NUISANCES EXPECTED THEREFROM.
Ira and Mary Wolf
Tessie Brown
Earl Gunther

The petition was passed silently from hand to hand around the room.
It was a warm Sunday late in May and the doors of the little school-
house were open, letting in a broad ribbon of sunshine and the dart-
ing shadow of a hummingbird busy in the wisteria vine that hung
heavy with lavender bloom over the front porch. Outside in the
schoolyard stood two long trestle tables left over from the strawberry
social held there the evening before, and beyond the schoolyard stood
the white frame United Brethren Church with its cluster of family
burial plots. Many of the graves here were marked with crumbling
tombstones dating back to pioneer days:

Eliza, daughter of Abraham and Magdalene Ranck, died

August 5, 1810. Aged two years, 2 months and 10 days.
Ephriem Hough . . . died July 5, 1820.
Livonia, wife of Nathaniel Kellenberger . . . 1816.
36
37 The People Protest
A few of the oldest stones bore German inscriptions from Pennsyl-
vania Dutch families that had come over the mountains and settled
here at the end of the eighteenth century:

Hier Ruhet Catarina Dresback

Gebornen den Jahr 1730
Gestorben den 15 Juni 1805

Many of those same names were going down on the petition inside
the schoolhouse.
Irma Kellenberger, the postmistress. Her grandfather and father
had been postmaster before her.
Ellersly and Mildred Ranck—Mildred was noted as one of the best
cooks in the county. If you wanted to buy one of her famous hickory-
nut cakes at the fish-fry you had to speak for it days ahead.
And old Jennie Dresback. Jennie, who still wore her sunbonnet
even on Sunday. She had given birth to twenty-two children and
raised eighteen of them.
Damon and Ora Pontius, who grew such delicious strawberries
that in season people came from miles around to buy them. Their
flavor was as sweet as tiny wild berries and yet they were so large that
only four or five could be packed in a pint basket.
Kiziah Hostler Hough—known as Aunt Kiz to everyone in the vil-
lage. For the past thirty-five years she had taught Sunday school in the
Lutheran church, and she was always in the vanguard of every local
cause.
Donald and Alice Mueller. Donald was County Health Commis-
sioner and Alice was head surgical nurse at the county hospital.
They commuted fifteen miles every weekday in order to live in the
village of Laurel where he had grown up and where his father had
operated the general store—known in those days as Mueller's Depart-
ment Store. Alice and Donald had taken one of the oldest houses in
the village and remodeled it. From the outside it looked like a doll's
house—tiny and neat. Inside it was surprisingly spacious and well
appointed.
In their spare time Alice and Donald were birdwatchers. They be-
 Power Over People 38
longed to conservation societies and had many out-of-town friends.
Because the area around Laurel was particularly scenic and attracted
a number of unusual birds, other birdwatchers from the nearby cities
came and often they visited the Muellers. On weekends and summer
evenings they could be seen tramping through the fields and woods
armed with binoculars and cameras.
They knew the pond where the kingfisher lived and the nesting
place of the horned lark in the copse back of Aunt Jo's hill. They
often visited the corner down on the Old Swamp Road where the
cool call of the whippoorwill could be heard every summer evening,
filling the valley with its tranquil, melancholy sound.
They knew also that the prairie land to the north of the village was
rich in wild life; muskrats, rabbits, field mice, and oppossums were
abundant there, particularly in the tall grasses and brush by the deep
ditch that ran along Whistler Road. Migrant birds attracted by the
food and the light cover often stopped there to rest on their long
journeys—golden plover flying from Alaska to southern Argentina-
snow buntings and Lap'and longspur migrating from the Arctic
tundra to Louisiana and the Carolinas.
To these birdwatchers the prairie land along Whistler Road was a
uniquely lovely place. They had written a description of it for the
Audubon Society: "Some of us," they said, "have known Whistler
Road for many years, others not so long but all of us have learned to
appreciate its stillness of a winterday, the effortless flight of the great
Hawk, the covey call of the Bob-White as the day ends and the
Short-Eared Owl rises up from the dense grasses and on silent wings
hunts for food, as he has done for ages past."
The news that a high-power line would cut a broad swath across
the prairie and along Whistler Road had shocked the Muellers into
action. Even though they had no property directly involved in the
right-of-way, they had been among the first to raise their voices
against it. Alice had contacted most of the local people and had called
the meeting at the schoolhouse. She had written to the Audubon So-
ciety and several conservation societies. Some of these groups had
sent representatives to the meeting.
39 The People Protest
One of the main objects of getting together, Alice explained, was to
exchange information. The agents of the power company had been
very careful to dispense as little information as possible, thereby mak-
ing it difficult for neighbors to cooperate in opposing the line. Each
landowner had been shown only the path of the right-of-way through
his own property.
From the Department of the Interior Alice had obtained detailed
Geological Survey maps, and at the meeting each farmer drew in the
path of the line across his property. As the route took shape across
the geological map, one thing became immediately apparent. The
line was routed through a portion of Tar Hollow, the State Forest.
A mutter of resentment passed around the room.
'They don't have no right to use park land."
"Our taxes pay for that park."
'We shouldn't stand for such a thing happening to Tar Hollow!"
exclaimed Aunt Kiz. "Why don't we all lie down in a row in front
of the bulldozers like the Israelites in front of the Roman legions!"
The suggestion met with general enthusiasm.
"I heard of an old woman down in Kentucky who stopped the
strip-miners that way," Alice said. "Still, I'm not sure these people
wouldn't run right over us."
Most of the meeting was spent discussing the dangers of the
proposed line. Everyone had something to contribute. "My brother-
in-law has a line over his farm," volunteered one of the landowners.
"Not so high powered, neither, and he has a real hard time getting
his cattle to go under that line. He says the hair on their backs stands
straight up on end."
"I have a friend who is on the Public Utility Commission," said
another farmer, "and I asked him—'Is it true, all this stuff about a
line like that being dangerous?' 'You don't know the half of it,' he
told me. 'You can get a shock bad enough to knock you down just
getting on and off your tractor under a line like that!' "
"They say all the fences have to be grounded and the barns and
the farm machinery—how about the farmers? Are they going to
ground us, too?"
 Power Over People 40
The current of anger swirled back and forth as everyone spoke
his mind. But the meeting finally broke up on a hopeful note. "I
don't believe the government will allow it," said Jesse Snyder. "Not
if they know it might do as much harm as all that."
"Sure," rejoined his brother. "It's just a matter of bringing this to
the attention of the right authorities. We ought to write our senators
and that federal power outfit down in Washington. They'll do some-
thing about it. If it's harmful the government won't allow it."

Alice Mueller volunteered to write the letters. And so as the weeks

passed a steady stream of correspondence began going out to senators
and representatives and government agencies from the little house in
Laurel, Ohio.
 4
"Tne Government
will Protect Us"
Weeks of correspondence and consultation with lawyers and govern-
ment agencies revealed the surprising and shocking fact that in Ohio
(as well as in many other states) there was no public body that had the
power to pass on the design of electric installations or the responsi-
bility for protecting the health and safety of the citizen in these
matters. Furthermore, there is no federal body with jurisdiction over
most of these electric installations. The Federal Power Commission
has authority only over facilities related to hydroelectric projects. The
Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction only where lines cross navi-
gable rivers. Even the Environmental Protection Agency has the right
to require review of only those projects that are licensed or financed
by a federal agency. There is no mechanism by which a citizen or
group of citizens can seek protection from installations they consider
to be dangerous without incurring large legal expenses. In designing
the equipment, choosing the route, distributing the "benefits," the
only party that has any rights is the power industry. How did such
an extraordinary vacuum of legal safeguards for the protection of the
public come about?

The Right of Eminent Domain

The right of eminent domain grants to electric companies the right
to appropriate private property (or an interest therein) as is deemed
41
 Power Over People 42
necessary for the generation and transmission of electric power. The
declaration of reasonable necessity by the company is accepted as
prima facie evidence and the law specifies that, except in very un-
usual situations, the issue must be resolved in favor of the utility. If
any objections are raised the burden of proof is on the property
owner. In appropriation proceedings the only issue supported by
precedent is the valuation of the property condemned for right-
of-way.
A legal commentary contains the following statement: "A broad
discretion is necessarily vested in those to whom the power of emi-
nent domain is delegated, in determining what property is necessary
for the public purpose, with respect to the particular route, line, or
location of the proposed work or improvement; and the general rule
is that the courts will not disturb their action in the absence of fraud,
bad faith, or gross abuse of discretion."
These extraordinary rights were given to the electric companies in
order to make it possible for them to perform a service to the commu-
nity, to bring electric power most efficiently to the greatest number
of people. At the time the rights were granted the electric utilities
were young companies. They had an enormous job to do with limited
resources and a still undeveloped technology. A maximum of legal
protection, against obstruction by private citizens was reasonable to
speed the distribution of electricity throughout the country. At that
time the transmission lines were relatively innocuous, small in size
and carrying low voltage. The only hazard that caused concern was
possible contact with a live wire, perhaps a wire downed by wind
or ice storm. The electric companies were as anxious as the public to
prevent this type of accident because it resulted in a complete loss of
power along their line and was expensive to repair. Public interest
and private enterprise at this stage were working in the same direc-
tion. Electrical engineers built better and stronger supports. Accidents'
were rare; the public was lulled into a sense of security.
As the years went by, however, the economic success and fantasti-
cally rapid growth of the electric industry compounded the problem
by adding the power of a vast financial empire to the power of emi-
43 "The Government Will Protect Us"
nent domain. The electric industry now possesses the greatest capital
wealth owned by any industry in the United States. Today it is diffi-
cult to find a law firm or a board of directors of a large company that
is not in some manner involved with the power industry. Similarly,
ma,ny of the men who make decisions at state and federal levels hold
office or own shares in the utility companies. This concentration of
power has created an unprecedented situation. In this industry we
have a federally protected monopoly granted practically unlimited
power to force its will on the American people and yet it is a business
organized to. make money. In many vital decisions it does not put the
public good above its own profit and, in a sense, we cannot reasonably
expect it to do so.
In many countries of the world public utilities are government
operated. They have the same unlimited powers that our utilities
have but their aim is to serve the people. If electricity cost a little
more to produce and transmit safely with minimum impact on the en-
vironment, a government-operated utility would be in a position to
make that choice. A utility operated for profit can always be expected
to opt for maximum economy unless compelled to do otherwise.
The chief objection to government ownership of public utilities is
that efficiency of operation might be sacrificed if the profit motive
were removed. But economy and efficiency are the very motivations
that have led directly to the problems we are now encountering. An
important decision facing the American public today is how to control
the public utilities in order to obtain proper consideration of public
safety and minimize degradation of the environment. Should we go to
complete governmental ownership of the utilities, or can protective
mechanisms be set up which will permit private ownership to con-
tinue and at the same time ensure responsiveness to values affecting
the quality of life in this country?
Unfortunately, the electric power lobby is fighting hard to prevent
any restriction of the extraordinary powers and prerogatives the in-
dustry now possesses. As Business Week magazine put it: "The big-
gest single fear private utility executives harbor is that the federal
government will increase intervention into what they regard as their
 Power Over People 44
domain." The intransigence of the power lobby may lead to more
sweeping controls than those they presently fear as the people awaken
to the dangers of the special privileges now vested in these companies.

Public Utility Commissions

Over the years a number of government agencies have been set up
and legislation passed to protect certain aspects of the public interest
against discriminatory or dangerous practices by the electric utilities.
In forty-seven of the fifty states regulatory commissions have been
created which have some degree of jurisdiction over electric compa-
nies. (Minnesota, Texas, and South Dakota are the three without such
regulatory agencies for electric utilities.) These commissions are re-
sponsible for authorizing rate changes and enforcing safety codes
adopted by the state in question. In some states the public utility
commissions require certification before a power plant or a transmis-
sion line may be constructed. However, thirteen state commissions
are without any licensing authority at all, and several commissions
have this authority only under special circumstances.1
Of the twenty-nine states that require formal authorization before
power plants and transmission lines can be built, about half require
that public hearings be held before a license is granted. In the re-
maining states hearings may be held if requested by an intervenor
or at the discretion of the commission. Even the holding of a public
hearing, however, does not guarantee a fair consideration of objec-
tions to the proposed installation. The public utility commissions are
charged with promoting the safety, health, and convenience of the
public. But because the commissions are composed almost entirely of
industry-oriented people, they interpret this to mean primarily the
provision of adequate electric power at the lowest possible rates.
Public notice of a hearing is usually made only thirty days before
the hearing is held. So while the utility company has had years to
prepare its case for the hearing, intervenors have only thirty days to
prepare their case, to assemble expert witnesses, and to obtain the
affidavits which are usually necessary to present evidence at the hear-
ing. As a practical matter this short notice and the legal expenses in-
 45 "The Government Will Protect Us"
volved prevent any effective opposition to the power company's plans.
The licensing becomes simply a rubber-stamp operation; and after a
license has been granted by a state commission, the private citizen
has no right to question the design, the location, or the safety of the
installation.
Furthermore, a right-of-way is granted in perpetuity and the utility
is given a completely free hand in making any repairs, alterations, or
additions to the transmission system once it is installed. For this rea-
son, a hearing on the safety of a proposed facility has, at best, only
the most transitory value. The specifications can immediately be al-
tered at the discretion of the utility.

National Electric Safety Code

In 1915 a series of recommendations for the design of electric
equipment was drawn up by the National Bureau of Standards.
These recommendations are known as the National Electric Safety
Code. They provide safeguards against shoddy manufacture of elec-
trical equipment, inadequate household wiring, and similar problems.
Revised editions also set standards for transmission line design.
However, only certain portions of this code have been adopted as
law by the various states. In Ohio, for instance, the NESC standards
for transmission lines are binding only in localities where the lines
pass near railroads or public communications systems. Furthermore,
the code was drawn up before the days of really high-voltage tech-
nology. The safety factors considered in the NESC standards for
transmission lines are almost entirely concerned with avoiding actual
physical contact with the conducting cables. To use these standards
for extra-high-voltage equipment is like applying horse-and-buggy
traffic laws to a modern superhighway.
With the advent of extra-high-voltage transmission, a number of
potential hazards that had never merited serious concern have be-
come significant. Between the transmission lines and the ground
there is a strong electric field. If a metallic object such as an auto-
mobile or a piece of farm machinery comes into this field, it takes on
a voltage that is some fraction of the total voltage between the con-
 Power Over People 46
ductors and the earth. And if the object is insulated from the ground
(by rubber tires, for example) a charge builds up. Then when the
object is suddenly grounded by a person touching it, a current flows
through the person to ground, the amount of current depending in
a complex way on the electrical characteristics of the .object, its size
and shape, and its distance from the transmission line. The larger the
area of the object and the closer it is to the line, the more current
will flow when it is grounded. The magnitude of this current deter-
mines the seriousness of the electric shock sustained.
If the current is large enough, the person is not able to release his
hold on the conducting object and current continues to flow through
his body. The threshold of danger is determined by the current a
person can tolerate when holding the charged object and still be able
to let go of it using the muscles directly stimulated by the current.
The safe "let-go" threshold includes a safety margin and is given as
9 milliamps for men, 6 milliamps for women, and 4.5 milliamps for
children.
Dr. Charles Dalziel, who has made very extensive studies of these
effects, says: "If long continued, currents in excess of one's let-go cur-
rent, passing through the chest, may produce collapse, unconscious-
ness, asphyxia, and death. Ventricular fibrillation is probably the
most common cause of death in electric shock cases, and may be pro-
duced by moderately small currents that cause derangement of coor-
dination within the heart rather than physical damage to that organ.
When fibrillation takes place, the rhythmic pumping action of the
heart ceases and death rapidly follows."
Calculations made by electrical engineers and published in profes-
sional journals show that it is theoretically possible for a person com-
ing into contact with a long metal object such as a pipeline, a fence,
or a gutter under a 765-^ transmission line at the minimum heights
now in common use to experience charging currents exceeding a
man's safe let-go threshold. For a child, of course, the hazard is
greater. Currents over 0.5 milliamps—far below the let-go threshold-
are also considered dangerous because they may cause involuntary
movement and trigger a serious accident.
47 "The Government Will Protect Us"
A working group of electrical engineers made a study in 1971 of
electrostatic effects and tested shock from various-sized vehicles
parked under high-voltage transmission lines. Their report states that
lines carrying voltages under 500 kv do not produce shocks that cause
major physiological damage. They recommend that parking of ve-
hicles on rights-of-way for lines of 230 kv or less could be safely al-
lowed under controlled conditions, but that the parking of vehicles
under lines carrying higher voltages "should be reviewed on an in-
dividual basis." Yet'people who live next to the rights-of-way for 500-
and 76j-kv lines are not cautioned about such dangers. Children
are allowed to play under the transmission lines. Farmers are told
that there is no hazard in parking large pieces of farm machinery
under the line; and to lull their instinctive fear of these effects they
are told that any shocks received would be "similar to touching a door-
knob on a cold day."

It is a strange and awesome sensation to walk under a fully ener-

gized 765-kv line and feel oneself coming into the strong electric
field. The hair on one's arms stands up. There is a feeling of stimula-
tion and tension in the air like the atmosphere just before an electric
storm. The long-term effects of living most of one's life in such an
unnatural environment have not been scientifically evaluated, but it
is reasonable to suppose, that the biological effects may be profound.
Each living cell has electromagnetic fields associated with it and biol-
ogists have only the most fragmentary information on the influence
of external electric fields on the operation of the cellular organization.
Pasteur believed that an understanding of the significance of strongly
directional external fields might provide an important insight into the
nature of living things. Now, a century later, these questions are still
unanswered, and many people are being subjected to these environ-
ments before their influence is entirely understood.

In answer to questions concerning the safety of the NESC stand-

ards as they applied to extra-high-voltage transmission, the following
statement was obtained from the National Bureau of Standards:
 Power Over People 48
The clearances in NBS Handbook 81 were promulgated long
before the development of 765!^ transmission systems. A sub-
committee to reevaluate clearance provisions is now being or-
ganized, However, it will be some time before any revisions are
made to the code in this area. Generally, changes to the Na-
tional Electrical Safety Code are not made until after there has
been a fair amount of experience with a new development and,
insofar as the code is concerned, transmission at 765 is still
probably in the developmental or experimental stage.
This letter was written in May 1970, after 200 miles of this type
of line had been operating for a year. Three other lines of the same
design were under construction. Yet the code that is supposed to pro-
tect the citizen against danger from such installations cannot be
changed until "after there has been a fair amount of experience with
a new development." Apparently, damage must be demonstrated lye-
fore protective laws are passed. In the meantime thousands of unsus-
pecting citizens are allowed to serve as guinea pigs for each techno-
logical experiment.2
The National Electric Safety Code specifies minimum heights to
be maintained over several different classifications of land use: rail-
roads, public streets, driveways, and "ways accessible to pedestrians
only."
There is practically no place in the United States today that is ac-
cessible to pedestrians only, but that is still one of the major classifi-
cations listed in the code. Farmland, on the other hand, is not specifi-
cally listed. Fifty years ago these classifications were reasonable
because farms were usually accessible only to pedestrians and ani-
mals. But now some utility companies take advantage of the am-
biguity of this antiquated code by using the pedestrian-only category
to apply to farmland even though modern farms are highly mecha-
nized. Large pieces of farm machinery—tractors, grain elevators,
combines, corn pickers—may stand 15 feet high and often pass di-
rectly under the line in the course of farming activities. Because the
build-up of static charge on vehicles depends on their size and their
distance from the conductors, transmission lines over farmland should
maintain at least the same minimum clearance as they do over roads.
49 "The Government Will Protect Us"
The American Electric Power Company engineers designed their
lines to come within 40 feet of the ground over farmland, 45 feet over
roads, and 50 feet over railroads. From these figures it is apparent
that the minimum height over farmland is planned to satisfy the
NESC standard for ways accessible to pedestrians only. Other elec-
trical engineers, commenting on this design, questioned the propriety
of this interpretation of the code: "We are ... interested to note
the 'ground clearance' which seems to be that specified as 'spaces or
ways accessible to pedestrians only.' It has been our practice in recent
years to pass over this type of clearance since terrain falling strictly
into this classification is not usually traversed by transmission
lines. . . ."
Attention was also drawn to the fact that no safety margin had
been added for the clearance over railroads. Safety margins of sev-
eral extra feet are normally added to minimum standards to allow for
slight errors in survey or construction. In answering this comment
the American Electric Power engineers say frankly, "This margin
was not included for railroad crossings since the clearance value de-
termined from the code seems overgenerous."
The omission of this margin means that because of construction or
surveying errors the minimum distance over railroads will sometimes
be less than the minimum required by law. In these cases the lines
are subject to state regulations because they cross railroad tracks.
Such nonconforming lines have been built and are now operating.
More are on the drawing board. Why are lines permitted that do not
conform with state law?
Unfortunately, the law is not enforced. Since there is no govern-
ment agency to review the design before construction, failure to com-
ply with the code is not anticipated. After the line is built no one
checks it. The power company knows from experience that no au-
thoritative measurement will be made of the exact distance between
the railroad tracks and their lines carrying nearly a million volts. They
take advantage of this legislative vacuum.
In Canada, where the electric utilities are government operated,
the Canadian Electric Code designates a special classification for
 Power Over People 50
"farmland likely to be traveled by vehicles." Their highest-voltage
line, which carries 735 kv, has a minimum clearance of 45 feet over
farmland.
The power company engineers attempt to solve the problem of
electrostatic charge by grounding all the conducting surfaces—fences,
corn cribs, metal roofs, even clothes lines—not only in the right-of-
way, but also within one hundred feet of its edge. Grounding, how-
ever, protects only from charge induced on stationary objects. It does
not protect the man who attempts to fill a gas tank under the line.
The induced charge under these circumstances could cause a spark
and a fatal explosion. Grounding does not protect the boy with a
model airplane, or a child with a kite. These hazards will increase in
magnitude as the power industry goes to even higher voltages—1500
kv is considered "a certainty" and 2000 kv is "within reastin."

Air Quality Standards

Increasing public concern about air pollution has resulted in a
number of new regulations at federal, state, and local levels. Under
the terms of the Clean Air Act of 1970, each state has the responsibility
of drawing up its own set of air quality standards, which must meet
minimum National Air Pollution Control Administration Standards.
The implementation and enforcement of the standards is at the state
level.
In December 1970, Ohio adopted Ambient Air Quality Standards
for photochemical oxidants (as well as for carbon monoxide and
hydrocarbons). Demonstration of compliance with these standards
requires an accurate knowledge of the amounts of oxidant present
on an hourly basis over a year's time. However, there is no adequate
theoretical basis for computing the concentrations of oxidants that
may be expected to build up near high-voltage lines under varying
electrical and weather conditions. The problem is a complex one in-
volving wind speed, temperature, humidity, and the presence of other
pollutants in the atmosphere, as well as the complicated chemistry of
electric discharge itself.
One might suppose that the electric companies, planning to go to
51 "The Government Will Protect Us"
lines with higher and higher corona losses, would have devoted some
time and thought to these effects, but they have not. The first four
765-kv transmission lines were built without any consideration of the
air pollutants they might create. Now, in order to demonstrate that
the air quality standards are satisfied and that new lines presently
being constructed will also satisfy the laws, continuous measurements
over at least a year's time should be made in the vicinity of fully
energized lines. At the present writing, continuous measurements of
this kind have not been made.3

Updating Notes, 1992

1. All states now have public utility commissions.
2. Subsequent editions of the National Electric Safety Code did not in-
crease the clearance standards for 765-^ lines. A few states (eight at the
present writing) have adopted some limits for the electromagnetic fields
experienced under transmission lines but these limits are so large that they
do not protect the citizen. For example, Florida and New York have adopted
200 mG at the edge of the rights-of-way for 5oo-kv and 765-^ lines.
3. This statement is still true 19 years later.
 5
A Bend in the Line

Kiziah Hostler Hough drove her rather antiquated green Chevrolet

slowly down the narrow farm lane. She rattled over the cattleguard and
started to turn the last sharp corner. In another minute the house
would come into view, its soft pink brick framed with green foliage.
Aunt Kiz had spent a long afternoon in town. She had gone to the
bank and visited the butcher shop. She had left her gardening shoes
to be half-soled and had gone to three stores before finding a good
serviceable cotton dress for summer. Finally, on her way out of town,
she had stopped at the Cryder farm where she had arranged to buy
a pair of Muscovy ducks. They were ensconced now on the back seat
of her car, flopping wildly in a perforated cardboard box.
It was late and Aunt Kiz was weary. As she negotiated the last turn
and saw the house set in its little grove of trees she was immediately
aware that something was wrong. There seemed to be a strange empty
place between the fir tree and the springhouse. I'm tired, she thought,
and passed her hand over her eyes, but when she looked again the
empty place was still there. It grew more obvious as she drove nearer.
She stopped the car by the orchard fence and got out. There in the
deep grass lay the gnarled old pear tree, the oldest fruit tree on the
farm. Its trunk was sawn off six inches above the ground. A little
farther on branches from the sweet cherry tree were strewn right and
left; and farther still, at the back fence row, the entire clump of rasp-
berry bushes had been chopped down, the brush tossed in a heap on
either side. In the center of the newly bared space stood a stake with
52
53 A Bend in the Line
a red band at the top. Another stake was just visible across the pas-
ture, almost hidden by the crest of the hill.
Aunt Kiz grasped the fence post and steadied herself. Part of her
mind rejected what she saw—it couldn't be true—it must be a bad
dream. But the other part knew only too well what had happened.
The surveyors from the electric company had come there while she
was away.

Aunt Kiz had sent the right-of-way agent packing when he had
called on her eight months earlier. She had not agreed to the right-of-
way nor given permission to survey. As it happened, Aunt Kiz's prop-
erty would be more severely damaged by the construction of the line
than any of the other local properties. The right-of-way would pass
just 100 feet from the corner of her house; it would bisect the or-
chard, causing the destruction of at least a dozen fine fruit trees. A
tower would occupy the site of the old vine-covered springhouse and
rise like the skeleton of a skyscraper beside the small screened veran-
dah that looked out across the fields.
"We'll pay you a good price," the agent had assured her. "Why
don't you sell out, take your money and buy a little home in Florida?
The weather down there is real good for older folks, you know, much
better than here."
Aunt Kiz gave the agent a severe look. "Young man," she said,
"when I am ready to be turned out to pasture, I'll pick my own time
and place. I don't need the electric company to do that for me!"
The agent persisted, trying to persuade Aunt Kiz to sign a paper
granting permission for the surveyors to come onto her property. "It's
just a formality," he said. "It doesn't commit you on the right-of-way."
"What if I don't sign?" she wanted to know.
"Then we'll just go into the county courthouse and get a court
order. When we come back here with the sheriff you'll have to let the
surveyor in. It's the law."
"I don't know much about the law," said Aunt Kiz after a little
thought. "But it does seem to me that signing would commit me. The
Ohio Power Company is planning to rob me of my view of the fields,
 Power Over People 54
my springhouse, and my orchard. Signing this permit would be like
giving the robbers the key to the house."
This house in which Aunt Kiz had been born and had spent almost
all of her life was an unusually handsome one. It had been built early
in the nineteenth century, before the first settlers realized that the
native Ohio clay made very fine bricks. The bricks for this house had
been brought on muleback over the mountains from Pennsylvania.
Aunt Kiz's great-grandfather, who had built the house, had brought
some sophisticated architectural ideas with him from the East, too.
The house had a spiral staircase, a fan-lighted front door, a graceful
carved mantlepiece in the living room, and wood paneling made from
black walnut boards harvested on the farm. Aunt Kiz had heard her
grandfather tell many times how as a small boy he had ridden the old
bay horse that ground the mortar used in building the house.
Aunt Kiz had lived at the farm all her life except for a few brief
years of marriage that ended when her husband was killed in the
First World War. Then, after her parents had died, she continued to
stay on in the old house, although she did not own it entirely. Two
nephews who lived in Chicago had each inherited a one-third interest
in the place. At first they had been anxious to sell and had questioned
whether it was safe for her to live there alone.
"Nonsense," said Aunt Kiz, "I feel as safe here as in God's pocket."
Finally the nephews agreed to hold the house and sell off most of
the farmland. Aunt Kiz lived there by herself but she filled her time
with many interests. She had an extensive flower garden. She had her
Sunday School class and often invited the children back to her house
for a dish of homemade ice cream or a picnic lunch in her shady yard.
As she grew older Aunt Kiz began hiring a village girl or boy to come
in and "do" for her—to help with gardening and window-washing and
the heavier housework. These young people were not paid a great
deal but they were the recipients of many other benefits. She sent
two of the boys through the evening course at the university exten-
sion in town. One of the girls was married in Aunt Kiz's house in
front of the lovely carved mantlepiece.
Aunt Kiz's most faithful helper was "Taterbug" Brown. Taterbug
55 A Bend in the Line
was not his real name, of course, but a nickname applied first in de-
rision by his contemporaries and later in affection by everyone who
knew him. Taterbug was extraordinarily undersized. Standing less
than five feet tall, he did not have an extra ounce of fat on his wiry
body. His small size made it difficult for him to find work as a regular
farm hand, so ever since he had left school he had worked at odd
jobs. Three days a week now he he.lped Aunt Kiz.
Earlier this spring Taterbug had made a little duck pond in the
meadow. A stream of fresh water ran down from the old springhouse
past the calf-lot and disappeared into the brook that bordered Aunt
Kiz's property. She had thought many times how pleasant it would
be if this stream could be dammed up to make a little pond where
she could keep ducks. One day she explained the idea to Taterbug.
"Why sure, that would be real nice," said Taterbug. A few hours
later he had collected a wheelbarrow full of stones and had started to
build a dam. Over the next two weeks the dam was completed and
the spring water slowly filled the little hollow at the bottom of the
meadow, making a cool sliver of blue edged with deep grass and
clover.

The morning after the surveyors had visited Aunt Kiz's property
Taterbug came to work, riding his bicycle. At the top of the first hill
he stopped to look for the pond. There it was just beyond the calf-lot,
its shiny surface reflecting the pale morning sky. As he watched a pair
of big black and white Muscovy ducks climbed out on the bank and
shook their feathers.
So, she done went to town yesterday, and got them ducks, he
thought, and began to whistle as he rode on toward the house. He
passed the orchard. Then suddenly he stopped and stood staring in-
credulously at the felled trees and bushes. He couldn't imagine what
had happened.
After a few minutes Aunt Kiz saw him and walked out. Together
they started picking up the branches, collecting them in a pile. Aunt
Kiz explained the meaning of the stakes.
"Please pull the brush away and burn it, Taterbug," she said. "And
 Power Over People 56
saw up the pear tree for firewood. It's bad enough to lose old friends
without having to look at their corpses."
Taterbug worked at this job all day with a heavy heart. He remem-
bered the sweet raspberries that those bushes had borne, and how
Aunt Kiz loved a dish of ripe berries for supper.
When he had finished clearing away all the branches and brush he
was suddenly struck by the emptiness of the space that was left. He
looked at the surveyors' stake and anger welled up in him. He
wrenched the stake from the ground and started to hurl it into the
wheat field. Then another idea struck him. He replaced the stake
carefully in its original hole and ran down to the other stake in the
meadow. Turning back, he lined up the two stakes, then saw on the
neighboring farm a third stake, standing on a little rise of ground.
Sighting along these three, Taterbug could see exactly where the
transmission line would go, how it would pass straight through the
springhouse and cut a swath through the center of the orchard and
pass close to the side of Aunt Kiz's house. He went back to the stake
he had pulled out and, muttering angrily, he moved it about fifty
feet farther away from the house. There he drove it carefully into the
ground again just as deep as it had been before. Once more he went
back and sighted along the three stakes. Now, he noted with satis-
faction, the line missed the springhouse. It even missed most of the
orchard. From the side porch the tower would be partly screened by
trees.
That's much nicer for Aunt Kiz, Taterbug decided. Of course, it
would mean a bend in the line—but not a very big bend. He imagined
just how pleased Aunt Kiz would be. Well, maybe not pleased but
less downright miserable, he thought as he got on his bicycle and
started pedaling slowly down the lane.
 6
Trees or Towers

The representative of the Ohio Conservation Society who had at-

tended the protest meeting made an official inquiry into the routing
of the line. Would it pass through the state forest lying southeast of
Laurel?
"Yes," the spokesman for the power company admitted. "But just
a little of it—and, after all, what are a few trees compared to progress?"
By "progress," of course, he meant cheaper and more abundant
electric power. How many trees would be sacrificed to attain that
goal? Each mile of right-of-way passing through a heavily wooded
area would require the destruction of about ten thousand trees.

The state forest known as Tar Hollow covers 16,000 acres. This
land was purchased by the state of Ohio around 1930 and developed
during the depression years, largely by WPA labor. Many miles of
bridle trails and footpaths were opened up. Log shelters were built
with stone fireplaces for cookouts. Several small streams were
dammed to make little lakes for boating and fishing. These- facilities
are scattered thinly and very unobtrusively over the many acres of
forest, and it is possible to spend hours in the park enjoying its beauty
without encountering other people. There are protected sunny banks
where trillium makes a dense carpet in the springtime and paw-paw
trees drop their soft, redolent fruit in the fall. There are deep woodsy
glens where Jack-in-the-pulpit and rare pink lady slippers push their

57
 Cedric Wright

A few trees compared with progress.

Yoichi R. Okamoto
 Power Over People 60
tightly curled petals through the thick mat of oak leaves and pine
needles on the forest floor. In deep cool grottos streams drip over moss-
covered stones and the straight trunks of beech and hemlock grow
sometimes fifty feet tall before they spread their branches to catch
the sunlight. From the high open ridges it is possible to look out over
undulating miles of similar forest extending south and east toward
the Ohio River.
Hardwood and pine forests such as these came into being over
many centuries, as the result of a slow evolution from the original
grasslands through a succession of different plant communities. The
intense sunlight and dry soil of grasslands are poor seedbeds for most
trees. Cedar and poplar seedlings are among the few that can with-
stand these severe conditions and even these take hold very slowly in
prairie land. As these trees grow, they provide some shade so that the
ground beneath them is cooler and moister, producing a favorable bed
for the seeds of hardwood trees such as the oak and red maple and
tulip tree. The foliage of these trees eventually shades the cedar and
poplar that nursed them, robbing them of the sunlight for which they
are best adapted. Now the forest floor is a better seedbed for hard-
wood trees than for the cedar and poplar, so the earlier species are
crowded out. Eventually the towering crowns of the newcomers pro-
duce such dense shade that their own seedlings will not grow. Only
certain trees—such as the hemlock, beech, and sugar maple—can
sprout and mature in dense shade. Temperature, rainfall, and soil
conditions create further limiting factors that determine which of
these most favored species will win the struggle for survival in this
particular forest. The species that thrive best in this environment
finally take over to form the climax forest. No other trees can com-
pete with them under the conditions that become established by this
evolutionary process.
The successional pattern exemplified here is typical of evolutionary
changes in a biosphere. The pioneer organisms exert a very strong
influence on their environment, usually changing it so drastically that
it becomes unsuitable for their own progeny. Transitional organisms
also alter the environment, but more gradually. They eventually give
6i Trees or Towers
way to climax organisms that are perfectly adapted to the environment
that they themselves create. By maintaining a state of equilibrium
with their environment, the climax organisms are able to maintain the
position of dominant species with relative permanence. But if sud-
denly destroyed, the climax organisms cannot be immediately restored;
the whole slow process must begin again.
The mature forests of Appalachia are unique in the variety of their
vegetation. These forests, known to the botanist as mixed mesophytic
forests, are characterized by a climax growth in which dominance is
shared by many species: beech, tulip trees, basswood, sugar maple,
sweet buckeye, chestnut, red oak, white oak, hemlock. This unusual
association develops only in moist but well-drained locations in tem-
perate climates, and on slopes protected from excessive exposure to
the sun or drying winds. No other land in the Americas or even in
the world (with the possible exception of certain areas of China) pro-
vides the combination of ideal conditions that supports such a luxuri-
ant variety of climax growth.
The soil characteristic of these areas is the most productive forest
land on earth. The top layer of humus, consisting of dark, almost
black earth, is crumbly and friable, often extending to a depth of
sixteen inches. Leaching of essential minerals from this humus layer
takes place more slowly than in most other types of soil. The water
and essential nutrients are retained, contributing to the rich under-
growth of ferns, flowering shrubs, and many wild flowers. The leaf
litter from the undergrowth contributes to the formation of the deep
humus layer.
In this ecologically balanced relationship, the soil and moisture con-
ditions contribute to the forest and the forest cover protects and builds
the humus layer and maintains the ideal moisture conditions. If any
part of this association is altered, the balance may be upset too far
to be corrected by natural processes. Small alterations can be cor-
rected by nature without permanent destruction of the creative rela-
tionship, so if forests such as these are cut over once and not otherwise
disturbed they often return in time to their original luxuriance. But
repeated cutting over or site changes causing erosion and altering
 Power Over People 62
drainage patterns may completely change the character of the soil
and the forest cover.
The hill region of southeastern Ohio lies in the western portion of
the mixed mesophytic forest region. Many of its slopes still contain
fine examples of this unusually variegated and colorful forest. Some
of the area, however, has already been cut over for timber and the
rationalization is often used that since it is no longer virgin forest, no
great harm will be done in cutting over again. This treatment throws
the ecological system so far out of balance that the mixed mesophytic
forest association cannot be restored. Not only does it totally destroy
a uniquely favorable forest environment, but it causes destruction
that affects areas hundreds of miles away.

Protecting the Watershed

In the rugged hills of this region many streams rise and flow south-
ward to join major tributaries, such as the Muskingum and the Scioto,
which eventually empty into the Ohio River. The flow of the Ohio
and its tributaries is the lifeblood of this whole part of the country.
The industries, the cities, and the transportation are all vitally de-
pendent on the river and are seriously disrupted by periods of drought
or flood. A well-managed watershed helps to prevent these extremes.
The thick green mantle of forest acts as a regulating factor, damp-
ing out the rise and ebb of water flow. In winter the branches of the
trees catch the snowflakes, holding them for days until they finally
melt and drip onto the snow banks below. Here, partially shaded from
the sunlight, the snow builds up, and melting is delayed over many
weeks or months. The ground below is protected from freezing by
the bank of snow and by the layers of dead leaves and other vegeta-
tion, so that as the snow melts it is immediately absorbed into the
open pores of the earth. There the soft humus of the forest floor holds
it like a sponge. Slowly, as the snow melts, this great underground
reservoir moves down into the valleys and prairie lands where it re-
plenishes the water table that nourishes the farm crops, the corn and
wheat characteristic of this part of the country.
In the spring and sometimes in the fall, when the heavy rains occur,
63 Trees or Towers
the many layers of vegetation in the forest absorb the rainfall and
protect the soil. Branches, twigs, and leaves break the impact of driv-
ing rain so it strikes the ground gently. The deep network of root
fibers holds the soil in place; and the decaying organic matter soaks
up the moisture, slowly returning it at a more leisurely rate to the sur-
rounding countryside. It is generally agreed that if the slopes of the
watershed remain in timber stands, its ability to function well is auto-
matically maintained.
It is apparent that the clearing of a broad swath across a forest
creates a path which is more conducive to rapid runoff of rainfall.
Along this barren strip no protecting branches shade snowbanks in
winter. Shallower root systems provide less resistance to erosion.
When the grasses die back in winter, the ground is more exposed to
freezing and thawing and does not act effectively as a giant sponge
to hold the water. The hard-frozen surface sheds the snow water like
a tin roof and the straight-line routing up and down steep mountain
sides provides chutes for the water to pour downhill as it floods off
under the warmth of the spring sun. Thus with power saws man can
destroy in a few hours an integrated system that took nature thousands
of years to achieve.
In many locations today, vegetation in the rights-of-way is con-
trolled by spraying with powerful brush killers. Spraying chemicals
from a helicopter is a much cheaper way of killing the vegetation than
cutting it down and removing the brush. It is also more destructive.
In a cutting operation low-growing trees, bushes, and ground cover
can be saved, while spraying destroys vegetation indiscriminately. The
residual chemical poison seeps down into the soil and is washed by
rainfall into streams which spread its destructive influence to other
areas.
After seeing these corridors of death cut across our forest lands, it
is ironical to read the guidelines set forth in the Environmental Cri-
teria for Electric Transmission Systems, published in 1970 by the U.S.
Departments of Agriculture and Interior.
Rights-of-way should avoid heavily timbered areas, steep slopes
. . . and scenic areas. . . . right-of-way-strips through sensi-
 Power Over People 64
rive forest and timber areas should be cleared with curved, un-
dulating boundaries. The notched effect of a right-of-way cross
section should be avoided. . . . Careful topping and pruning
of trees can contribute to this. Also small trees and plants should
be used to feather back the rights-of-way from grass and shrub-
bery to larger trees. Rights-of-way should not cross hills and
other high points at the crests. . . . The profile of the facilities
should not be silhouetted against the sky. . . . Clearing shall
be performed in a manner which will maximize preservation of
natural beauty, conservation of natural resources', and minimize
marring and scarring of the landscape. . . . Chemicals, when
used, should be carefully selected to have a minimum effect on
desirable indigenous plant life and selective application should
be used wherever appropriate to preserve the natural en-
vironment.

The Balanced Ecosystem

Mankind is just beginning to understand the enormous complexity
of the ecosystem of which he is an integral and powerfully dynamic
part. The study of the intricate relationships of living organisms with
their environment is a new science; it requires the development of
methods quite different from those used in other scientific fields.
In most areas of scientific research, new knowledge is gained by
isolating a single phenomenon and measuring it with increasing ac-
curacy. But in the study of living things it is impossible to isolate a
single phenomenon. The complex mechanisms taking place within a
single living cell must be understood as integral parts of a dynamic
process involving many interdependent activities and cyclic patterns
in time.
Biologists attempting to understand these complex interrelationships
are hampered by the tools of thought carried over from the older sci-
ences. The public is also confused and frustrated in dealing with this
new science. One day they read that scientists are concerned that
mankind is altering the climate of the earth, the next day that chem-
ists have shown that such changes are "negligible."
Seen in the light of the old isolated-phenomena view of science, it
seems reasonable to assume that a small addition to a process that oc-
65 Trees or Towers
curs naturally cannot be harmful. Nature will take care of it. It is all
right to add more ionizing radiation to the environment because we
are constantly exposed to background radiation. It is all right to add
heat to the lakes and rivers because the amount added is only a small
percentage of the natural heating that occurs every summer. It is all
right to generate more ozone because we are always exposed to some,
anyway. But these assumptions fail to take into account the delicate
equilibrium maintained by nature.
Over the millennia, the variable factors present in each biological
community have been balanced out to achieve a relatively integrated
and stable system. Organisms evolved that were able to handle the
usual changes in variable elements in their environment. Accelerate
one variable in this dynamic relationship even a small amount and
the compensating factors are not sufficient to maintain the equilib-
rium. Nature, given enough time, might achieve a new balanced sys-
tem, but the time scale for this kind of natural evolutionary develop-
ment is in hundreds of thousands of years.
To visualize the ecological relationship one might imagine a teeter-
totter with many arms, all so perfectly balanced that the children rid-
ing it are suspended motionless in space. If one child moves forward
just a little bit the delicate balance is disturbed. The change in weight
distribution is only a very small percentage of the total forces involved
but, in the absence of any compensating change, the entire system
is upset and a drastic disturbance results. In order to make a firm pre-
diction about the significance of altering one element in an existing
ecosystem, all of the intricately interwoven processes must be identi-
fied, the rates must be known very accurately, and so must the man-
ner in which they act upon each other. One of the famous unsolved
problems in physics is the calculation of the forces produced by three
gravitating bodies acting on each other. The mathematics of this
relationship have never been precisely solved. But compared to the
interrelated forces in an ecosystem, the three-body problem is sim-
plicity itself.
Perhaps someday with the aid of computers and mathematical mod-
els, a quantitative understanding of these reactions may be achieved;
 Power Over People 66
but today the best answer is just an educated guess. At the present
state of our knowledge, conservation of the environment can best be
achieved by a conservative attitude toward any change initiated by
man. Any change that appears to be progressive should be questioned
even if it is very small. And ecological damage is most apt to occur in
cases where several new factors are working simultaneously in the
same direction.

The Role of Forests in the Ecosystem

Forests cover about a tenth of the earth's surface and fix almost half
of the biosphere's total energy. Through the process of photosynthe-
sis they combine solar radiation with carbon dioxide and water to
form the organic compounds that are the primary source of energy
for all living things. Studies at Brookhaven National Laboratory have
shown that one square yard of oak-pine forest produces on the aver-
age 2. i pounds of new organic matter each year. The largest portion
of this increase is, of course, in the form of new timber. The destruc-
tion of a 2oo-foot strip 100 miles long would mean a loss of 27,000,000
pounds of timber and other organic matter every year; and this organic
matter is the ultimate source of fossil fuel and electric power.
The forests of the world are the main consumers of the carbon di-
oxide in the atmosphere. They and the fossil fuel deposits are the
principal reservoirs of biologically fixed carbon and energy stored in
organic compounds. The areas of the earth's surface that are capable
of maintaining highly productive forest cover are limited; deserts and
arctic tundra cannot contribute much to the total fixation of carbon
by photosynthesis.
As the trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and synthesize car-
bohydrates, they perform another function vital to life: they release
molecular oxygen as the end product of photosynthesis. The amount
of free oxygen released is directly proportional to the amount of or-
ganic matter created; when the plant dies, this organic matter is de-
composed or burned by oxidation processes which use up the same
amount of oxygen that the plant has released during its growth. This
cycle of release, storage, and utilization of oxygen is one of several
67 Trees or Towers
basic cyclic processes, that depend upon the total amount of photo-
synthesis that has taken place during the earth's history. The amount
of free oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is regulated by
the amount of carbon compounds stored in living organisms and in
the deposits of ancient organic materials such as coal, gas, and oil.
These fossil fuels are concentrated sources of energy. During the past
century large quantities of them have been burned to produce heat
and electric energy, and there is considerable concern among scien-
tists that carbon dioxide is accumulating too fast in our atmosphere
as a result. Since 1860 there has been a 10 per cent increase in carbon
dioxide concentration.
An increase in the level of carbon dioxide is believed to cause a
temperature rise due to the so-called greenhouse effect. Carbon di-
oxide molecules in the atmosphere (like the oxygen and nitrogen
molecules) allow the energy of the incident sunlight to pass through
to the earth's surface. However, when this solar radiation has been
acted upon by vegetation and other matter, it is converted to the
longer waves of heat energy; carbon dioxide molecules absorb and
reflect these wavelengths so that the energy does not pass back out
into space. If fossil-fuel consumption increases at the present rate, by
the year 2020 the increase in carbon dioxide concentration would, if
it were an isolated ^phenomenon, cause an increase of 8 to 10 degrees
Fahrenheit above 1950 levels in the earth's mean temperature.1 How-
ever, there are many related processes also occurring. As fossil fuels
are burned, dust and fine particles accumulate in the atmosphere.
These particles have the effect of screening out some of the solar
radiation before it reaches the earth's surface. The carbon dioxide
concentration also affects the rate of photosynthesis; so does the ozone
content; and again, all these factors are interdependent. The complex-
ities are not entirely understood. In the recent technical literature
scientific arguments rage back and forth concerning the ultimate
effect of these factors. I think it is fair to say that no one is sure ex-
actly what net effect these changes will have on the earth's climate
and oxygen supply.
We do know, however, that changes have been occurring. Records
 Power Over People 68
have shown that over the past century there was a long period of ris-
ing temperatures. Then this warming effect decreased and lately there
has been a small but consistent decline in the earth's mean tempera-
ture. It is generally believed that the rise was due to increasing carbon
dioxide and that the reversal has been caused by larger accumulation
of particulates in the air.2
In the meantime, carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. If, as en-
vironmentalists hope, we succeed in reducing the amount of dust and
fly-ash in the atmosphere, then the rise in temperature which has
been masked by the screening action of the particulates would sud-
denly make itself felt. Important climatic changes could occur, caus-
ing melting of glaciers and flooding of coastal areas. Although still in
the realm of guesswork, these possibilities deserve serious thought,
especially since several of these changes are working in the same di-
rection—toward increasing the carbon dioxide content of the earth's
atmosphere.
The public utilities are burning increasing amounts of fossil fuel to
produce more electricity; this burning creates higher levels of carbon
dioxide in the air. At the same time, they are building overhead trans-
mission lines that require the destruction of hundreds of thousands of
trees. Again the carbon dioxide level will be increased. Near the rights-
of-way damage to vegetation by erosion and by chemicals sprayed from
helicopters and created by corona discharge will further reduce the
forest growth. These effects all add up and are, therefore, particularly
dangerous as a threat to the balanced economy of nature.
An increasing fraction of the total energy fixed throughout the
earth's history is being diverted to the direct support of man. Simul-
taneously, the amount of vegetation that fixes this energy is being
continuously reduced. The trend is progressive and the resources con-
sumed are irreplaceable.
A living ecosystem, said Paul Sears, must be seen as a manifestation
of the flow of energy. "The health of a landscape, that is, its capacity
to sustain life, is measured by the efficiency with which use is made
of solar energy between its reception and its inevitable dissipation. A
truly healthy landscape . . . is the rule rather than the exception in
69 Trees or Towers
nature. It represents what the physicist calls an open steady state, a
condition of equilibrium that continues to receive energy, do work
and at the same time keep itself in working condition. . . . One of
the surest and readiest means to diagnose the health of a landscape is
its esthetic quality. Ugliness is an almost certain symptom of ineffi-
ciency, beauty an equally valuable sign of harmonious adjustment."

The erection of high-voltage transmission lines across forested areas

destroys many acres of precious woodland. It replaces hundreds of
thousands of graceful green trees with stark steel towers. It blocks out
the gentle night noises of the forest with the loud ominous hum of
nearly a million volts zinging-overhead and fills the fresh air of damp
woodland places with a brew of highly reactive chemicals.
Already in many places across our land, steel forests are replacing
the delicately interwoven pattern of the living forest. This many-
layered gossamer web of green that clothes the mountains and hill-
sides of our beautiful planet is the primary energy producer of the
biosphere, the purifier and regulator of the essential ingredients in
our atmosphere, as well as a continuing source of recreation and in-
spiration. The laceration of this complex living system with broad
slashes of destruction in order to achieve cheaper electric power can
hardly be equated in any meaningful way with progress.
Hopefully, the time will come when progress will be equated with
an improvement in the quality and diversity of life rather than with
the quantity or cheapness of things. When that time comes it will
seem incredible to our descendents inhabiting an impoverished earth
that we could have destroyed in the name of progress thousands of
acres of these forests that are such an outstanding example of the in-
credible diversity and richness of nature.

Updating Notes, 1992

1. Computer models today have produced comparable projections for the
effects of greenhouse warming.
2. This cooling trend was reversed in the late 19705. Now it is believed
that a warming trend has begun.
 7
David ana Ooliatn

In the general store in Laurel, Irma Kellenberger began to sort the

day's mail. The mailboxes were little glass-fronted partitions in a high
wall of golden oak. Along the top of the wall above the boxes a dozen
"Wanted by the FBI" notices had been tacked and hung at crazy
angles.
Irma knew the location of each box by heart. She had been sorting
the mail into these same boxes for more than thirty years. The Jacobs
had a postcard from their son in Germany. And the Helms finally
had a letter from their boy in Vietnam. Again today, the Muellers had
more mail than anyone else. There was one letter from the Federal
Power Commission in Washington and one from a state senator. But
Irma noticed that both the letters were one sheet thin and obviously
contained only a line or two of type. Two more turn-offs, she thought.
In the month that had passed since the protest meeting in the school-
house, letters had poured into and out of the Laurel postoffice. Many
of them bore important-looking return addresses but none had pro-
duced any assistance in the protest against the transmission line.
Across the store, Donald was refilling the penny gum machine and
sorting the packages of socks and underwear on the "clothes bar."
Then he laid the pile of Columbus papers on the oak counter. They
arrived a day late in Laurel but there were several families who or-
dered them regularly in spite of the delay. He glanced at the front
70
a1 Dav i d a n d Go l i a t h

page and then flipped over to the second section. Large headlines
jumped out at him:

POWER LINE ROUTE

STIRS PUBLIC IRE
A picture showed several local residents silhouetted against a view of
Tar Hollow State Forest.
"Say, look here, Irma," he called out. "We're in the Dispatch!"
Irma put down the pile of unsorted mail and walked over to the
counter. The article, written by the "outdoor editor," pointed out that
the right-of-way through public land had been granted without pub-
lic hearings. However, the author explained, Ohio law does not re-
quire such hearings. He also described in some detail the protest
group that had been organized around Laurel and had brought the
matter to public attention.
The bell on the front door dinged as Rose Wolf and Mildred Free-
man came in for their morning mail. A minute later, Glenn Pontius
drove up in his farm truck, parked in front, and entered the store. He
was followed by Ovid Helm and Damon Orr. Soon there was a little
group around the counter, reading the article out loud and savoring
every phrase: "The granting of this right-of-way is a violation of pub-
lic trust. . . . It is a gross inadequacy of Ohio law that public hear-
ings are not required in such matters."
"How do you like that—that's tellin' em."
The bell dinged again and Alice Mueller entered. It was Saturday,
Alice's day off.
"Say, Alice, you seen this spread in the Dispatch?"
Although she had not seen the article yet, Alice knew all about it.
Her friend Howard Smith of the Audubon Society had attended the
protest meeting and had given the story to the outdoor editor. They
had both discussed the details with Alice this past week.
"The Ohio Power Company saw the article," she said, laughing.
"I got a real interesting call from them this morning. They think it
may be possible, after all, to avoid running their line through Tar
Hollow!"
 Power Over People 72
"Well, ain't that great!"
"I guess it takes a birdwatcher to flush those buzzards out of their
cover!" exclaimed Ovid Helm. "Sure do hate publicity, don't they?"

Like David of the Biblical story, the birdwatchers of Whistler

Road had found a small chink in the armor of the Philistines. As long
as freedom of the press is preserved, publicity offers one possible way
of righting the giants of industrial power. They know that public
opinion, if mobilized in time, may make it difficult for them to impose
their plans upon people.
The day after the newspaper article appeared the power line was
rerouted around Tar Hollow. The altered route, however, still passes
through miles of heavily timbered hill country in Ross and Vinton
counties, where, in direct defiance of the environmental criteria set
forth by the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, the power
company plans to carve broad straight swaths through scenic forests,
crossing hills at their crests and displaying the ugly profiles of metal
scaffolding against the sky.
 8
L i t t l e Tr a n q u i l i z i n g
Pi l l s

In response to requests for information concerning the design of high-

voltage equipment and its environmental impact, power company
officials offer opinions and what Rachel Carson called "little tran-
quilizing pills of half-truth." "We urgently need an end to these
assurances," she said, "to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is
the public that is being asked to assume the risks. . . . The public
must decide whether it wishes to continue on its present roadj and
it can do so only when in full possession of the facts."
Today it is just as hard to get at the truth as it was in 1962 when
she wrote these words, and the risks to which the public is exposed
have increased enormously. Rachel Carson put her finger on the prin-
cipal reason why facts are withheld from the public. When people
are in full possession of the facts, they can make their own decisions
on the proper course of action. But the industries concerned do not
want the people to make such decisions. Instead they seek general
acceptance of their own decisions. This can best be achieved by state-
ments that contain value judgments rather than information.
In answer to questions concerning the amount of electrochemical
oxidants produced by corona discharge, power company executives
answer: "The amounts are minute and rapidly dissipated." This state-
73
 Power Over People 74
ment does not convey any information on which to base an appraisal
of the safety of the line.
Very small amounts of these chemicals—less than five parts per hun-
dred million—can be damaging to living things. Is five parts per
hundred million "minute"? Some people would consider one part
per million minute; and that concentration is extremely dangerous.

Damage to the Whole Organism

Each individual organism is a beautifully integrated system consist-
ing of hundreds of millions of finely adjusted components. These
components are related in a dynamic manner involving the flow of
tiny energy pulses from one part of the system to another, causing the
growth, the responses, the activity that we associate with life. It is
easy to see how the exposure of such delicately balanced systems to
the little bullets of extra energy carried by ozone and the other re-
lated oxidants causes destruction to molecules and interference with
many biological processes.
Although various types of oxidant injury have been observed for
the past thirty years, the cause was not immediately identified. As
early as the 1940*5 tobacco growers in the vicinity of Washington,
D.C., began complaining of damage to their crops. The leaves of the
tobacco plants were becoming mottled with brown spots. First slightly
water-soaked or bruised-looking areas appeared on the undersurface of
the leaves. Then these areas dried out, leaving bronze-colored spots of
dead organic material. Soon similar reports came in from other parts
of the country. In California this "stippling" was occurring on grape
leaves, and the yield from the vineyards was reduced. Cucumber
plants in New Jersey were flecked with brown, and onion plants in
Wisconsin were dying back at the tips. In the San Bernadino and San
Jacinto mountains near Los Angeles, hundred-foot ponderosa pines
began turning yellow, and all through the eastern states reports came
in of white pine showing the same symptom.
The incidence of these attacks was erratic. At first they were diag-
nosed as fungus diseases or insect invasions. It was only after the
75 Little Tranquilizing Pills
recognition that ozone and other oxidants were important factors in
air pollution that the true nature of these attacks was discovered.
It is now believed that ozone is the primary cause of injury. PAN
also contributes to the damage and is especially effective in attacking
young leaves. Extremely low concentrations of PAN, as little as ten
parts per billion, can cause injury to sensitive plants. Ozone usually
attacks leaves in the more mature stages of growth. Many studies now
show that visible leaf injury to sensitive plants is caused by exposures
to concentrations of ozone as small as .05 ppm (parts per million) for
an eight-hour period. This is only twice the normal unpolluted back-
ground concentration.
Plants vary considerably in their sensitivity to ozone. Tobacco, pe-
tunias, and bluegrass are especially sensitive. Ponderosa pine and
citrus fruit trees, on the other hand, are relatively resistant. These
trees show visible damage when exposed to concentrations of about
.2 ppm for eight hours.
Even before visible injury appears on the leaves, however, damage
has occurred which affects the growth, yield, and life expectancy of
the plant. During the last ten years, orange and lemon trees near Los
Angeles have been losing their leaves early, producing smaller fruit,
and achieving poorer growth. Consequently the raising of citrus fruit,
which was a major resource for this area, has experienced a serious
decline. Growers of carnations and petunias in many parts of the
country have reported significant reduction in the number of flowers
as well as a reduction in size. Radish crops have declined as much as
50 per cent in yield. Such gross effects must reflect a serious disturb-
ance in the physiological processes of the plants.
Under controlled greenhouse conditions, greater understanding has
been gained of the nature of the oxidant's interference with vital
processes. Plants exposed to low levels of oxidant for long periods of
time show pale-green or yellow leaves—color changes associated with
a reduction in chlorophyll. This remarkable green chemical, which
enables the plant to utilize the energy of sunlight in photosynthesis,
is contained in a layer of the leaf called the 'palisade cells. And it is
in this layer that the damage from oxidant occurs.
 Power Over People 76
Several scientific studies have shown that the rate of photosynthesis
is very markedly reduced following exposure to ozone. At the School
of Forestry at Yale University, Dr. William Smith and Dr. Daniel
Botkin have been measuring the photosynthetic rates of white pine
saplings. Exposure of branches to consecutive doses of .5 to .8 ppm
for 3 hours was sufficient to reduce photosynthetic rates by approxi-
mately 80 per cent. They conclude that damage to non-woody vege-
tation is likely to occur whenever the ozone reaches or exceeds .05
ppm for one hour or more. They estimate that during the growing
season this dosage occurs, on the average, one out of every four days
throughout the entire state of Connecticut.
Recent measurements of oxidant levels in rural areas of West Vir-
ginia and Maryland, far from any urban centers, showed average
hourly oxidant concentrations of .05 ppm over a four-month period.
Throughout this whole region pine trees are showing chlorotic damage
and commercial tree growers have suffered disastrous losses.
It is apparent that the oxidant level which can be tolerated by veg-
etation has already been exceeded in many areas of the United States,
in rural districts as well as urban. Any factor that increases this level
will add to the present amount of destruction of crops, forests, gar-
dens, and lawns all over America. Further damage cannot help but
reduce the quantity of food raised in this country, at a time when in-
creasing world population is making excessive demands upon the food
supply. It will represent financial losses to the farmer and truck gar-
dener. Perhaps most important, it will decrease the total amount of
photosynthesis over the earth. All animal life is completely dependent
upon this remarkable process, which converts the energy of sunshine
into organic material, storing the energy in a form that can be used
as food by animals, and, as a by-product, releases oxygen into the air.
Our supplies of food, our stores of oil, coal, and gas, all derive from
this process. Scientists believe that the green cover of vegetation is
the primary source of the oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. There is
no atmospheric oxygen on the moon or on Venus; there appears to be
no life on these planets either. The thin film of living matter on earth
really relies entirely on the magic of chlorophyll reacting with sun-
77 Little Tranquilizing Pills
light. To poison the operation of this delicate biochemical process,
which is still only dimly understood, is truly to tamper with one of the
mainsprings of life.

Laboratory research aimed at discovering the degree of toxicity of

ozone to human beings is hampered by the fact that few people are
willing to volunteer for such experiments. The small number of tests
that have been conducted on volunteer subjects have used, of course,
quite low levels of ozone. Involuntary exposure, as to Los Angeles
smog, has occurred for too short a time and is not sufficiently docu-
mented to provide the necessary data. In addition, the fact that the
human lifetime is relatively long makes experimentation with human
beings very unsuitable when quick answers are needed.
These difficulties can be circumvented by using small laboratory
animals. Experiments with mice and guinea pigs provide clues that
suggest the implications to human health. Of course, the results of
experiments with animals must be applied with caution to human
beings. The exact rates of certain reactions, levels of sensitivity, and
so on cannot be directly transferred to people. However, a great deal
of valid information has been learned concerning the general nature
of the toxic effects and the type of reactions that occur. The few ex-
periments done on human volunteers seem to produce the same pat-
tern of responses as the animal studies.
When sensitive laboratory animals, like rats, are exposed _to large
doses of ozone (about 6 ppm for four hours), 50 per cent die from
shock, with massive swelling of the lung tissue and hemorrhage.
Smaller doses (.1 ppm), repeated daily for a year, cause lung tissues
to undergo permanent changes similar to those found in emphysema
and fibrosis. Even shorter exposures—one hour once a week for 52
weeks—result in signs of accelerated aging. Concentrations of ozone
as low as . 15 ppm for 3 hours have been reported to reduce signifi-
cantly the animal's resistance to bacteria, particularly those causing
respiratory infections. As the scientists tersely phrase it, "Mortality is
enhanced . . . by ozone exposure."
The animal experiments to date suggest that ozone exerts its toxic
 Power Over People 78
effect primarily on the respiratory system; and the few experiments
on humans confirm this opinion. Subjects .showed decreased vital ca-
pacity in the lungs, accompanied by chest pain and cough. Drowsi-
ness, headache, and inability to concentrate were also reported after
only brief exposures. High air temperatures and high humidity in-
crease these symptoms. Exercise or physical labor also greatly enhance
the effects.
In September 1971 an incident occurred which brought the dan-
gers of oxidant pollution to national attention. The players on the
high school football team in Quibbletown, New Jersey, were stricken
with a strange malady. During routine afternoon practice one day
they complained of sharp pains when they inhaled, a rawness in their
throats, and an inability to get their breath (as though they had been
punched in the chest). As the condition progressed it included vomit-
ing and weakness, and in some cases a tingling sensation in the arms
and legs. These boys were aged 12 to 14, athletic, and in prime physi-
cal condition. The air that day in the New Jersey area had a slightly
grayish-yellow cast, but it did not look heavily polluted. The air pol-
lutant factors routinely reported were at normal levels. Health au-
thorities finally diagnosed their ailment as respiratory damage caused
by air containing elevated oxidant pollution, about .08 to .09 parts
per million. In spite of incidents of this kind, demonstrating the
health significance of oxidants in the atmosphere, measurements for
total oxidant levels are made in only a few locations and are not usually
reported in the air pollution indices.

A number of commercial uses of ozone were instituted—in fact, in-

flicted on the public—before adequate tests had been made of their
effectiveness and safety. It has been known since early in this century
that ozone suppresses the growth of microorganisms. This germicidal
property was employed to suppress fungi and bacteria growth asso-
ciated with food spoilage, to purify drinking water, and to treat
sewage. For a number of years ozone was deliberately added to air-
conditioning and ventilating systems in public buildings. Little ultra-
violet bulbs that generated ozone were installed in clothes driers to
79 Little Tranquilizing Pills
impart a fresh sterile smell to laundry. Similar bulbs were used in
public washrooms to sterilize toilets. Frozen food lockers add ozone
to the air to suppress spoilage. And in hospitals ozonizers are often
placed beside the beds of terminal cancer patients to destroy the offen-
sive odor caused by that disease.
Many of these uses are now known to be health hazards. Research
results coming in slowly over the years and reported by the U.S. De-
partment of Health, Education, and Welfare have shown that ozone
is not effective as a bactericide unless it is used in concentrations
which are toxic to human beings (about .04 ppm).
The germicidal effectiveness of ozone varies with its concentration,
the relative humidity, and the species of bacteria. High relative hu-
midity makes ozone much more lethal as a germicide; under dry con-
ditions, bacteria are quite resistant to it. One researcher found that
concentrations which killed dry typhus bacilli, staphylococci, or strep-
tococci in the course of several hours, killed guinea pigs first.
In the light of these findings, a few of the commercial applications
mentioned above have recently been curtailed. The use of ultraviolet
bulbs to sterilize public toilets has been discontinued. Ozone is no
longer deliberately added to air-conditioning and ventilating systems in
public buildings. However, it is generated as a by-product in the elec-
trostatic precipitators used in many installations to remove dust and
other particulates. These precipitators operate by ionizing the air and
the suspended pollutant particles by means of high-voltage electric
discharge. This is essentially the same process that is responsible for
ozone formation by corona on high-tension lines.
Efforts have been made to suppress ozone formation in precipitators
designed for systems recirculating air inside buildings, but as recently
as 1969 acceptable levels for industrial installations were set at .1
ppm. Exposure to this concentration for eight hours a day is now
known to be biologically damaging; and many installations made
before 1969 are in operation today.
Thus commercial applications resulting in high levels of ozone still
persist in spite of unequivocal knowledge of the danger of such ex-
posure, showing again how difficult it is to change a technology after
 Power Over People 80
it has become entrenched. These cases bring home to us once more
the need for adequate testing of every technological innovation be-
fore it is inflicted on the public.

It is possible that when all the results are in, ozone will prove to be
a more efficient sterilizer of plants, animals, and men than it is of
bacteria. Studies with tobacco plants show a 40 per cent reduction in
pollen germination following a 5- to 24-hour exposure to .1 ppm of
ozone, representing a major loss in reproductive capacity. In several
experiments the occurrence of sterility in mice was doubled by chronic
exposure to oxidant concentrations of from .1 to .5 ppm. Those ani-
mals that did produce young had smaller litters, with a higher inci-
dence of neonatal death and defective offspring. The scientists re-
porting these experiments suggest that these effects may be caused by
the oxidant altering the genetic composition of the sperm.

Misprints in the Genetic Code

Every organism, from a bacterium to an elephant, starts life as a
single cell containing a complex organic molecule, DNA (short for
deoxyribonucleic acid), which carries the complete instructions for
the growth and form of the organism. Although the DNA molecule is
so small that you could put one from every human being on earth
into a thimble, it is so fantastically complicated that computers are
needed to help biochemists work out the interrelationships of its vari-
ous parts. These parts are joined together by bonds that can be
broken by the sudden application of energy. X-rays have been found
to destroy these bonds; so does ultraviolet light; and so do certain
chemicals which carry extra energy. The dislodged part may subse-
quently recombine with the parent molecule, but in so doing its rela-
tive position in the structure may be changed.
In the DNA molecule it is the arrangement of parts that deter-
mines the genetic code, just as a printer setting type for a book uses
a small number of symbols in a vast variety of combinations and can
create an infinite number of texts.,If one letter is knocked off and put
back in the wrong place—for instance if art were changed to tar—the
81 Little Tranquilizing Pills
whole meaning of the sentence would be changed. In a DNA mole-
cule a misprint of this kind results in a change in the genetic instruc-
tions and is known as a mutation.
Now remember that ozone and the related oxidants are character-
ized by the possession of extra energy. The molecules or molecular
fragments enter the body through the lungs or digestive system carry-
ing their little packets of energy. Once inside they enter into chemical
reactions with organic molecules in a number of different ways. If
they encounter a DNA molecule, the extra energy they release can
break one of the delicate bonds and a mutation may result. Since
these mutations are random and violent events at the molecular level,
the results are almost always detrimental. (You could hardly expect to
do much good by starting a shooting match in a china shop). If the
altered code occurs in a reproductive cell it will be replicated each
time the DNA molecule reproduces itself, and the new organism will
turn out a little different from its parent. A rough rule of thumb is
that ninety-nine out of a hundred mutations produce less "fit" in-
dividuals—the albino, the hemophiliac, the mongoloid, the dwarf are
all examples of fairly common mutations in human beings. But there
are a vast number of lesser-known abnormalities caused by mutation
and many do not show up until the reproductive cells (which carry
the DNA molecules) have combined in the second or third genera-
tions.
Each photochemical oxidant molecule has a certain chance of pro-
ducing a mutation when it enters into reaction with a DNA molecule,
so if any of these oxidant molecules are present, there is some chance
of mutation. This is what is meant by saying that there is no "thresh-
old" for the effect. Biologists and chemists who have experimented for
years with these phenomena are quite well agreed that there appears
to be no safe dosage below which mutation will never occur. It may
result from a single bullet of energy striking the DNA molecule.
The reader may have recognized by now a similarity between the
biological effects of these oxidants and the effects of radioactivity. The
oxidants we have been considering are described as radio-mimetic be-
cause they imitate radioactivity. The mechanism in the two cases is
 Power Over People 82
very similar. Radioactive substances emit high-speed electrons, pulses
of energy, and molecular fragments, which interact with molecules to
produce ions. The ions, free electrons, and free radicals carry their
disrupting influence into the surrounding medium. When they en-
counter living matter the packets of energy that they carry provoke
violent reactions which disrupt the delicate harmony of the living
cell. Here again, biochemists have found no evidence that there is a
true threshold of dosage below which atomic radiation produces no
harmful effects. Even at low dosages the effects are appreciable.
Ozone and the closely related oxidants are radiomimetic and have no
threshold for biological effect. "Theoretically," says the Committee
for Community Air Quality, "the recommended air limit for Oa and
related oxidants should be zero, or as close to zero as possible."

Carcinogenic Properties
There has been a marked increase in malignant disease in this
country over the past few decades. In 1960 there were 279 new cancer
cases reported for every 100,000 population. The statistics compiled
by the American Cancer Society show that, ten years later, the in-
cidence of the disease had increased much more rapidly than the
population. In 1970, 314 new cases were reported for every 100,000
population.
Even though the mechanisms that trigger cancer are still not en-
tirely understood, some facts are known and should be kept clearly in
mind:
1. Exposure to certain chemicals, X-rays, and radioactivity increases
the likelihood of an individual's developing cancer. Many tests and
statistical studies have demonstrated that this is true beyond any rea-
sonable doubt.
2. The prevalence of these cancer-causing agents is steadily in-
creasing in our environment. Insecticides, food additives, drugs, air
pollution, X-rays, fallout from nuclear testing, and radioactive waste
from power plants—each of these factors may contribute only a small
amount in itself, but added together they represent a very significant
additional exposure of the whole population.
83 Little Tranquilizing Pills
Several members of the oxidant family, as we have already noted,
are believed to be cancer-causing agents. Ozone entering the organism
through the lungs or digestive tract can react with organic molecules
to produce singlet oxygen, which attacks DNA and enzymes in ways
that may trigger malignant growth. Free radicals are also thought to
be involved in some types of cancer.
In 1953, Dr. Stephen Zamenhof, a biochemist at Columbia Uni-
versity, demonstrated that nitrous acid attacks DNA, garbling a part
of the genetic code. By causing mutations in the digestive tract, ni-
trous acid may be one of the agents that cause cancer of the stomach.
Studies have shown a correlation between high levels of air pollution
and mortality rates due to cancer. In Buffalo, researchers found that
the death rate from gastric cancer was considerably higher in regions
with the most polluted air. And a British study found that the death
rate from lung cancer was two to three times greater in large towns
than in rural areas, where the air was cleaner.
Admittedly, these relationships are subject to further verification. It
may take scientists another twenty years or more to establish firm
proof based on experimental tests. In the meantime, thousands of
people may die from these causes. In the presence of a considerable
body of evidence pointing to the carcinogenic properties of electro-
chemical oxidants, it seems only prudent and moral to protect the
public against deliberate and unnecessary exposure. Probably most
people would rather die of old age than of cancer.

Fountain of Old Age

The experiments that have been conducted on exposure of all dif-
ferent types of living things to photochemical oxidants have turned
up one consistent result: these oxidants speed up the aging process.
Chronic exposure to low levels of photochemical oxidants causes
vegetation to pass through the maturing and aging cycle more rapidly
than normal. Exposed trees change to autumn colors too early and
drop their leaves before their time. "The pattern," notes the report
of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, "is usu-
ally not distinctive, appearing only as an early senescence."
 Power Over People 84
Studies of the effect of inhaling ozone on the red blood cells in both
animals and human volunteers "indicated an acceleration in the aging
of the cells." Lung tissue from exposed animals showed fibrosis and
hardening typical of changes that normally occur with old age.
Dr. H. E. Stbkinger reported that, in experiments demonstrating
accelerated or premature aging in rabbits after one year of weekly
one-hour exposures to ozone, the animals developed premature hard-
ening of the cartilage, coarsening and "unthrifty" appearance of the
fur, severe depletion of body fat, and general signs of old age such
as dull eyes, sagging eyelids, and decreased activity. This description
strikes too close to home; the process of aging is one that we would
prefer not to have accelerated.
Biologists are just beginning to get some clues to the causes of
senescence. One of the most recent theories is that aging is brought
on by random destructive reactions by free radicals in the body. Once
inside an organism, radicals can initiate complex chain reactions
which magnify their effect enormously. As errors gradually accumu-
late the body cells begin to malfunction and eventually to die. Dam-
age occurring over the lifetime of the organism causes the slow death
that we call growing old.
Another type of chemical damage, described by Dr. William A.
Pryor, results in changes in connective tissue such as collagen. The
biological role of collagen depends on its high plasticity and its ability
to bear stress and maintain shape and form. It is present throughout
the body but occurs in particularly high concentrations in flexible
organs such as the lungs, blood vessels, skin, and muscles. With age
collagen fibers become denser, stiffer, thicker, and less plastic. Similar
changes occur as a direct consequence of exposure to ozone. It has
been observed for a long time that rubber becomes brittle and cracks
when exposed to atmospheres containing ozone and that this is caused
by changes in the large molecules that give rubber its elasticity. When
we compare the soft resilient skin and flexibility of youth with the
sag and brittleness of age, it is hard to avoid the conviction that just
such a process must be occurring year after year in the human body.
Perhaps some day scientists will find a way of slowing down and
85 Little Tranquilizing Pills
counteracting these chemical changes. Like Ponce de Leon, we would
all like to discover a fountain of youth. In the meantime the concen-
trations of photochemical oxidants and free radicals are building up
all the time in our atmosphere; the sdurces of these very reactive sub-
stances may prove to be fountains of old age.
In spite of the fact that corona discharge is known to be an efficient
generator of these very chemicals that are biologically damaging in
concentrations as low as ten parts per billion, and in spite of experi-
mental evidence that any addition to the already high levels of these
pollutants may cause mutations, malignant disease, and accelerated
senescence, electric companies answer questions from concerned citi-
zens with statements that the amounts produced are "minute and
rapidly dissipated."

Patterns of Distribution
The term "dissipation" implies both dispersion and disappearance,
but it is a well-known principle that neither matter nor energy
can truly disappear. It is never destroyed but only converted to other
forms. Chemicals broadcast on the winds and waters of the earth are
redistributed but not dissipated. The patterns of redistribution are
complex and difficult to predict. It is a rare situation indeed when
redistribution results in uniform dilution.
For example, a surprising distribution pattern of total oxidant con-
centration has been discovered in the Los Angeles area, where many
readings have been collected over a number of years. The surface
winds in the Los Angeles basin blow predominantly east off the ocean
in the spring, summer, and fall months. In October 1965, concentra-
tions of oxidant were recorded at four different sites: West Los
Angeles, Los Angeles itself, Azusa, about 20 miles east of the city,
and Riverside, about 30 miles east of Azusa. Graphs of these measure-
ments show that peak concentrations occurred at about n A.M. in
West Los Angeles, noon in Los Angeles, 2 P.M. in Azusa, and 4 P.M. in
Riverside. The time difference was about what would be expected
from the direction and speed of the prevailing winds. However, the
peak concentrations recorded in Azusa and Riverside were approxi-
The winds and waters of the earth move in complex patterns. Chemicala
broadcast upon them are redistributed but not dissipated
Environmental Protection Agency
 Power Over People 88
mately as high as those recorded in Los Angeles. The reasons for this
lack of dilution as the pollution moved eastward are not clear. Some
factor is counteracting the dispersal that one would normally expect
from redistribution by the wind. As the oxidants move eastward,
synergistic chemical reactions may cause oxidants to be formed at
a rate equal to the rate of dilution. Local pollution conditions may
add to the oxidant levels or wind patterns may tend to funnel the
pollutant.

Temperature Inversion
Dispersal of pollutants into the atmosphere is strongly influenced
by local weather and the way temperature varies with height above
the earth's surface. Normally, the temperature of the atmosphere de-
creases with height for several miles above the earth. In the daytime
the ground is warmed by the sun. Heat is transferred to the air near the
ground and this warm air, being lighter than cold air, rises, diffus-
ing into the atmosphere at higher altitudes. However, at night the
ground cools more rapidly than the atmosphere so that the air at the
earth's surface cools off first; this heavier layer remains near the earth's
surface, creating a blanket of stagnant surface air that is often laden
with pollution. This typical nighttime temperature inversion occurs
on more than half of the nights throughout most of the United States.
When the sun rises and warms the earth the inversion patterns
usually begin to dissipate. Surface winds also help to break up tem-
perature inversion conditions. However, there are regions where sur-
face winds are blocked by mountain ranges or where winds are nor-
mally light because of the typical circulation patterns of jet streams
and trade winds around the globe. In these localities temperature in-
versions may persist and build up for days. The Los Angeles basin
is one of these regions; this contributes to its severe air pollution
problems.
Occasionally barometric pressure systems cooperate with the other
factors to cause a very widespread and long-lasting temperature inver-
sion pattern. Episodes of this kind can constitute serious health haz-
ards. There have been a number of famous air pollution disasters in
89 Little Tranquilizing Pills
which many people died, such as the episode in the Meuse Valley in
Belgium in 1930 and the one in Donora, Pennsylvania in 1948.
Since 1960 the Environmental Sciences Administration has heen
issuing warnings when widespread high air pollution was expected.
Records have been kept and a number assigned to each episode of
High Air Pollution Potential (HAPP). Many of these episodes have
lasted for several days and have affected a large part of the country.
In late August 1969, Episode 104 affected twenty-two states east of
the Mississippi. For ten days High Air Pollution Potential warnings
remained in effect for a large area from Indianapolis southeast across
Ohio and into West Virginia. Most of Kentucky and part of Tennes-
see were under the alert for seven to eight days. Episode 104 affected
more than twenty million people.
Measurements in many localities and under varying wind condi-
tions are needed in order to understand the distribution patterns of
airborne pollution. One fact, however, appears clear. It is not safe
to assume that oxidants or other pollutants will be dissipated by the
wind. This planet of ours is a small and tightly bound ecological
system. Lead expelled in automobile exhaust in Chicago or Los
Angeles turns up in glaciers in Greenland. DDT sprayed over farm-
lands in Illinois and California reappears in fish in the Arctic circle.
Far from being dissipated, these elements are present in alarming
concentrations thousands of miles from the original source.

Selectivity and Food Chains

One of the reasons for uneven distribution patterns lies in the na-
ture of chemical and biological processes. Even simple inorganic
chemical reactions are selective. Stir a spoonful of vinegar into a glass
of water and the vinegar
O
will become evenly/ distributed throughout
O'

the water. But add a spoonful of olive oil to a glass of water and the
oil will remain in a concentrated layer on top of the water. Thus the
degree of dispersion depends upon the other elements present in that
portion of the environment. In some situations a chemical may be
concentrated rather than dispersed.
Living organisms have a remarkable ability to select and concen-
 Power Over People 90
trate chemical substances. Each living system absorbs some elements
from its environment and rejects others. As the organism grows it
accumulates a high proportion of the selected elements. This organism
and others like it then serve as a food source for larger animals which
absorb and concentrate the element even further. When these animals
serve in their turn as food for man, the element may be stored in the
human system in volume densities several thousand times greater
than its original density in the environment. Striking examples of this
phenomenon of biological concentration have come to light in recent
years.

When atomic weapons were tested in Nevada and the islands of

the South Pacific in the 1950*5, a number of radioactive elements
were ejected into the atmosphere, among them two long-lived prod-
ucts, cesium 137 and strontium 90. These elements are dispersed by
the winds and—one might suppose—should have been quickly dis-
tributed throughout the earth's atmosphere. However, it turned out
that prevailing wind patterns tended to create layers of higher density
of these elements at certain latitudes. Eventually, the radioactive
molecules were washed down to the earth's surface by rain and snow.
Thus patterns of precipitation also played a part in distributing a
higher proportion of cesium 137.and strontium 90 onto certain geo-
graphical regions.
Where these elements collected on soil and vegetation, they were
absorbed in varying degrees depending upon the chemistry and con-
sistency of that particular pla'nt or soil. A plant known as reindeer
lichen grows in Arctic regions. It forms a thick slow-growing mat of
vegetation on forest floors and across Arctic tundra, providing a re-
markably efficient surface for collecting elements from the atmos-
phere. Strontium 90 and cesium 137 were incorporated directly into
the structure of this lichen.
The limited number of living species in the Arctic region offers
very little variety in the diet of both animals and man. For nine
months of the year reindeer live almost entirely on lichens, Many
Lapps and Eskimos depend primarily on the reindeer as their food.
pi Little Tranquilizing Pills
The result is that the radioactive elements are routed with remarkable
efficiency into the bones and muscle tissue of the Arctic people. Long
after atomic testing in the atmosphere had been banned, scientific
measurements showed rising levels of cesium 137 in Lapps in Fin-
land and Eskimos in Alaska. Thousands of miles from the original
blasts and twelve months after the last tests, body deposits of cesium
137 had almost doubled in that one year's time.

The case of mercury contamination of fish is another example of

biological concentration that took most scientists by surprise. The ex-
treme toxicity of mercury has been known for over a thousand years.
Two kinds of mercury poisoning can occur. One, caused by metallic
mercury and inorganic compounds, damages the digestive tract and
kidneys, but this damage is reversible and therefore not fatal. The
other type of mercury poisoning is caused by organic mercury com-
pounds. This poison attacks the brain and central nervous system and
the damage is irreversible.
Mercury is used in many industries in the manufacture of drugs,
cosmetics, paints, pesticides, felt hats, various electrical devices, chem-
icals, and plastics. The waste mercury from these operations has usu-
ally been disposed of in natural bodies of water. Since the waste prod-
uct is in the form of metallic mercury or inorganic compounds and
since these forms do not dissolve in water but fall to the bottom, it
was generally believed that they would not be absorbed by any living
organisms.
However, in the past decade reports of mercury poisoning began
cropping up around the world and sampling of aquatic life showed
high concentrations of toxic types of mercury compounds. After sev-
eral years of intense investigation, Swedish scientists discovered the
hitherto unsuspected fact that certain bacteria were able to convert
metallic mercury into organic mercury compounds. Algae then ab-
sorbed the bacteria, fish ate the algae, and man ate the fish. Through
this food chain the concentration of the poison was increased as much
as ten thousand times.
The case of mercury poisoning illustrates the danger of making
 Power Over People 92
assumptions on the basis of our present scientific knowledge. Bio-
chemists thought they knew how mercury reacted with living sys-
tems, but their knowledge was incomplete. In the meantime manufac-
turers continued to dump large quantities of mercury into lakes and
rivers, and no experiments were conducted to test the validity of the
assumption that the mercury remained inert at the bottom of the body
of water. As a result of this miscalculation, enormous pools of cast-off
mercury now lie under the waterways of the world and no one knows
how they can be safely neutralized.

The phenomenon of biological concentration has been understood

for a long time and has been demonstrated over and over—from the
presence of radioactive zinc in oysters and clams to DDT in hen's
eggs and mother's milk. In spite of this knowledge, technologists re-
sponsible for adding a damaging factor to the environment still seek
to excuse their action on the assumption that these toxic factors will
be uniformly dispersed and rapidly dissipated. In most cases there is
no attempt to verify this very doubtful premise or to understand the
complex biological reactions which may result from the broadcasting
of the waste product.

Research—Too Little and Too Late

In 1966, when scientists became alarmed about the danger of mer-
cury poisoning, the Swedish government canceled registration of
alkyl-mercury compounds for agricultural use. The only official Amer-
ican response to the threat of mercury poisoning was the sampling by
the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife of a few pheasants and
fish along the Atlantic seaboard. Negative results from this sampling
convinced the bureau to look no further. A wider survey of fish and
wildlife over a broad spectrum of habitats would undoubtedly have
revealed the mercury pollution problem in this country four or five
years before it was finally discovered. It would have spared many vic-
tims of mercury poisoning who subsequently suffered death or life-
time injury to the nervous system.
There is only one way tragic mistakes of this kind can be avoided:
93 Little Tranquilizing Pills
careful, long-term scientific studies to monitor the side effects of tech-
nological processes. Hastily conducted and poorly controlled experi-
ments can actually do more harm than good.
Studies of this kind would most logically and most efficiently be
conducted by the industry developing the technology, since that in-
dustry is the only one possessing the facts concerning the process and
knowing the possible variations and alternatives. Unfortunately, such
a study is not compatible with the competitive profit orientation of
business enterprises. The free enterprise system in this country allows
industries to initiate new technologies, to withhold information from
the public concerning the nature of the side effects produced by the
technologies, and to escalate the use of the processes without any
scientific appraisal of their safety. The economics of the industrial
system puts maximum emphasis on cost reduction and efficiency.
Long-term scientific studies cost money and take time. From the point
of view of the industries, they cannot be economically justified, espe-
cially if they demonstrate that a new technological process which
offers cost reductions causes unnecessary damage to the environment.
The result is that the majority of industries do not adequately monitor
the long-term effects of the processes they initiate.

It is a sad fact that in recent years big businesses have often been
guilty of prostituting science in an attempt to hide or distort the truth.
They have capitalized on the lavman's belief that the statements of
scientists and doctors can always be accepted as impartial and proven
scientific fact. But scientists are human beings subject to personal bias
like anyone else, and not always immune to personal profit.
Ever since 1962 the $8-billion-a-year tobacco industry has been
pouring money into an attempt to discredit the scientific studies that
have shown cigarettes to be a health hazard. At the congressional
hearings on the cigarette-labeling bill, thirty-nine medical authorities
and statisticians testified on behalf of the tobacco industry (and were
presumably compensated as consultants). Only ten physicians testi-
fied in support of the Surgeon General's report. However, the evi-
dence presented by the Surgeon General's report indicated overwhelm-
 Power Over People 94
ingly that smoking is related to the incidence of lung cancer and other
-diseases. The experts hired by the tobacco industry presented no real
evidence vindicating cigarettes.
In order to protect itself against phony expert testimony, the pub-
lic should learn to distinguish between solid scientific data and vague
statements, containing no factual evidence, or half-truths, which dis-
tort the facts. The following statement is typical: "There is no sub-
stance in tobacco smoke that has been proved to cause cancer, heart
disease, or emphysema." This declaration is literally true. No single
substance has been proved to cause these diseases but the combination
of the many toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke has been shown to
cause them. The statement is a half-truth and deliberately misleading.
Similarly, following the publication of Silent Spring in 1962,
spokesmen for the chemical companies quoted measurements of de-
clining concentrations of pesticides in lake water and soil residues as
evidence that the chemicals were rapidly disappearing. But since these
statements took no account of the fact that concentrations were simul-
taneously building up in aquatic life and in earthworms and other soil
organisms, the evidence presented was very misleading. The so-called
dissipation was really a redistribution arid concentration.

The investor-owned electric utilities spend a remarkably small per-

centage of their gross revenues on research and development. In 1970
this percentage was less than one-tenth as much as the average research
commitment of American industry as a whole. These facts have
been brought to public attention by several official sources, such as
the Energy Policy Staff of the Office of Science and Technology.
Federal Power Commission Chairman John Nassikas also criticized
the electric, gas, and oil companies for the small percentage of revenue
they spent on research.
As a result of this pressure, the amounts allocated to research and
development have been inching slowly upwards, but the last available
R&D figures for all the electric companies averaged less than one per
cent of their gross operating revenues. And much of this small research
budget is used for the development of cheaper methods of operation.
95 Little Tranquilizing Pills
Checking for safety is usually done in response to public pressure and
only in the most cursory manner.
A token experiment of this kind was reported in an article entitled
"Medical Evaluation of Man Working in AC Electric Fields." The
authors made the following statement:

It is well known that corona discharges not only cause power

losses, but also may produce ozone and radiation harmful to hu-
man beings. Therefore, the ground area of the East Lima Sub-
station and areas under the HV lines outside of the station were
surveyed on two occasions, once during cool weather (Decem-
ber 4, 1961), and the other during warm weather (July 28,
1965). The weather was clear on both occasions and members
of the medical staff of The Johns Hopkins Hospital were pres-
ent. . . . There was no evidence of corona on the lines or as-
sociated equipment, not even the slightest odor of ozone.

The most unscientific feature of this so-called experiment is the fact

that measurements were made on only two occasions. The normal
procedure in any scientific experiment is to collect dozens or even
hundreds of readings before the data is considered scientifically sig-
nificant. Possible sources of error are checked out and statistical aver-
ages computed. But in this experiment two readings were obtained,
both on days when fair weather prevailed. The experimenters recog-
nized that the effect they were looking for was caused by corona dis-
charge. They also knew that corona discharge occurs principally in
bad weather. Yet when they found no evidence of corona on the lines
in fair weather, they took it to be significant that they found no evi-
dence of ozone. This experiment is comparable to testing for sunburn
by exposing the skin on two occasions—a warm evening in June and
midnight in December. The results of this experiment would show no
evidence of reddening of the skin. But they could hardly be consid-
ered serious scientific evidence disproving the phenomenon of sun-
burn.
Furthermore, testing for ozone on the basis of odor is too subjective
a procedure to class as a scientific measurement Sensitivity to the
odor of ozone varies by a factor of two or more; some people can de-
 Power Over People 96
tect it in concentrations as low as .02 ppm and others do not detect
it until concentrations of about .05 ppm have been reached. There
are far more accurate indicators for ozone, ranging from the rate
of cracking of stretched rubber bands to a variety of sophisticated
instruments.
Basing their statements on experiments of this kind (at which two
doctors from Johns Hopkins were present) power company officials
say that electrochemical changes produced by corona discharge "are
deemed insignificant by recognized medical authorities . . ." "The
significance of the chemical processes can be judged," they say, "by
the fact that there are today about 20,000 miles of transmission lines
operating at 345kv and above in this country, all of which experience
corona discharge. Yet never to our knowledge have any biological
effects been reported."
Since no scientific attempt has been made to assess the long-term
effects of extra-high-voltage lines—effects such as accelerated aging,
decreased litter size, reduction in the rate of photosynthesis, genetic
damage, and increase in the incidence of lung disease and cancer—we
must assume that the statements by the power company refer to im-
mediate biological damage. In other words, they have received no
reports of people dying from electrostatic shock or having sudden
seizures of illness that could be directly related to oxidant poisoning.
Similarly, hundreds of thousands of people in this country smoke
cigarettes, and we do not very often see anyone drop dead when smok-
ing one. Yet we know from careful scientific studies that cigarette
smoking does have a long-term damaging effect on the human system,
increasing the incidence of lung cancer and heart disease.
Millions of people in our cities and on our highways are exposed to
high levels of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and other toxic
chemicals from automobile exhaust. The effect is not severe enough
to cause them to slump over their steering wheels in traffic. But this
does not prove that no damage has been done. On the contrary, we
are now quite sure that these chemicals inhaled over long periods of
time increase the number of auto accidents and incidence of re-
spiratory diseases.
97 Little Tranquilizing Pills
The effects which scientists helieve result from long-term exposure
to electrochemical oxidants are too gradual and too subtle for the
average citizen to connect with the presence of high-tension lines.
Can you imagine a farmer calling up Commonwealth Edison and
saying: "I just want to report that my wife and I are growing old
before our time. The petunias in my front yard are dying and my best
sow had only five pigs in her last litter"?
Although questions concerning the safety of extra-high-voltage
transmission have been raised in the press and in legal proceedings,
spokesmen for the power companies answer with vague statements
such as "our engineers have checked this out and found the effects to
be negligible."
As Rachel Carson pointed out, we urgently need an end to false
assurances and the little sugar-coated pills of half-truths. The public
has a right to full possession of the facts. We are being asked to
assume the biological risks and to pay the hidden costs. In the case of
high-voltage transmission lines, the electric companies have the abil-
ity to force these risks on all the property owners lying in their path.
 9
Field Tests,
Country Style

It was an unusually warm day in June 1970. The temperature regis-

tered a sweltering 92, degrees in the nearest cities of Jackson and
Gallipolis, but on this high green hilltop on the outskirts of Sparks-
ville, Ohio, a fresh breeze was blowing. It stirred the white embroi-
dered curtains at the Strasbows' windows and brought in the fra-
grance of the wild roses in full bloom along the old fence row.
This spacious white frame house with its acre of shaded green
lawn, its weeping willow tree, its vegetable patch, its two red barns
and ninety acres of cropland belong to Clovis Strasbow and his wife
Ada. The acquisition of this property was the realization of a lifetime
ambition for Clovis. As a child growing up in Sparksville he had
watched the construction of the big house on this high knoll com-
manding a pleasant prospect of woods and fields, and he had dreamed
of owning the plare himself. Twelve years ago the opportunity to
purchase presented itself and the Strasbows had saved enough money
to finance it.
"Everything we have we got the hard way, working by the hour,"
says Clovis. "When Ada and I got married I was so poor my socks had
holes at both ends. Now all we got is tied up in this place here."
Clovis still works by the hour five days a week for a local construe-
98
99 Field Tests, Country Style
tion company. He farms weekends and evenings. Ada keeps a few
chickens and Clovis raises vegetables. "I reckon those vegetables cost
more than if we bought 'em in the store," he observes, "but they taste
a whole lot better. I like to grab a salt shaker and go down there to
that garden patch and pick me a real ripe tomato warm from the sun-
boy, that's livin'!"
Clovis Strasbow is a vigorous forty-year-old with well-muscled arms
and a deeply suntanned face. His blue eyes and ready smile usually
radiate confidence and good humor, but on this Saturday morning he
looked troubled as he walked up the drive from the mailbox and came
into the house carrying the day-old edition of the Columbus Dispatch
in his hand.
The article that had caught Clovis' eye was the same that had
caused such excitement in the general store in Laurel thirty miles
away. Clovis was only mildly interested in the controversy about the
right-of-way through the state forest. He was more concerned by the
description of the electromagnetic pollution produced by such lines.

Nine months had passed since a representative of the Ohio Power

Company had knocked on the Strasbows' kitchen door. Ada was busy
that afternoon putting up the last of the sweet corn for their home
freezer. So Clovis answered the door and cordially invited the agent
in, leading him through the dining room that was the center of their
home activities. Here Ada had spread out a dress pattern for cutting
on the big oak table. Here Clovis often worked at his accounts at an
office desk. Here he also practiced the guitar, which he played with
a local combo once a week.
They passed on into the front room and sat down on the sofa. The
agent spread his papers out on the coffee table, mopped his brow, and
hesitated a moment. Glancing around the room, he remarked on the
large collection of family photographs that hung over the electronic
organ. Beside the organ Clovis' favorite recliner was arranged so he
could stretch out after a hard day's work and watch TV.
Finally the agent brought out several documents and broke the
news that the Ohio Power Company intended to construct a trans-
mission line across the Strasbow property.
 Power Over People 100
"Well I got news for you, too," exclaimed Clovis. "You're not goin'
to run one of them ugly things across my farm!"
"There's no use fighting this," the agent replied. "People have tried
before—they always lose. The power company has won every case it
ever took to court. You might as well sign here now and take the
money because I promise you that line's going to go right there- be-
tween your house and the barns."
But Clovis was firm. He would not sign until he saw a lawyer and
learned his rights. However, he remained pleasant and cordial, even
pressing the agent to stay and share their evening meal. "Ada has
some beans and cornbread cooking," he said. "It's pretty hot food.
You'll have to put gloves on to eat that!"
The agent, however, departed without any supper or signature and
the Strasbows heard nothing more from the power company for nearly
a year.

"Ada," called Clovis, "come look at this write-up in the Dispatch."

They sat down at the big oak table and went over the article care-
fully together.
"I sure don't like the sound of this, Ada," Clovis said. "Seems like
something we don't want in our back yard. But what I can't make out
is why don't the power company know how much of this ozone or
electromagnetic fields a line like that makes? Why can't they just go
out and measure them?"
As they were talking, it occurred to Ada that the son of one of
their friends had recently set up an electrical laboratory in Ironton,
a town fifty miles south on the Ohio River. She wondered if he would
be able to advise them. Clovis thought he might; perhaps he would
even be able to measure ozone concentrations near the big new high-
voltage line that crossed the river just west of town.
So that afternoon Clovis and Ada drove to Ironton and engaged
a scientific consultant to make field tests of ozone and induced elec-
trostatic charge under the only operating 765-^ transmission line in
the world. The results of these tests, which Clovis made freely avail-
able to any interested parties, showed higher levels of ozone under the
line than in other locations in the countryside. Unfortunately, the
ioi Field Tests, Country Style
recorded ozone levels could not be directly related to other air pollu-
tion measurements because the ozone detector had been designed and
built by the consultant himself and, as Clovis expressed it, the con-
sultant did not have a string of letters after his name.
These studies, however, were just the beginning of a continuing
research project conducted by Clovis Strasbow on the effects of 765-^
transmission lines. One day he chartered an airplane and a pilot and,
with his scientific consultant, he flew the already-existing 765-!^ line
from Louisa, Kentucky, to Piketon, Ohio, taking notes on all the
properties it traversed. Later Clovis called on many of these land-
owners and obtained their stories firsthand. He became a one-man
clearing house for complaints and for people seeking help and advice.
Many of the landowners were relieved to find someone to turn to.
"This line is causing us fear and annoyance but we don't know what
to do about it," was the usual reaction.
All this activity did not go unnoticed by the Ohio Power Company.
Eventually they sent representatives around again to the Strasbows'
home. They were surprised when Clovis explained his concern about
electromagnetic pollution in terms they were not knowledgeable
enough to handle. "How do you know so much about electricity?"
one of them challenged. "You a scientist or something?"
"Hell, no; I'm just a country boy," answered Clovis. "Never had
any fancy schooling. I went down here to the local high school and
Ada, she never finished high school. But after we found out what
this line was going to do to us, we been studyin' up on it." He pulled
out his file drawer and showed them an impressive collection of re-
prints of scientific articles. "By the time I'm through with you," he
promised, "electromagnetic pollution is going to be a household word!"

Clovis Strasbow's personal survey of eighteen homes along the

right-of-way of the 76$-kv line revealed a wide variety of complaints.
Of these eighteen families, more than half had noticed a strange
chemical smell, particularly in the evenings and early mornings.
Three people complained of shortness of breath and irritation of the
throat and nasal passages.
Twelve families reported receiving strong electric shocks under
 Power Over People 102
varying circumstances—from farm machinery, buildings, fences, and
even clothes lines. One woman received a severe jolt when she re-
moved a nylon scarf from her head while standing beneath the line.
Children were shocked while playing barefoot in the grass. One man
said he was unable to paint his aluminum-siding house because of
the shocks received through the brushes. Although all the houses
were elaborately grounded, several residents complained of shocks
from the plumbing when they turned water on or off. Two women
dreaded to go to the bathroom because of the shocks received when
they sat on the toilet.
One landowner attempted to install a gutter on a barn about 200
feet from the right-of-way and was almost knocked off his ladder .by
the shock from the barn roof. The building had been grounded al-
ready, but the power company attempted to correct the problem by
more careful grounding. When these efforts were not successful, the
power company turned off the voltage on the entire line so that
the gutter could be installed on this farm. Later, this same man at-
tempted to paint his barn roof, but the electric shocks were so fright-
ening that he was forced to give up the project. The power company
suggested that he ground himself by running a chain down his pants
leg and allowing it to trail behind him on the barn roof.
All the property owners along the right-of-way were bothered by
the loud crackling and roaring noise of the line, loud enough to wake
them from a sound sleep when the line was suddenly energized. In
bad weather it sizzled and popped "like fritters fryin' on the front
burner." The owners of a new one-story house located about 100 feet
from the edge of the right-of-way were so disturbed by the noise that
they called the power company several times at midnight and two in
the morning. The company finally came around and installed "muf-
flers," little wire baffles every few feet between two of the conductors
in each bundle. Hundreds of these mufflers were installed. The oper-
ation required two men working several days with a loo-foot crane.
In spite of these mufflers, however, the line still makes enough noise
to be a constant irritation to the family living beneath it.
At night in damp weather the line glows with flickering blue
103 Field Tests, Country Style
lights. Three people mentioned the fact that it draws lightning. Daz-
zling strokes occurred frequently near their homes and they lived in
dread of summer storms.
All but one of the residents complained that their radio and TV
reception was very poor. Two families had had the foresight to in-
clude in their agreement with the power company a guarantee of no
degradation of radio and TV reception. For these families the power
company had built a special receiving tower on a nearby hillside and
had connected the tower to the TV sets with an underground cable.
In spite of this special accommodation, however, on the day one of
these families was visited the TV was inoperative. Some difficulty
had developed with the underground cable. The power company had
been called two days before but had not yet corrected the problem.
Those who had not protected themselves with a special guarantee did
not receive such preferred treatment. In answer to one complaint
about poor television reception, the power company replied that the
TV set must be old.
There were numerous reports of biological damage to people, ani-
mals, and vegetation under the line. A small grove of white pine
trees showed poor growth and yellow needles. House plants and pear
trees were reported to be dying. According to one landowner, horses
running in his field under the line had all the hair and whiskers
burned off their noses and several men working under the line had
hair burned off their arms. One very interesting episode involved a
man who owned riding horses and found that he was unable to use
them after the line was energized. Both horses and riders received
severe shocks when they passed under the line. The horses jumped
and shied, and the riders always received a jolt when they dis-
mounted near the line. The power company sent representatives to
investigate the complaint. They experimented with making special
insulated reins and leads, saddles and bridles for the horses. But even
these extraordinary measures did not solve the problem. Horseback
riding was given up on this farm as too unpleasant and hazardous an
occupation.
It may perhaps be coincidental that one of the eighteen families
 Power Over People 104
contacted in this survey had a child dying of leukemia. The disease
was discovered after the child had been living for a year and a half
under the high-voltage line.
Some of the stories of these residents had not been officially re-
ported to the power company, but many had; and the reports must
have come to the attention of high-level executives, as evidenced by
the extraordinary corrective measures taken in a number of cases.
But when the 765-^ lines are really operating under normal load
will they be turned off for a farmer who needs to replace the gutter
on his barn and will mufflers be installed for every complaining prop-
erty owner?
In spite of the complaints obtained from only a small sampling of
residents along the line, the Ohio Power Company continues to
make the assertion that no reports of ill effects have been received.
All the reports of biological damage are brushed off as being mere
figments of the imagination. Of course, some of the stories may be
magnified by fear and some of the effects reported may be unrelated
to the presence of the line. But it is wrong to make either of these
assumptions without careful investigation, especially since the effects
are occurring under a line that is admittedly experimental in nature.
The phenomena described by the residents demonstrate the presence
of a strong electric field under the line, not only on the right-of-way
but several hundred feet on either side, and yet the long-term effects
on people living and working most of their lives in this electric field
have never been adequately researched.
 10
Abuse or
Discretion

The environmental impact of the generation and transmission of

electricity has become an increasingly important factor in determin-
ing the quality of life throughout the United States, Power plants
and transmission lines add destructive chemicals to the air, waste
heat to air and water, and radioactive elements to air, water, and
land. Because of the discretionary powers vested in the electric com-
panies by the law of eminent domain, all the decisions which affect
the extent and distribution of these pollutants are made by the utili-
ties. The choice of site, the routing of lines, the type of fuel used,
and the technology employed to convert the fuel to electricity—these
decisions affect the quality of the environment and thereby the qual-
ity of life in large portions of the country. The areas affected may be
hundreds of miles from the areas served with the additional power.
Failure to conduct adequate pollution testing programs and to show a
responsible consideration for the environmental consequences of its
decisions is certainly an abuse of the discretionary powers granted to
the electric power industry.
Typically, decisions on these important matters are based solely on
economic considerations.
105
 Power Over People 106

Planning for Power Production

The price and availability of fuel resources determines the choice
of generating facilities. Coal is the cheapest fuel generally available
and is, therefore, the preferred resource. The more expensive nuclear
energy is used where suitable fossil fuel is scarce.
From an environmental standpoint, however, the matter is much
more complex. Each type of plant presents its own particular pollu-
tion problems. The burning of fossil fuels adds between 5 and 6 bil-
lion tons of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere
every year. Fossil fuel combustion also emits sulphur dioxide in vary-
ing amounts depending on the sulphur content of the fuel used. In
spite of efforts to regulate the emission of sulphur dioxide, it has been
estimated that electric generating plants are producing nearly 17
million tons of this noxious gas each year. Smaller amounts of hydro-
carbons (perhaps one million tons) and of nitrogen oxides (four mil-
lion tons) pour out of the chimneys of electric generating plants. Fly-
ash and other particulates are also emitted. The term "particulate"
covers a great variety of very small bits of solid matter suspended in
the air. These range from simple elements like iron or lead to complex
organic substances. Many of the particulates are dangerous; some are
known to be carcinogenic. Mercury has recently been identified in
the smoke from the combustion of coal. In 1968 it was estimated that
electric-power generation added about five and a half million tons of
particulates to our atmosphere each year.
The generation of electricity by either fossil fuel or atomic energy
is intrinsically inefficient; so for every unit of electrical energy pro-
duced, several units of waste energy are expelled to the environment
at the plant site. Atomic plants are somewhat worse in this respect
than fossil fuel plants. For every unit of electricity generated by an
atomic plant, approximately three and a half units of energy are dis-
carded as heat. Fossil fuel plants produce two and a half units of
waste heat for every unit of electricity.
The easiest and cheapest way to remove this heat from the plant is
to use lake or river water for cooling the condenser coils and then to
107 Abuse of Discretion
flush this warmed water back into the natural body of water from
which it came. The extent of the damage caused by this thermal
pollution depends on the size of the body of water, the natural circu-
lation and temperature conditions, the presence of other pollutants,
and the total amount of waste heat poured into it. Lake Michigan,
for instance, is a large and cold body of water, but it already carries a
heavy load of pollution from other sources. Power plants at twenty-
nine sites now use its water as a receptacle for their thermal waste
and generating capacity is expected to double in the next decade. If
power consumption continues to rise at the present rate, and there is
no great increase in overall efficiency, in thirty years the heat from
power generation would be enough to raise by twenty degrees Fahren-
heit the temperature of the total volume of water which runs over the
surface of the United States in a year.1 Long before that point is
reached, thermal pollution will have caused the death of many types
of aquatic life and even the death of the lakes and rivers themselves.
Each species of aquatic life has been adapted by evolutionary proc-
esses to the variations in water temperature that occur naturally
throughout the year. In water, temperature changes occur very grad-
ually and encompass a narrower range than the extremes usually
encountered in the atmosphere. This relatively even environment is
undoubtedly one of the reasons why evolution did not develop self-
regulating temperature systems for aquatic forms of life. They are
cold-blooded and therefore particularly susceptible to variations in
temperature. An organism's body heat is an important factor in regu-
lating the rate of vital processes such as metabolism, reproductive
capacity, and growth, as well as longevity. Generally speaking, the
metabolic rate doubles with each increase of 18° Fahrenheit. When
the metabolism increases, the need for oxygen increases and the rates
of respiration and heartbeat also rise. These changes put severe stress
on the organism; and each species has its own characteristic level of
tolerance. The water temperature which is lethal to different species
of fish varies between 77 degrees F for cold-water fish and 97 degrees
F for southern species.
Before lethal temperatures are reached more subtle changes occur
 Power Over People 108
which affect the equilibrium of the aquatic ecosystem. The optimal
temperature for any individual species is about 10 to 15 degrees be-
low its lethal temperature and the balance maintained among the
many different species inhabiting the same body of water is altered
as the temperature of the water varies. During the hottest summer
months many of the lakes and estuaries in the United States reach
70 or 80 degrees F, making them unfavorable for some types of fish.
Most species of algae, on the other hand, grow best in warmer waters.
Peak summer temperatures, especially when occurring in waters
"enriched" with organic matter from sewage and other effluents, cause
the algae to proliferate, using up more than their share of the oxygen
dissolved in the water; and, since fish need more oxygen in warm
water (because of their increased metabolic rate), these factors com-
bine to favor algae and plankton growth. The water becomes clogged
with weeds and thick with algae. The bottom fills up with decaying
organic matter and the useful life of the body of water is ended.
The conditions leading to thermal pollution of our lakes and rivers
are most critical when heat from electric generating plants is added
to waters already warmed by summer to a peak approaching the lethal
temperatures of some of the native species. A very small increase at
that point, even a few degrees, may tip the balance in favor of the
aquatic plant life and toward early death of the body of water. Un-
fortunately, peak generating loads demanded by air conditioning in
hot weather coincide with the most unfavorable natural water-temper-
ature conditions.
A number of mechanical systems have been devised to alter the
distribution of waste heat from power plants. The extra thermal energy
can be put into the air by artificial cooling lakes or wet cooling towers
that make use of the principle of evaporation. When liquid water is
converted into water vapor, heat is absorbed. However, this evapora-
tive cooling process adds water vapor as well as heat to the atmos-
phere. When the vapor condenses again into rain, fog, or dew the
heat is delivered back to the earth's surface. Thus the waste heat is
spread over a wider region in this process. It is redistributed, not
destroyed.
109 Abuse of Discretion
Water vapor is not ordinarily classed as an air pollutant. But water
droplets suspended in the atmosphere can react chemically with other
pollutants. For instance, sulphur dioxide and water vapor are con-
verted into corrosive sulphuric acid mist, and water vapor acts as a
vehicle to carry the pollution deep into the lungs. Large amounts of
water vapor added to the atmosphere also produce climatic changes.2
It is obvious that clustering of power generating facilities aggra-
vates the thermal pollution problems. Local changes in weather are
much more likely to be serious when six generating plants eject their
plumes of hot humid air within a small geographical radius or within
the same temperature inversion basin. While one plant might dispel
its heat into a body of water without noticeable effect, twenty or
thirty plants dispelling their heat into the same body of water can
cause irreversible damage.
Site-planning, therefore, is of great importance in minimizing the
impact of power generation. Siting should be studied on a broad re-
gional basis, taking into consideration the other pollution sources that
already exist in the area or are projected for the near future. How-
ever, the policy of the power industry is to site new generating facili-
ties in locations offering the greatest economy of operation, and where
they will arouse the least public resistance. In most cases these con-
ditions are satisfied best in a rural location, preferably very close to a
source of fuel and a body of water that can be used for cooling. Since
these sites are usually far removed from the place where the power
will be used, many additional miles of transmission lines are being
built and are planned for the future.
This policy may seem reasonable at first glance. It particularly
appeals to the city dweller who will receive the power without further
deterioration of his immediate environment. He assumes that the
pollution produced in the rural areas will be "rapidly dissipated," and
that in any case it will represent a negligible deterioration of "pure"
country air and water.
But neither of these assumptions stands up to close scrutiny. Al-
though pollution levels in -rural areas have not been monitored as
systematically as they have in large cities, the few studies that have
 Power Over People no
been made have shown high levels of pollution, particularly sulphur
dioxide and oxidants, in certain large rural areas in the United States.
The Kanawha Valley in West Virginia, the Great Salt Lake basin in
northwestern Utah, and the San Joaquin Valley in California are
among the most unfortunate areas in the country as far as pollution
is concerned.
The map following page 111, published by the Environmental Sci-
ences Administration, shows the number of days that widespread High
Air Pollution Potential was forecast in each locality (1960-70). It can
be seen that countrywide patterns of air pollution are influenced by the
siting of heavy industry and power plants, by prevailing wind pat-
terns, and by local geography such as low-lying valleys, where tem-
perature inversions occur most often.
Although information on nationwide pollution problems is avail-
able to the executives who plan the siting of new plants, this informa-
tion is rarely considered. Large electric plants to produce power for
Los Angeles are currently being built in the desert of southern
Nevada where the air circulation is blocked between the coastal range
and the Rocky Mountains. Black Mesa, at the four corners where
Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet, is the site of six
enormous new coal-burning plants. The two already in operation
are filling the natural basin between the Rockies and the Jemez
Mountains with pollution like "a backed-up bathtub drain," and the
area's winds slosh the smoke around all the way from Taos to
Albuquerque.
More power for the Chicago-Gary and Detroit industrial complexes
will be generated in huge new installations on the Ohio River, on
the edge of one of the most heavily air polluted areas in the United
States and located precisely where prevailing westerly and north-
westerly winds will carry the sulphur dioxide and moisture-laden air
from the cooling towers into the heart of this air pollution pattern
(see map). Four new coal-burning plants are under construction
in southeastern Ohio and West Virginia, and the Federal Power
Commission reports that more facilities planned for this area will
bring the total new generating capacity up to 17,000 megawatts
in Abuse of Discretion
of power by 1990. This is enough to provide for all the present aver-
age electrical needs of Chicago and Detroit. It is in addition to the
present generating capacity in southeastern Ohio and West Virginia
that is now providing sufficient power for local needs. Obviously,
this particular region has been earmarked to serve as a giant generat-
ing complex for distant industrial centers.
In trying to sell decisions like this to the public, spokesmen for the
power industry make much of the fact that the plants are located
well outside city areas; and they have repeatedly urged that plants
located in rural areas be exempt from standards for the emission
of sulphur dioxide. But measurements of sulphur dioxide taken in
West Virginia and Maryland show episodes of concentrations high
enough to cause serious damage to vegetation and other living things.
Total oxidant levels are also dangerously high. Christmas-tree farms
in this mountainous rural area have suffered extensive loss of growth
and quality in their trees since 1968, a year after the start-up of a
large coal-fired power plant in their vicinity. A statewide survey of
air pollution damage to vegetation in Pennsylvania in the summer of
1970 revealed damage to vegetables, fruit, lawns, flowers, and forest
trees amounting to a direct loss of more than three and a half million
dollars.
During 1970 and 1971, samples of rainfall throughout the north-
eastern United States from Maine to New York were chemically ana-
lyzed by Dr. Gene E. Likens from Cornell University, Dr. Herbert
Bormann of Yale, and Dr. Noye M. Johnson of Dartmouth. These
samples were found to contain a proportion of corrosive acids from
ten to a hundred times greater than the proportion usually present
in rain. The investigators believe that the acids are formed when rain
passes through air polluted with sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
This acid rainfall eats deep holes in marble and causes visible damage
to metal and stone structures. Its implications for the delicate mole-
cules of biological systems have not yet been assessed. The occurrence
of acid rainfall has been known since the igao's, but it had been
assumed that this phenomenon occurred only around industrial cen-
ters. These investigators found that it occurred throughout the en-
The number of days that widespread high air pollution potential was
forecast are shown in this map from the Environmental Science Services
Administration. The program began in the East on August 1, 1960 and
in the West on October 1, 1963. Between those dates and April 3, 1970,
there were 39 episodes in the West and 75 in the East. The numbers
indicate the days a particular area was included in a HAPP (High Air
Pollution Potential) forecast. For example, between the line marked 0
and the line marked 10, the area was affected between 0 and 10 days.
This map does not show the many additional days of bad air pollution
weather of less than 75,000 square miles extent or less than 36 hours
duration, or both.
(From Virginia Brodine, "Episode 104," Environment, Jan./Feb. 1971)
 Power Over People 112
tire area they studied. It fell on villages and farms and on the slopes
of forested mountainsides.
These facts all indicate that air quality is a serious problem in the
countryside as well as in cities throughout many states. Siting of
heavy industry and power plants is the principal cause of this rural
pollution, particularly where the plants occur in large concentrations,
all adding their polluting effluents to the same wind-flow patterns.
It is not hard to find the reason why certain particular sites have
been chosen for large concentrations of power production. They are
located close to the cheapest fuel supply in the United States—coal,
obtained mostly by strip-mining. A large part of the coal that will
fuel the six plants at Black Mesa will be stripped from a high plateau
of grassland, juniper, and aspen that forms a lovely oasis in this other-
wise desert region. Since this site is at least 500 miles from the cities
that will use the power, lines will crisscross the country's last pristine
open spaces to carry the power to "civilization."
The southeastern Ohio and West Virginia area that is destined to
serve as another large power generation complex lies in the center of
the most active strip-mining region in the United States. In Virginia,
West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee a strip-mining boom has
been in progress for the past few years, and strip-mining as a big
business has now moved into Ohio. It is estimated that five billion
tons of low-grade coal, long considered too marginal for profitable
mining, lie near the surface in Ohio. This coal underlies the deeply
wooded hills from Cincinnati northeast to Canton. When these hills
are stripped of their coal they will also be stripped of priceless forest
cover and topsoil. All that lies above the coal seam is known to the
miners as "overburden." It contains the intricate web of woodland
vegetation: trees, shrubs, flowers, and mosses and the deep layer of
humus accumulated over centuries of growth. All this is destroyed
and buried to get out the coal.
It is hard to imagine the obscene violence of the strip-mining oper-
ation and the devastation it leaves in its wake. First roads must be
slashed through the woods in order to bring in the massive equipment
used in modern strip-mining—enormous augers, power shovels, bull-
ii3 Abuse of Discretion
dozers, and front-end loaders. The Giant Earth Movers (ironically
nicknamed Gems) stand twelve stories high and have bodies so big
that they even contain shower rooms for the crew. In one 24-hour
shift a Gem uses more electricity than a town of 10,000 people. In
one bite it can move 300 tons of earth.
These giant machines grind into the woodland on their massive
treads. Their enormous blades press against tree trunks. With a rend-
ing sound the trees crash and tumble down the mountainside, to-
gether with the rich topsoil still cradled in the interlaced root structure
torn from the earth. They are covered immediately by an ava-
lanche of stones and yellow clay. Jack hammers scream as deep holes
are sunk in the underlying slate and sandstone layers. The rock is
blasted into fragments and the bulldozers shove them, too, down the
mountainside. The cascade of rocks finally comes to rest on top of
the "spoil banks" where lie the crushed forms of trees and mangled
forest growth.
As cut follows cut, sheer cliffs known as "high walls" are created.
These ugly jagged stone faces sometimes stand 90 feet tall. Below
the high wall the bench of black coal that has been laid bare is
loosened by more blasting. Then power shovels load the coal onto
trucks, starting its journey to the power plants. Trains, often 100 cars
long, shuttle the coal to the plants. In some locations moving belts
carry a continuous ribbon of coal from the mines to the furnaces.
The strip-mining operation is the ultimate triumph of man's tech-
nology over nature. The superior efficiency of these enormous ma-
chines over human labor has made strip-mining a quicker and cheaper
mining method than the underground mining that produced most
coal until recently. New laws protecting the safety of the miner have
increased the expense of deep-mining operations. Stripping produces
three times as much coal per man as an underground mining opera-
tion and requires less capital investment. Such profit possibilities have
created a veritable frenzy to cash in on the strip-mining bonanza.
Ten years ago, about 120 million tons were produced by strip-mining
every year; today at least 200 million tons are strip-mined annually,
and the rate is escalating every month.
 Power Over People 114
Many states have passed laws requiring reclamation of the stripped
land, but with the exception of Pennsylvania's new regulation these
laws are inadequate and poorly enforced. The multi-billion dollar coal
industry is lobbying to block the passage of stricter laws in the other
strip-mining states. Their tactics were recently described by Ohio's
Governor Gilligan as "brazen and brutal" attempts to "blackmail" the
General Assembly into weak legislation. Even when reasonable laws
do exist, enforcement is very difficult. Inspectors can too often be
persuaded to look the other way. 3
Most importantly, it simply is not possible to restore very precipi-
tous country to anything like its original beauty and function in the
ecology of nature. Land that is flat or gently rolling can, with con-
scientious reclamation techniques, be restored to usefulness. In order
to do this properly, the topsoil must be skimmed off and preserved.
After the coal has been removed, the pits must be filled and the
rock and subsoil graded and compressed with compacting machines.
Then the topsoil must be spread evenly on the surface and sprayed
with fertilizer and seed. In England, Germany, and Czechoslovakia
stripped areas have been treated in this manner and restored to fer-
tility. The British have demonstrated that it can be done for a cost
slightly more than one dollar per ton of coal mined. Strippers in this
country, however, are using cheaper methods or none at all. It is
estimated that two-thirds of our stripped mines have undergone no
reclamation whatever. Our "best" routine efforts cost about 15 cents
per ton of coal. Under these optimal practices a combination of grass
seed, shredded straw, and fertilizer is sprayed over the raw subsoil.
The precious topsoil lies buried in the spoil banks. In some cases pine
seedlings are planted. The best results from these practices are gloomy
treeless moors covered with spindly grass and crown vetch, or fledgling
pine plantations that are a poor substitute for the hardwood forests
they replace. "This stuff they're planting and calling 'reclamation,'"
said an Ohio schoolteacher, "is like painting the face of a corpse."
Land that is steeply pitched cannot be successfully reclaimed. On
slopes with more than 25 degrees of pitch the topsoil would wash
away even if it were replaced, and grading is ineffective to prevent
115 Abuse of Discretion
the land from sliding. The old established root system of the forest
that held the land in place has been ripped out and the first heavy
rain erodes the raw banks, washing quantities of earth down the bare
mountainside. This silt and clay clog the stream beds, spoiling the
natural drainage. Disruptions of soil layers cause many trace metals-
copper, aluminum, iron, calcium, and manganese—to be washed out
and concentrated in the strip-pits, man-made lakes left between the
steep cliffs.
Mercury is a trace element found in coal beds and on river bottoms
in strip-mined areas. Sulphur impurities in coal, when exposed to air,
become converted into sulphuric acid, which is washed down into
mine-pits and natural brooks. Throughout the strip-mined lands there
are strangely colored waters—red, blue, green, and yellow. Yellow
water indicates high sulphur content; blue is caused by aluminum,
bright green by copper, red by iron. These chemicals are poisonous to
all aquatic creatures; only bacteria can live in many of the sickly
streams that flow through these devastated areas. Even a hundred
years after the mining operator has finished, many of these streams
will still run dead.
Likewise the soil that has been leached of its valuable nutrients
will be useless for centuries. Its capacity to retain water has been
seriously reduced. The hardwood forests that held the water and
delivered it slowly to the land have been stripped away, exposing the
whole watershed to extremes of flood and drought. When heavy rain
falls on these violated hillsides, rushing torrents of silt and acid flow
into the major tributaries and finally into the vast floodplains along
the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. The cities and farms along
these rivers pay a heavy price for the profits of the strip-miners.
Undoubtedly there will be even heavier prices to pay in ways not
yet anticipated. Nature has a habit of saving up our debts and sud-
denly presenting the long-overdue bill with heavy compound interest.
It is a strange bit of poetic justice, for instance, that the only aquatic
organisms that can survive in the heavily poisoned streams of the
strip-mined watershed are bacteria—bacteria capable, perhaps, of turn-
ing the metallic mercury lying on the river beds into a lethal poison.
 Power Over People 116
This poison, washed down to the larger rivers, may eventually find its
way into the human food chain and turn this act of devastation back
again at man.

Mining operators argue that the land they strip is worthless—its

average market value is about $10 an acre. But actually this forested
heart of our nation is priceless. Its elaborate web of root fibers holds
the land and regulates the water flow; its layers of foliage help main-
tain a favorable balance between the oxygen and carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere. And through the miracle of photosynthesis it creates
a reserve of food and energy for the future.
Beyond these practical considerations the Appalachian Mountains
in their natural forested state are beautiful. Within easy reach of some
of our most populous cities, they offer many city dwellers an oppor-
tunity to escape from the friction of urban life to the green tranquil-
ity of the deep forest. They offer country dwellers an environment of
unusual natural variety and splendor.
Belmont County, known as "Little Switzerland," used to be one of
the most scenic regions in Ohio. More than half the acreage in this
county has already been sold, leased, or optioned to coal strippers.
"They are turning this beautiful place into a desert," lamented Rep-
resentative Wayne L. Hays. His home is in a town that has been
isolated on three sides by sheer, quarry-like cliffs where the strip-
mine excavation stopped. Barns, silos, houses, and churches have been
dynamited to lay bare the coal. Whole communities have been up-
rooted and the way of life that existed in these villages for generations
has been ruthlessly destroyed.
"I would have expected this kind of thing in Russia but not here!"
a telephone operator exclaimed.
The point of view of industry is represented by the remark of Ford
Sampson, head of the Ohio Coal Association: "Are we to cut off
electric power because some guy has a sentimental feeling about an
acre of coal?"

The tiny village of Egypt was once the shopping center and meet-
ing place for a wide rural community. No one lives there anymore.
117 Abuse of Discretion
There is an old Grange Hall still standing, an empty church, and a
cemetery. Hanna Coal had the exterior of the church painted re-
cently, but no one worships there anymore. The last family moved
out of Egypt several years ago.
The same fate appears to be in store for the little town of Hendrys-
burg, which lies right on Interstate Route 70. Hanna Coal's giant
"Gem of Egypt" has been digging night and day, practically in the
backyards of Hendrysburg. Several times a day the town has been
shaken by blasting and pelted with stones kicked up by the dynamit-
ing. The shocks knocked pans off stoves and pictures off the walls.
One man who made a hobby of building grandfather clocks wired his
clocks to the wall. Some days as many as 80 shocks have been re-
corded. The plaster has cracked in the houses and the floors are sag-
ging. When it rains water leaks through the cracked ceilings.
In five years the population of Hendrysburg has fallen from 800 to
500. Most of those who are left are middle-aged or elderly; many have
already moved once from farmland that was bought by the coal com-
panies. Some of the residents cannot afford to move again. Those
who could move have no place to go. The farms and rural communi-
ties they are familiar with have been destroyed. There is no place left
where they could re-create the way of life that they have lost.
Hanna Coal has an agreement with the State of Ohio and the
Federal Highway Administration that the interstate highway will be
closed to all traffic for up to twenty-four hours to permit Hanna to
move its "Gem" across the four-lane road on a massive crushed rock
and earthen dike when it is finished stripping the area around Hen-
drysburg and is ready to start stripping the farmland and wooded hills
to the south.
The residents of the little communities on the south side are
watching with growing apprehension the rapid progress of the mining
on the north. They know that their turn is next and they are mobiliz-
ing to try to prevent the coal company from moving its Gem across
the highway. A citizens' group in the pretty little town of Barnesville
is attempting to protect their community from the fate that befell
Egypt and Hendrysburg. They are seeking means to set up a green
belt around the town, an area where mining could not occur and the
 Ray M. Filloon for U.S Forest Service, 1937

The land they strip is worthless.

Robert Charles Smith for Environment
 Power Over People 120
countryside would be preserved. They fear that the strip-mining will
foul their water supplies, damage their access roads, and leave them
entirely isolated like a tiny raised oasis in the midst of a man-made
desert. But the coal company has bought mineral rights and land
rights up to the very edge of the town. Most of the green belt already
belongs to the strippers.
While the destruction of the homes and farmland near Hendrys-
burg was taking place, American Electric Power Company applied to
the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to construct
a loo-unit rental housing development in Cambridge. Ohio, just
twenty-five miles west of Hendrysburg. "We feel," they said, "that
utilities are in a unique position to help their communities meet their
housingo needs. We know our communities and we have both the
resources and the willingness to undertake the job." The annual re-
port that contained this statement included pictures of Martins Ferry,
Ohio, "AEP System's newest community." Martins Ferry lies twenty
miles to the east of Hendrysburg and Interstate 70 connects the two
towns, bisecting Belmont County and Egypt Valley.
Looking at these facts it is easy to see that American Electric Power
does have a unique understanding of the housing needs of this devas-
tated region. Capitalizing on the necessity for new housing to replace
the homes they have helped destroy, they plan to erect a multi-unit
housing development. Built according to their formula for the Amer-
ican way of life, it will be another all-electric homogenized suburbia.
Life in a planned community like this will be as different in flavor
from the life in a real country community as a hothouse tomato is
from a tomato grown in Clovis Strasbow's garden. But American
Electric Power will make a profit from the project, which they will
finance out of profits acquired from the sale of power generated from
the coal blasted from the backyards of Hendrysburg and little Egypt
and Barnesville.
Interstate 70 is also crossed by one of AEP's new 76j-kv power
lines. The line originates at the enormous Kammer-Mitchell power
plants on the Ohio River, plants fueled by the coal stripped from this
area. The line passes just to the north of Cambridge and heads
I2i Abuse of Discretion
diagonally across the farmlands of Ohio to connect with the lines lead-
ing to the Chicago and Detroit areas.

Concern for the Total Environment

Electricity created by this devastation of the Ohio countryside is
already being marketed in Chicago. While the monstrous bulldozers
work around the clock tearing at the hillsides along the Musldngum
and Ohio rivers, a smooth voice comes over the Chicago radio several
times a week: "People want to go where there are no chimneys, where
there is no dirt to seep in and collect on windowsills. The next time
you remodel install clean electric heating. Electricity creates no dirt
and no fumes because there is no combustion. Commonwealth Edi-
son, concern for your total environment."
What is our total environment, Commonwealth Edison? Is it the
four walls wired for electricity that produce the little cell of space that
we call home? Is it the great heap of concrete and humanity that we
call our city? Is it America, that place we used to sing about as beauti-
ful with spacious skies and amber fields of grain? Or is it the whole
earth, this planet so intricately and dynamically integrated that it is
almost like a single living organism? Injuries inflicted in one region
cannot help but affect the health of the whole earth. The deep
wounds that make the streams of Kentucky and West Virginia run
red will eventually affect the total environment of the people who
live on the shores of Lake Michigan as well as those who live beside
the cold waters of the Baltic and on the banks of the Ganges.
The "clean" electric power that the dulcet voice persuades us to
plug into does create dirt and fumes—a few hundred miles away. This
power is responsible for the crushed forms of the sycamore trees and
rhododendron bushes that lie rotting in the spoil banks along the dead
rivers. It causes the plumes of dust that rise from the stripped fields
and drift eastward to settle on the sidewalks of Wheeling and the
windowsills of Morgantown. It causes the fumes laden with sulphur
dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and water vapor that hang like a heavy
smothering blanket over the valleys of West Virginia and Tennessee.
The public utilities are making cheap electric power available to
 Power Over People 122,
some parts of the country at the expense of others. They are deceiv-
ing the public with misleading statements about "clean" electric
power, and separating cause from effect so that the people who are
plugging in color TVs cannot see the price that someone else is be-
ing forced to pay for their power.

Little Bill
Many people who lived through the 1950*5 in the Midwest can
vividly remember the pert little bird that flashed onto their television
screens at frequent intervals, hopping in on the heels of Loretta
Young and interrupting "Victory at Sea." A catchy tune accompanied
his appearance and carried this message: "Electricity costs less today,
you know, than it did twenty-five years ago. A little birdie told me so
-Little Bill!"
Little Bill was a delightful ad, and furthermore, his message was
true—in a limited sense. Electricity did cost less in 1950 than it had in
1925; and in 1972, in spite of about 50 per cent general inflation, elec-
tricity costs only 10 per cent more than it did in 1950. A remarkable
achievement, one might say, and indeed it would be if the rate we
were paying represented the true price of the energy we are buying.
In supplying low-priced power the utility companies have used the
same mass-production principles that Henry Ford pioneered in the
manufacture of automobiles. By producing an inexpensive commodity
they can sell more of it; and by making more of it, they can use their
equipment more efficiently, reduce the price even more, and so on. A
full-page advertisement run by the power companies in the spring of
1970 explained the method:
The nation's Investor-Owned Electric Light and Power Com-
panies spent billions for new equipment which produces and
delivers electricity more economically. And the fact that you are
using more electricity than ever before enables us to use these
facilities more efficiently. In meeting the nation's increasing
needs for electricity within the free enterprise system, our con-
cern is not just to give you the most reliable service possible. We
want to go right on serving you at a price that lags far behind
the cost of living. That's good business.
123 Abuse of Discretion
The advertisement pictures children playing on a hillside with
ankle-deep grass and lovely trees outlined against a clear sky. What
does this scene have to do with the production of electricity!1 Are
these some of the trees that will be cut down to make way for trans-
mission towers 130 feet tall, carrying voltages so high that the children
can never again fly kites or run barefoot on this grass? Or is this one
of the hillsides that will be stripped next week to tear out the coal to
feed the furnaces that pour out fumes and darken that clear sky? Is
this one of the hillsides that will be left bare of vegetation and scarred
with erosion because reclaiming it would cost too much?
R. W. Hatch, president of the Hanna Coal Company, explained
the rationale of this economic policy as follows: "We [the strip-
miners] oppose unreasonable restrictions that, if imposed upon us,
would have increased our costs to such an extent that we would have
priced ourselves out of the market place and deprived the public of
the low-cost power it sorely needs."
This policy is the real basis for cheap electric power. Every step of
the technology, from removal of the fuel from the ground to de-
livery of power to the consumer over marginally designed transmis-
sion lines is performed in the cheapest possible manner. Every step
involves environmental degradation which could be avoided or cor-
rected, with the cost included in the price of the product. If it were,
as Mr. Hatch so clearly sees, the product might not be competitive
with other, more honestly priced commodities. This deceptive pric-
ing policy makes it possible to sell electricity so cheaply that it appears
to be a bargain. The cheapness escalates the demand and undercuts
all competition. The result is a rapidly rising rate of consumption and
a rapidly accumulating environmental cost which is every day col-
lecting compound interest.4
This is good business, the power companies' ad tells us. Yes, in-
deed it is good business—for the power companies and their suppliers.
During 1969 and 1970, when most businesses were experiencing a re-
duction in profits or even operating at a loss, American Electric Power
reported steadily rising profits. In 1969 its net profits of $106,3 million
were 6.5 per cent higher than in 1968. In 1970 its profits rose to
 Power Over People 124
$116.9 million, a 10 per cent increase. In 1971 the increase was 16
per cent, to a net profit of $134.9 million. The electric power compa-
nies are riding high on the wave of a rapidly growing demand for
electricity, a demand which they themselves have created hy their
pricing and production policies.

Cheaper by the Dozen

The rates charged for each kilowatt-hour of electricity are gradu-
ated almost as steeply as the income tax rates, but in the opposite
direction: they favor the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Most
heavy consumers pay less than a third as much for each kilowatt-
hour as the small user does. For example, in 1972 Commonwealth
Edison's residential rates start at 3.65 cents per kwh after an initial
service charge. When quantities over 450 kwh are used in a month,
the rate drops to 2.05 cents. But the person who heats his home with
electricity pays only i.io cents per kwh for all quantities over 325
kwh. This rate applies not only to electricity used for heating but to
all the electricity used in this home: the power that runs television
sets, electric can-openers, and filters for the swimming pool. The
power for air conditioning is also billed at this bargain rate. There-
fore, the owner of a large home with electric space heating can en-
joy the luxuries of his "all-electric living" at a much cheaper rate
than the small consumer pays. Two or three rooms can be air condi-
tioned for this favored customer at the same price the average home-
owner pays for cooling one.5
A study of the rate schedules makes it apparent that the low price
for massive consumption is a promotional device to stimulate higher
regular use and to undersell competitive energy sources. In applica-
tions where electricity is not economically competitive with other
methods of doing the same job, electric rates have been artificially re-
duced until the prices of the two methods are comparable. Electric
space heating, for instance, requires the consumption of approxi-
mately twice as much fossil fuel as would be required if gas or oil
were used to fuel a well-designed home furnace. By marking down
the charge for electric space heating, the electric companies have
125 Abuse of Discretion
made the two methods roughly equal on a total cost basis. This prac-
tice amounts to a subsidy for electric heating, a subsidy paid for by
the average electricity-buying American citizen and by every Ameri-
can citizen in terms of unnecessary degradation of the environment. If
electric heating had to compete honestly with other forms of heating
it would immediately be apparent that it is an extravagantly waste-
ful way to warm our homes.
However, electric space heating is being extensively promoted by
the power companies. Through full-page advertisements and radio
and television commercials the public is constantly bombarded with
seductive statements about the advantages of the electric climate. The
power industry has defended its promotion of electric heating by
asserting that winter use of power balances summer use of air con-
ditioning so that generating equipment can be used more uniformly
throughout the year. However, the rate system is so designed that the
use of electric heating actually encourages more electric air condi-
tioning. People who heat with electricity can cool with electricity
much more cheaply than those who heat with gas or oil. Under these
conditions, the promotion of more electric space heating does not serve
to equalize the summer-winter load but raises the level both summer
and winter. Furthermore, the promotion of electric heating in the
face of the pollution problems created by power production is a par-
ticularly flagrant example of what appears to be a deliberate cam-
paign to mislead the public.
"Buildings with the electric climate," declares one of these ads,
"use the cleanest source of energy there is. Flameless electricity.
There's no combustion! Therefore, buildings with the electric cli-
mate put nothing in the air around them!"
That statement is a misrepresentation of the facts. More than 80
per cent of the electricity in the United States is made by combustion
of fossil fuels. According to an estimate made by the Scientists' Insti-
tute for Public Information, the combustion that generates "the elec-
tric climate" leads to three times as much carbon dioxide production,
a several-fold increase in the oxides of nitrogen, and a several-fold in-
crease in sulphur oxide releases to the environment over those which
 Power Over People 126
would result were natural-gas space heating employed. One all-
electric building can have a power demand greater than that of a city
with a population of 60,000 people. "It seems reasonable," says one
commentator, "to ask whether electric space heating should be per-
mitted at all, to say nothing of being touted as being 'clean.' "

Disposable Power
Not only residential rates but also those charged to business and
industry offer bargain prices for big consumers. Two kinds of charges
are made—one based on the maximum power drawn for any thirty-
minute period during the month and the other based on the total
power used. Both of these charges are graduated, giving a price ad-
vantage to the large consumer. Typical bulk rates in 1972 are 0.7
cents per kwh (Ohio Power), 0.6 cents (TVA), and only 0.2 cents
for the hydroelectric power of the Pacific Northwest. These rates favor
the competitive position of industries that use extraordinary amounts
of power.
The primary metals industry is one of the largest consumers of
electricity in this country. One steel mill can use as much electricity as
a city of 200,000 people. But the manufacture of aluminum is the big-
gest consumer of all, accounting for about 10 per cent of all industrial
power use. To make one ton of aluminum requires about 17,000 kwh
of electricity. In comparison it has been estimated that the energy
equivalent required to make one ton of steel is about 2,700 kwh. Ob-
viously, aluminum production is an expensive process in terms of the
energy required, and it consumes a disproportionate share of our total
energy resources.
However, the low rates for electricity and the graduated price struc-
ture obscure this basic economic fact. The manufacturers of alumi-
num buy enormous quantities of power very cheaply; therefore, the
product can be sold at a bargain price. Aluminum is now so cheap
that we can afford to throw it away. We can make beer cans out of it
and disposable pie tins and wrappings for hundreds of different prod-
ucts. The energy that goes into the refining of aluminum is paid for
at a cut-rate price, but the cost to society of the pollution caused by
127 Abuse of Discretion
each one of those kilowatt hours is not billed at a bargain rate.
Given the cost advantage of cheap electric power, the manufacture
of aluminum is one of the most rapidly growing industries in this
country. Production increased 453 per cent between 1946 and 1968.
The spectacular growth of this one industry is illustrative of the
factors pushing up the demand for electricity to the present expo-
nential rates of increase.
New technologies for the making of steel threaten to escalate the
use of power in producing this metal also. The basic-oxygen process
consumes nearly 5 times as much electricity as the open-hearth
method, and the electric furnace requires 65 times as much energy.
(These figures were quoted with satisfaction in the report of the
annual meeting of stockholders of Commonwealth Edison, April 2,
1971.) The reason for going to these high-electricity-consumption
processes is that the open-hearth method creates serious air pollution
problems. But in estimating the environmental advantages of the
alternate technologies, it is essential to include the pollution caused
by the generation of the additional power they demand. On this basis
it would be difficult to justify the electric furnace that uses 65 times
as much power as the open-hearth method and 13 times as much as
the basic-oxygen. Financially, the electric furnace is brought within
competitive range of the other methods by cheap bulk rates for the
massive users of power.
This price structure, which encourages more and more extrava-
gant use of electricity, cannot be justified on the basis that the 0.7-
cent kwh costs the company only a fifth as much to produce and de-
liver as the 3/65-cent kwh. Large blocks of power cost the company a
little less per kilowatt because of the fixed expenses of reading meters
and sending out bills, but these small fixed expenses are largely cov-
ered by the minimum service charge and do not justify any such
drastic reduction in price. On the whole, changes made in the rate
structure over the past forty years have been in the direction of in-
creasing the differential between the rates for the small and the large
consumer. The result is that the large consumer is encouraged to use
more power.
 Power Over People 128
Large successful companies like American Electric Power and
Commonwealth Edison are certainly well aware of the simple eco-
nomic principles involved here. By reorganizing their rate structure
they could accomplish a great deal toward damping the overall rate
of growth, as well as equalizing the seasonal and diurnal load pat-
terns. Residential rates could provide a basic standard-of-living ration
for each household at a reasonable rate, with escalating prices for
extraordinary uses over and above this ration. Such a rate structure
would provide an incentive for the private citizen to conserve power.
Industrial and commercial rates could favor the use of power during
hours of normally lower demand; industry would find ways of taking
advantage of this saving. These methods are so elementary and readily
applicable that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that they are
not employed because they would not serve the interests of the power
industry. The only logical conclusion to be drawn from the present
rate structure is that it is planned to promote rapid growth in general
consumption and especially to favor certain prodigal uses of power
which offer maximum growth potential far into the future.
Electric heating, for instance, offers the largest single market for
more electric sales in the next decade. The goal of the utility indus-
try, as reported in a Federal Power Commission Survey, is 19 million
electrically heated homes by 1980. The power required by these
homes would be equal to the entire residential use of electricity in
1960. But at the same time it is pushing electric space heating by
hard-sell advertising and subsidy prices, the utility industry is pro-
testing that it can hardly match the rapidly growing demand for
power. The people need, more power, the industry spokesmen declare.
They demand it. Electricity consumption will double in the seventies.
Any advertising man is well aware of the psychological power of
positive assertion. Tell people they need something, talk up its ad-
vantages in glowing terms, make it available at bargain price, and—
presto—you have created a demand. The assertion of the power com-
panies that "demand" for electricity will double in the yo's is a self-
fulfilling prophecy. Since the companies have already ordered the
plants that will produce this extra power, they now have a large
129 Abuse of Discretion
financial stake in seeing that the prophecy becomes a fact. But the
power industry does not seem to have given any responsible thought
to where these policies are leading us.

Our All-Electric Future

We are now using in this country five times as much power as we
were using in 1950 (four times as much per capita). Has our stand-
ard of living improved comparably? I am not sure that it has improved
at all. We have more disposable aluminum items, more air condi-
tioning and color television. But degenerative diseases such as cancer
and emphysema are on the increase. Our cities are becoming less
habitable and our land less beautiful.
By 1980 we will be using ten times as much power as we were in
1950; and if this same geometric rate continues, by the year 2000 we
will be using 40 times as much electricity as we were using in 1950.
(The electric industry's own estimate is somewhat more conservative:
2,5 times the 1950 consumption.) In the meantime, what will have
happened to our standard of living?6
A great deal of the increased power production will go into alumi-
num and steel items designed either for immediate disposal or for
rapid obsolescence. Some families will have added work-saving de-
vices such as washing machines and dishwashers. And, of course,
more people will have that "flameless electric heat," By the time the
majority of people have electric heating, the price subsidy will have
virtually disappeared. Little Bill will have grown fat over the years
and the cost of electric heating will have become apparent. But by
that time most people will be living in homes without furnaces and
will be committed to the "unpolluting" electric climate. To power this
electric living we would need at least eight times as many electric
generating plants as we have today, and this factor alone (assuming
that other polluting sources remained constant) would increase by
several times the present air pollution levels.
The life of an electric generating plant is approximately thirty
years; there is a five-year interval from the time it is ordered until it
is operating. The plants on order today will still be serving us in the
 Power Over People 130
year 2000. Since these plants have already been planned, they will
be built to the same pollution-producing design that is causing many
of our present environmental problems. Therefore, it is extremely un-
likely that the pollution caused by the production of each kilowatt of
electricity will change much in the next twenty or thirty years.
The rapid deterioration of air quality during this period might be
delayed by outlawing automobiles using the internal combustion en-
gine. Transportation in cities could be solved by providing rapid tran-
sit service and cars that run on batteries. But that would require more
electricity and more power plants.
The waste disposal problem will also have become more critical
(all those aluminum pie tins and junk yards of old automobiles). But
these problems could be relieved by giant machines to compact and
shred the waste. Of course, these machines would be electrically op-
erated; and that would require more power plants.
The earth's climate will very likely be hotter and more humid
(from the waste heat and water vapor created by the power plants).
But that won't be any problem because we will have air-conditioning,
which we could run for more of the year; and that would take more
electricity.
Since the air pollution everywhere will probably exceed maximum
permissible levels, it will be unsafe to spend any time out of doors,
and all our living spaces—our homes, factories, automobiles, trains,
perhaps even the sidewalks—will have to become part of the total
electric climate. The air will have to be filtered and conditioned in
order to be safe to breathe. That will take more electricity and more
power plants.
The present course of action, far from leading us down the highway
to progress, leads to an accelerating treadmill where we have to run
faster and faster just to stay even. Somewhere along this road, the
tolerance level of the public will be exceeded. A halt will be called
and priorities established for the use of power.
In a sensible priority system electricity would never be used to
correct other pollution problems unless it could be shown that the
total degradation of the environment, including that caused by the
131 Abuse of Discretion
generation of the additional power, would be reduced by this method.
The electric industry, for instance, is now burning a great deal of
natural gas irt an attempt to meet air quality standards. (In 1971 one-
fourth of the electricity made in this country was generated by nat-
ural gas.) But natural gas is most efficiently used to heat homes and
water heaters directly. It is a relatively clean fuel and is in very short
supply. Using this desirable fuel to generate electricity reduces its
energy value by at least one-half and causes twice as much total air
pollution for energy delivered. An intelligent energy policy would
prohibit the use of natural gas for the generation of electricity, thus
making gas available in more adequate quantities for home heating.
This allocation of energy resources would reduce the need for in-
creased electric generating facilities.
Another way in which the demand for electric power might be al-
tered is through a change in the rate schedule. These rates are re-
viewed regularly by the public utility commissions. Public hearings
are held and citizens' opinions can be aired. Citizens have a right, for
instance, to protest against the discriminatory practice of providing
cut-rate power to electrically heated buildings. A change in this fac-
tor alone would go a long way toward curbing the runaway demand
which the power companies protest they are desperately trying to
match.
New York City's Environmental Protection Administration recently
released a study recommending ways to curtail the use of electricity,
such as: increased rates for large users, a surcharge on use of elec-
tricity during hours of peak demand, and an electrical-use tax to
reflect the environmental costs of power production. Executives of the
power industry, however, are less than happy about such suggestions.
"It has been suggested," said Donald Cook, president of American
Electric Power, "that environmental considerations may require a
reduction or stabilization in the demand for electric power. This is
sheer nonsense."
John W. Simpson, president of the Power Systems Company of
Westinghouse Electric Corporation, described his objections in more
detail:
 Power Over People 132
Suggestions that we weight our rate structures to penalize large
users of electric power, notions that we freeze levels of power
consumption, recommendations that we begin to cut back on our
use of electricity, all of these things, well-intentioned though
some of them may be, are absolutely wrong and dangerous. To
pull in the reins of our economic growth, to push down our
living standards, to paralyze our society, would be a sure guaran-
tee of national disaster and the swift demise of the United
States as a nation of any consequence whatever.

It is not surprising that the industry resists any attempts to restrain

the accelerating growth of demand for electric power. The plans,
financial policies, and long-term commitments of these companies
have already been made, predicated on the assumption of a doubled
demand for electricity by the end of this decade. Bonds have been
floated, million-dollar orders placed; engineers and boiler-makers are
hard at work constructing the facilities that will tap this demand.
Obviously, the companies will resist any fundamental change which
would alter the level of power demand in 1980.
For the next year or two, however, there may be a tendency for the
industry to go along with the policy of softer sell. Delays have oc-
curred in bringing the new facilities in on schedule. Plants that
should have been in operation in 1972 and 1973 will not be ready
until 1974 or 1975. Several large utilities will not have the capacity
they had planned to have during the interim. For this reason, they
may appear to acquiesce in the public demand for less promotion of
power use. Softening the hard sell will help tide them over the transi-
tion period.
Consolidated Edison, for instance, the hardest-pressed of all the
large utilities, announced that it would cease all advertising in 1971
and, in fact, would turn to a policy of anti-sell. But it is safe to assume
that, as soon as its new facilities have been completed and the boilers
are building up steam, anti-sell policies will be discarded. Promotion
campaigns will again be undertaken until the new plants are produc-
ing at full capacity and "the public demand must be met" by build-
ing more. Anything as fundamental as a change in the rate structure
133 Abuse of Discretion
is likely to encounter enormous resistance from the industry, because
that cannot be turned on and off as easily as an advertising campaign.
Most of the delays have been caused by the installation of inade-
quately tested equipment. In a desperate attempt to take advantage of
the accelerating demand they themselves created, the power com-
panies have been rushing into service scaled-up models of older gen-
erating and transmitting systems. They have gone from the 200-
megawatt generators in the mid-1950'$ to 1,200 and 1,300 megawatts
today, without normal testing for reliability of operation. "Now we
are doing our testing in the utility plants," a White House expert is
quoted as saying, "instead of in the manufacturing plants." The re-
sult has been frequent breakdowns of large generators such as Con-
solidated Edison's million-kilowatt "Big Allis" in New York City.
The extra-high-voltage transmission lines are another example of
inadequately tested equipment put into service before their effects are
understood. And the public is required to act as guinea pigs. (Call
us up and report if there is any biological damage!)
Behind the policies of the electric companies lies the tacit assump-
tion that some risk is permissible in order to speed the growth of in-
dustrialization. They have the power to decide how much risk is
permissible and who will bear it. By using this power to perpetrate
an unequal distribution of the costs and benefits, by using it to install
equipment that maximizes economy rather than safety, and finally,
by sweeping us all into a maelstrom of wasteful consumption, the
utility companies are grossly abusing the discretionary powers vested
in them by the American people.

Updating Notes, 1992

1. This prediction is no longer valid because power consumption did not
continue to rise at the 1970 rate. See Endnote 4.
2. Water vapor is a very effective reflector of the heat radiated by the
earth, turning it back to the planet's surface. Thus water vapor contributes
to the greenhouse effect and together with the waste heat expelled into
bodies of water it increases the likelihood of a change in the earth's climate.
 Power Over People 134
3. Stricter strip-mining laws were passed in Ohio in spite of the opposi-
tion described by Governor Gilligan. Hanna Coal Co. had threatened to
go out of business if the laws were passed but subsequently decided to
stay in business after all. Better strip-mining regulations have been passed
in many states and on a federal level but enforcement is a continuing
problem.
4. Fortunately, the rate of increase of power consumption changed dra-
matically in the 19705 as a result of the energy crisis. The price of oil
rose steeply and electricity rates followed. As conservation practises re-
duced the demand, the price of electricity was raised again to cover the
cost of the unused capacity of the electric utilities. (See Note 2, Chapter 4.)
5. Environmental groups have fought the pricing policies of the electric
industry and have forced some changes. The differential between the costs
for large and small users has been reduced although it is still a consid-
erable factor. For example, Commonwealth Edison's residential rates now
start at 10.82 cents per kwh and drop to 7.09 cents for quantities over 400.
Customers who heat electrically pay only 4.97 cents per kwh for quantities
over 700. For the summer months there is no reduction for large usage.
6. Between 1973 and 1983 the usage of electricity increased approxi-
mately 25 percent instead of 100 percent as projected. If this more modest
rate of increase could be maintained until the year 2003 we would be using
only double the amount of 1973 (instead of 8 times) and ten (instead of
40 times) as much as in 1950. This calculation demonstrates the enormous
importance of conservation.
 11
Ohio Po wer Company
versus
Clovis Strasbow

On the 23rd of January, 1971, Clovis Strasbow's family was served

with a summons to appear in the Court of Common Pleas of Vinton
County on a complaint filed by the Ohio Power Company in its at-
tempt to appropriate a right-of-way for the transmission line across
their property.
A number of times over the past year, Clovis had consulted with
a lawyer in the nearby town of Wellston but had not received much
encouragement for his primary objective of preventing the transmis-
sion line from crossing his property. The lawyer pointed out that there
was no precedent for a decision of this kind in condemnation pro-
ceedings. He thought the best they could do would be to demand pay-
ment for the entire Strasbow property, maintaining that the value
of the whole place would be completely destroyed by the erection of
the line. He also suggested that Clovis obtain an appraisal of the
property.
The appraiser hired by the Strasbows recognized that this piece of
135
 Power Over People 136
property was underlaid by several veins of coal which added consid-
erably to its worth. Four veins of coal are known to lie under this
portion of Vinton County, and No. 2 vein is especially valuable since
it is very low in sulphur content. With the current demand for low-
sulphur fuel, the coal from this vein would bring premium prices.
Various companies, among them the Ohio Power Company itself,
were at that very moment working hard in Vinton and Meigs coun-
ties to buy up land and mineral rights. Several of the Strasbows'
neighbors had been approached, and the prices offered were being
rapidly escalated to win over reluctant property owners.
"You might just as well sell out," one of the neighbors had been
told. "You won't want to live here anyway. The whole county will
be covered with soot and coal dust." Earth-shaking blasts of dynamite
and the crash and rumble of giant strip-mining machines like Ohio
Power Company's Big Muskie would make life intolerable for many
miles around.
Residents of Vinton County did not have to be told these facts.
They had already had a taste of strip-mining. They knew that when
the miners and machines went away they would leave a scene of
devastation resembling the mountains of the moon. Thousands of
acres within a lo-mile radius of the Strasbows' property had been
stripped; and, although most of this mining had occurred more than
fifteen years ago, the land was still barren with precipitous mud cliffs
and ugly pools tainted with red and yellow acid.
Raccoon Creek, which had run clear and sparkling when Clovis
fished there as a child, is now dark muddy yellow and so polluted with
sulphur that no fish live there. In heavy rains the water pours down
off a number of bare gullied hillsides that drain into Raccoon Creek
and cause this sizable tributary to flood regularly. Several valleys
near the river have been turned into acid bogs where the gloomy
skeletons of hundreds of dead trees still stand. Residents of these
counties are within easy driving distance of Belmont County, where
they can see for themselves the destruction of once-beautiful forested
hills and productive farmland.
Knowing these facts, a number of landowners in Vinton County
137 Ohio Power Company versus Clovis Strasbow
were resisting the tempting offers heing made for their land. They
were attempting to protect the land they had known and loved for
many years from being "skinned alive" by the strip-miners. They
did not oppose deep mining to the same extent, but they real-
ized that although the coal companies might say they were buying the
land or the mineral rights for deep mining, and although they might
indeed mine the most valuable deep veins in this manner, there would
then be nothing to prevent them from stripping out the veins of
poorer-quality coal.
Considering all these facts, the appraiser put a price on the Stras-
bow farm of about 100 times the price that had been offered for the
right-of-way—which would bisect this same land, making it virtually
unusable for residence or for mining. Based on this appraisal, there
seemed to be ample justification for demanding a very much higher
price for the right-of-way.
However, Clovis Strasbow was not satisfied with this. His main
concern was to prevent the erection of the line, which his researches
had convinced him would be a hazard and would degrade the quality
of life along its entire length. Rather than accept even the very high
appraisal price for his property, he preferred to force the power com-
pany to take account of the dangers it would be creating and re-
design the transmission line to be more acceptable.
The day after receiving the court summons, Clovis telephoned
many of his neighbors and also the leaders of the protest group in
Laurel. One of the landowners recommended a lawyer in Columbus
whom he had consulted and who had shown great interest in the
environmental aspects of the problem. The following day Clovis and
Ada drove the 60 miles to Columbus and retained Philip Morton
and his son John to defend them in their case against the Ohio Power
Company.
The Mortons were very concerned about the biological hazards
created by such a transmission line. They were shocked by the ab-
sence of adequate laws in Ohio to protect the citizen against dangers
imposed by public utilities which were presumably operated for the
public good. They did not accept the contention that it is impossible
 They were trying to protect the land they had known and loved for many
years from being "skinned alive" by the strip-miners.
Bill Choyke from Not Man Apart, May 1972
 Power Over People 140
to fight a condemnation suit. Precedent or no precedent, they be-
lieved that where the safety of the public was at issue there must be
a legal way to force the power company to disclose the details of their
plan and to obtain a public forum for the facts thus uncovered.
After a careful examination of the possibilities, they decided to
invoke Rule 33 of the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure to require the
power company to answer questions concerning the hazardous fea-
tures of the line. They drew up a list of thirty-two questions asking
for technical information on the design specifications of the line; the
results of any measurements that had been made by the power com-
pany on corona losses, electrochemical products, interference with
radio and television reception, and electric shock; and information on
any studies that had been made on the long-term biological impact of
such lines. These "interrogatories" were filed in the Court of Common
Pleas in Vinton County on February 24, and the Ohio Power Com-
pany was granted twenty-eight days to answer them.
The power company, however, was totally unprepared for such a
response to its suit. Over the years it had developed standard prac-
tices for dealing with all the usual forms of legal objection. The de-
mand for technical information was new in its experience. The al-
lowed twenty-eight days passed and no answers to the interrogatories
were produced. They would be forthcoming any day, the company
promised. In the meantime an overture was made behind closed doors
in the law offices for a settlement out of court. "What price would the
Strasbows accept for the right-of-way?" But the Mortons insisted that
their client was more interested in learning the facts than in acquiring
a few extra dollars. This was hard for the power company to believe.
It took several hours of discussion to convince their representatives of
the sincerity of Clovis Strasbow's conviction.
Still the answers were not forthcoming. Months dragged by, and
although there was sound legal basis for asking the case to be dis-
missed because of the failure of, the Ohio Power Company to answer
within twenty-eight days, th" Mortons advised allowing it additional
time. Finally, at the end of May, the Mortons filed a petition asking
that the case be dismissed if the interrogatories Were not answered
141 Ohio Power Company versus Clovis Strasbow
in another two weeks. Two days before this deadline the power com-
pany produced a document purporting to answer the questions.
This document is a fascinating example of the art of answering de-
mands for factual information with an absolute minimum of facts.
Four of the answers were not responsive to the questions asked. Four
other questions were not answered at all, objections being raised on
technicalities. Five questions which requested quantitative informa-
tion were answered by qualitative terms, expressing an opinion and
revealing no information: "not significant," "relatively little," "similar
to," "insignificant." Six questions were answered with flat assertions
of "no effect" or "no hazard" without any supporting evidence. The
demand for copies of any scientific studies on which the answers were
based was denied on a technicality.
In all, only two answers contained any quantitative information.
These dealt with specifications for the transmission wire, towers, con-
ductors, and conductor configuration. They revealed, however, the
interesting fact that a significant change had been made in the design
of the line as it had originally been planned and as it had been used
in the first four 76j-kv lines. The conductor diameter had been in-
creased from 1.165 inches to 1.38 inches. These larger conductors
will produce about half as much corona discharge as the smaller line,
resulting in a corresponding reduction in damage to the environment.
This heavier construction represents a considerable expense to the
company. In late 1969 the engineers of the American Electric Power
Company had declared that such "an increase in conductor diameter
could not be economically justified."
The change had apparently been made between the time that the
formal questions had been asked and the time the answers were fi-
nally received. The reason for the long delay was now clear. When
faced with the necessity of producing factual information, the power
company had rushed out to conduct tests which should have been
made years earlier, before any such line had been built. The results
of these tests must have convinced the company executives that the
line design using the small conductors was indeed too high in corona
loss, that it produced levels of audible noise and electrochemical
 Power Over People 142
pollution which would not pass the critical inspection of informed
and concerned citizens.
This change to a more conservative design of transmission line
would never have occurred without the efforts of the little protest
group at Laurel that originally brought the issue to public attention,
or without the efforts of Clovis Strasbow, who had organized his
own field tests and had been willing to stand up against a giant com-
pany rather than accept a large settlement for the right-of-way. And
finally, it would not have occurred without the legal help of the Mor-
tons, who were able to force the power company officials to address
themselves to these environmental concerns. Because of the action of
these few people, two to three thousand miles of 765-^ line projected
for construction in the next few years will be built with conductors
that should produce only half as much electrochemical pollution. This
certainly represents an important victory.
The battle, however, is not won. Even with these improvements,
this line will be a very unpleasant and polluting installation. The
electric field effects and shock hazard will not be improved, and visu-
ally the design remains just as horrendous. Furthermore, under the
terms of the standard right-of-way agreement, the company can make
any changes it likes later in the construction and operation of the
line. They can run higher voltages over these larger conductors,
thereby completely undoing the beneficial effect of the more con-
servative design. They can build taller structures and add more trans-
mission lines over this same strip of land. Once the right-of-way has
been appropriated, the landowner has no protection against these
changes.
Clovis Strasbow's appropriation case is still pending. If he takes it
to court, the expenses involved might exceed the amount of damages
paid for the right-of-way. Clovis would be opposing a battery of top
lawyers and "experts" hired by the electric company. A multi-
billion-dollar business backed by legal precedent is a formidable coa-
lition for an individual to fight.
 12
Eartnspace
Is Precious

Ever since the memorable day in 1967 when two American men
looked back from their spacecraft and saw our planet in perspective
for the first time in human history, a new awareness has been taking
shape in the American consciousness. There is a dawning apprecia-
tion of the exceptional endowments of this planet, which make it a
congenial environment for the tender web of living things. There is
a new understanding of the finely adjusted balance of all the proc-
esses taking place in the swirl of ocean and cloud that wraps the
earth like a luminous blue veil. Most important of all, there is the
sudden realization that our home in space is small. Until we went
away from the earth and saw it'set against the immense spaces of the
universe, this home of ours had seemed limitlessly big, just as to the
child the house where he grows up seems very large. After he has
been out in the world for a while and returns home, he is surprised
•to find how little it is.
As we put into orbit satellites that beam messages around the earth
in seconds and see on our television screens views of the earth that
encompass three continents in a single shot, it is impressed upon us
that our home is limited both in space and in time. Earthspace is
143
 Power Over People 144
precious. There will never be any more of it. It can only be stretched
by learning to use it more wisely.

Each human being expends a certain amount of body energy just

to stay alive and requires a certain amount of earthspace for raising
the food that provides this body energy. To these minimum amounts
of energy and space there must be added each person's share of the
additional energy expended by the technology that supports him, the
space occupied by the factories, stores, streets, and transportation sys-
tems that distribute the products of the technology. Per capita con-
sumption provides a rough measure of each person's share of this sup-
porting technology. Thus the impact of a population on earthspace is
affected by both population size and per capita consumption. In some
parts of the world today the population size is the variable that is
changing most rapidly, but in the United States the rate of change
of per capita consumption far outweighs the increase in numbers.
The population of India is more than twice as large as the popula-
tion of the United States and is growing at a faster rate. But on the
other hand our gross national product (in constant dollars) is dou-
bling every twenty years and our use of electricity is doubling every
ten years. One American uses 95 times as much electrical energy as
one Indian. In terms of electrical consumption our population is
equal to that of 20 billion Indians today; and, if present growth rates
continue, by the year 2000 it will be equal to that of well over 100
billion Indians.
Unfortunately, a belief in the expanding economy is deeply en-
trenched in the minds of American businessmen. Growth in both
population and per capita consumption are thought to be essential for
continuing profits. Although the statistics of the demographers dem-
onstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that sustained population
growth at the exponential rates occurring in the i95o's would soon
result in a world where there is standing room only, businessmen
have not really accepted the concept of a stabilized population. They
are even more reluctant to accept the need for a reduced rate of eco-
nomic growth.
145 Earthspace Is Precious
Yet it is obvious without working through all the frightening statis-
tics again that a population that doubles every thirty years is soon
going to snuff out all competitive living things and eventually
smother of its own weight. It is equally obvious that an industry that
doubles its production every ten years will rapidly overcome any
competitive methods and the products it creates will crowd out every-
thing else in the earth system.
The doubling process is a truly awesome phenomenon, but it be-
gins so innocuously that its consequences are not immediately ap-
parent to people who are unaccustomed to working with large
numbers.
To illustrate how easy it is to fall into this trap, George Gamow re-
iated an old legend about King Shirham of India. This King Shirham
had a grand vizier, Sissa Ben Dahir, who had invented and presented
to the king the game of chess. King Shirham, wishing to reward his
grand vizier, asked him to name his wish. The clever vizier knelt in
front of the king holding the chessboard and said, "Majesty, give me
a grain of wheat to put on the first square of this chessboard, and two
grains to put on the second square, and four grains to put on the
third, and eight grains to put on the fourth. And so, oh King, dou-
bling the number for each succeeding square, give me enough grain
for all sixty-four squares of the board." Smiling at this seemingly
modest request, the king called for a bag of grain and servants to
count it out, but it soon became obvious that many more bags of
wheat were needed. In fact, all the wheat in India could not fulfill
the promise. To satisfy Sissa Ben Dahir's request would have required
the whole world's wheat production for some two thousand years.

We can think of earthspace as the squares of the chessboard and

imagine what will happen with each succeeding decade when the
power plants, transmission lines, and switching yards are doubled.
The rapidity with which all available land would be used up is
vividly demonstrated by a calculation involving just power plants
alone. "Suppose," said the Committee for Environmental Informa-
tion, "that all electric power is to be produced by modern 1,000-
 Power Over People 146
megawatt power plants and that each requires an area of 1,000 feet
on a side. If all of the country's power needs were presently being
met by 300 such large power plants, in less than twenty doublings—
that is, in less than two centuries—all of the available land space in
the United States would be taken up by such plants. Not the avail-
able fuel resources or water for cooling—just physical space. This
does not leave room for transformers and transmission lines, let alone
people."
Rights-of-way for power lines are far more demanding of land re-
sources than the generating facilities themselves. For every plant oc-
cupying a few hundred acres, thousands of acres of right-of-way are
required to distribute the electricity. Thus our dwindling land re-
sources and the many competing new needs for earthspace bring into
focus a number of important questions. Should electric companies be
allowed to site their plants hundreds of miles from the principal areas
they will serve and appropriate rights-of-way through farmland and
forest to transmit the power? Should they be allowed to flood thou-
sands of acres of land to facilitate the generation of electricity? And
if so, which acres?
Intelligent planning of land use is needed to achieve maximum
utilization of our most important natural resource. Years of study and
artistic talent are expended on the organization of our interior spaces;
yet we continue to allow completely haphazard and destructive utili-
zation of our exterior spaces. In the meantime, long-range planning
for optimum land use becomes daily more difficult and expensive.
Land destroyed by strip-mining cannot easily be returned to produc-
tive farming, nor can land covered by concrete highways. Land criss-
crossed by power lines cannot be used for airports. It is spoiled for
recreational areas or building sites.

Utility Corridors and Multiple Use of Rights-of-Way

One possibility for improving the efficiency of land use is the estab-
lishment of common rights-of-way for utilities; gas and water pipes,
telephone and electric lines. By consolidating these supply and com-
munication lines into common corridors, the total use of land for
147 Earthspace Is Precious
rights-of-way could be reduced several-fold. However, the design of
electric lines presently being constructed makes utility corridors im-
practical. Extra-high-voltage overhead lines create such a hazard of
electric shock that the installation and maintenance of other utility
lines becomes a major problem.
A recent article in a professional magazine for pipeline engineers
contains elaborate instructions for protecting personnel against the
possibility of lethal shock when installing a pipeline under an ener-
gized high-power line. "When circumstances are right," the author
warns, "the magnitude of the induced potentials can be sufficiently
great as to represent a hazard to a person making contact with the
pipe steel at an above ground appurtenance. This hazard can exist
during the occurrence of a transient a-c condition on the electric
transmission system, i.e., a lightning stroke causing arc-over at an
insulator or a switching surge occurring when the line is brought
into or removed from service. The hazard also may exist during
steady state a-c system operation, with the greatest effect being felt
during the time that the pipeline is being constructed and is above
the trench."
These and related problems such as corrosion of the pipe from in-
duced potentials and electromagnetic interference with communica-
tions systems, make it unlikely that other utilities would voluntarily
elect to share rights-of-way with high-voltage overhead transmission
lines. The concept of joint rights-of-way or utility corridors makes
very good sense from the point of view of land use. However it is not
feasible as long as the electric companies build their transmission
lines in such a way that dangerous currents can be induced.
Another recommendation, made by the Department of the Interior
and the Department of Agriculture, is the use of transmission line
rights-of-way for public recreation: golf courses, picnic parks, wildlife
sanctuaries, equestrian or bicycle paths.1 But the possibility of electric
shock from conducting objects under the extra-high-voltage lines
would make the use of these areas unpleasant, if not positively dan-
gerous. Birds and animals are frightened by the electric field. Or-
nithologists have observed that birds do not roost on the new extra-
 Power Over People 148
high-voltage lines. Animals give them a wide berth whenever
possible. Horses wearing bridles are annoyed and chafed by the
currents induced on the metal bits in their mouths. Thus the areas
under these lines will hardly be useful as wildlife sanctuaries or
bridle paths.
Furthermore, the hazards of electric shock will increase as the util-
ity companies build lines carrying 1500 kv or even 2000 kv. H. C.
Barnes of American Electric Power Company, speaking at a sympo-
sium of international power engineers in Sweden in August 1971,
suggested that the problem of induced shock from ultra-high-voltage
lines might be solved by purchasing and fencing the rights-of-way.
"This solution," he said, "may be more economical for the power
companies than increasing ground clearances."
Fencing rights-of-way for transmission lines would represent a ma-
jor usurpation of land. Conservative estimates project the construction
of 300,000 miles of new transmission lines in the United States by
the end of this century. Fenced-off corridors for these lines would
mean at least five million acres requisitioned for the transport of elec-
tricity. In addition, the fencing would divide farm properties, iso-
lating sections of land from barns and machinery. This division of
property would effectively take much more land out of production
than the right-of-way itself.
Under our present laws electric companies are permitted to erect
lines that make the land beneath them virtually unusable. The right
of eminent domain gives them the power to condemn and fence off
millions of acres just because this solution may be more economical
than increasing the height of their lines. With the increased pressure
on land resources and the increasing use of land for non-productive
purposes, a generation from now such rights-of-way, surrounded by
high fences, sprayed with brush killers, and posted with "Enter at
Your Own Risk" signs, may be the principal hiking trails and recre-
ation areas available in America.

Land-Use Issues
There are a number of other ways in which the electric power in-
dustry is making new demands on land resources because the use of
149 Earthspace Is Precious
land provides a cheap solution to a technical problem. Artificial cool-
ing lakes, which are one answer to the threat of thermal pollution
from power production, are less expensive to build than cooling tow-
£rs. In some locations they have aesthetic advantages; however they
do require large areas of land. A surface of one to two thousand acres
is needed for each 1000 megawatts of generating capacity. In many
cases this land is very valuable for other purposes.
Commonwealth Edison's new nuclear plant near Seneca, Illinois,
provides an example of the land-use issues that result from the appro-
priation of land for cooling lakes. The site chosen for its lake covers
4480 acres of fertile prairie land whose flat contour makes it very
economical to convert into a shallow lake with low retaining dikes.
Grading and landfill expenses will be minimal. On the other hand,
the flatness and fertility of the black prairie soil also make the land
ideal for growing corn by the continuous cultivation method cur-
rently used throughout this prime farm region.
Property owners are vigorously opposing appropriation of their
land for the cooling lake. They point out that just to the west of the
proposed site lie thousands of acres of land that was strip-mined and
left valueless for agricultural purposes. This land is badly cut up,
with steep banks and gullies. The fertility of the soil has been de-
stroyed by burial of the topsoil and by erosion. But Commonwealth
Edison protests that it cannot use this land for the cooling lake be-
cause the additional grading and leveling would add considerably to
the expense.
The legal question to be decided in this case is simply the value of
the property appropriated; but the real issues go much deeper. Should
a power company be allowed to appropriate land that is valuable for
farming because it is cheaper to use this land than to use land that
has no value for other purposes? Should a company be allowed to
build a cooling lake at all? There are cooling towers that do the same
job; and some of the most recent tower designs are not very objec-
tionable from an aesthetic point of view. There is a new type of tower
only 60 feet high which can easily be concealed by planting. Towers
of this kind are about 600 feet in diameter. They encompass only
half an acre instead of four and a half thousand acres.
 Power Over People 150
Similar issues arise in connection with pumped-storage reservoirs
such as the one planned for Storm King Mountain on the Hudson
River. In this case the installation threatens to destroy recreational
and aesthetic values. The decision in these land-use conflicts should
not be based on price alone; the advantages and costs to society should
be impartially evaluated. In some instances the use of land may pro-
vide the optimum solution. In other cases pressure should be brought
to bear on the utility company to use the slightly more expensive
solution and develop alternate technologies that would provide better
options for the future.
Without enlightened long-range planning, our earth will inevitably
grow more congested as more people expend energy at a higher per
capita rate and are compacted into less effective earthspaces. Unless a
progressive ongoing technology finds ways to reduce dramatically the
environmental impact of producing this electricity, air and water pol-
lution will escalate. Astronauts of the next century may be able to
see the difference as they look back at our planet. The luminous blue
and white veil of ocean and cloud will have turned into a heavy
shroud, gray and dirty at the edges.

Updating Notes, 1992

i. New information about the health effects of electromagnetic fields
makes the use of rights-of-way for recreational purposes much too haz-
ardous.
 13
A Question or Power

During the spring and summer of 1971, several newspaper articles

about the 765-!^ lines appeared in local Ohio papers, and a television
news program devoted a quarter of an hour to the subject. This pub-
licity attracted the notice of the attorney general of Ohio, who ini-
tiated some inquiries into the environmental effects of the extra-
high-voltage transmission lines. A letter was sent to the American
Electric Power Company asking for scientific evidence of the safety
of these lines.
In due time the company replied by sending several of their most
important engineers and lawyers out from New York with the results
of a "token experiment." The field measurement data they showed
the attorney general consisted of seventeen readings of total oxidant
concentrations near extra-high-voltage lines. Within the range of ac-
curacy of the instruments, only four of these readings were higher
than oxidant concentrations away from the line. However, only five
of the seventeen had been made under 765-^ lines in weather condi-
tions when corona discharge could be expected to occur, and none of
the measurements had been made when the lines were fully energized
to the voltages they are designed to carry (765-800 kv).
This experiment did not convince the attorney general. A short
time later he sent a member of his staff to call on some of the peo-
ple who live under the line operating between Piketon, Ohio, and
151
 Power Over People 152
Louisa, Kentucky. Clovis Strasbow acted as guide. The trip made a
deep impression on the man from the attorney general's office. He
was surprised to discover the various discomforts imposed on the peo-
ple living in the path of this line. Most of all, he was shocked by
the discriminatory manner in which the electric company responded
to the complaints of the landowners. Those people who had money
and local influence had received fairly good attention. But the com-
plaints of several very poor families had gone unanswered. Although
the company was theoretically responsible for repairing any destruc-
tion of property caused by the installation of the line, many evidences
of damage were still obvious three years after the work had been
done. The heavy bulldozers that cleared the right-of-way had cut
steep banks, destroyed drainage systems, and left large areas bare and
eroded. One man had to shovel clay and mud out of his front yard
every time it rained. All the residents near this line lived with a con-
stant sense of its threatening presence, the fear of electric shock by
some inadvertent action, and the irritating noise that invaded their
homes and destroyed their enjoyment of their yards and gardens.
In view of his staff member's report, the attorney general requested
the Ohio Power Company to delay energizing the 765-^ line it had
just completed between Burger and Lima. For several months the
company complied. But eventually the pressures for energizing this
line became so great that the attorney general was no longer able to
effect a postponement. Although he questioned the environmental
consequences of such a line, he did not have the power to compel a
more adequate environmental study. In March the following news
item was released by his office:
Some months ago, we expressed concern that there may be ad-
verse environmental consequences when a 765KV line is fully
energized. A member of my staff, Barry Smith, has been look-
ing into the matter for me. We now know audible noise can
result, ozone gases may be given off, and radio and television
reception can be interfered with, among other possible effects.
Thus far, we have no assurance that steps will be taken to elimi-
nate such possibilities in connection with the EHV line which is
being energized today, and we have serious questions as to
153 A Question of Power
whether the future construction and full energizing of EHV
lines can be accomplished within the guidelines of the national
environmental policy as stated in the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969.
No State or Federal agency has authority over the location
and operation of the EHV lines except the Army Corps of En-
gineers, and then only where the lines cross a navigable river.
[There are currently permit requests pending for additional
EHV lines which would cross the Ohio River at the southern
and southeastern points of the state.] We are, therefore, asking
the Corps to undertake a study of possible environmental conse-
quences in regard to the EHV lines.

A year and a half later, the Corps of Army Engineers had not
undertaken these studies.

Another government agency, the U.S. Forest Service, had also be-
come concerned about the extra-high-voltage lines, fearing that forest
growth in the eastern United States might be injured by continuous
exposure to the electric fields and the electrochemical products of
corona discharge. In order to evaluate these hazards, the Forest Serv-
ice planned to undertake a careful in-depth investigation of long-term
effects on various types of vegetation. The research they proposed
would have taken three years and cost about $200,000. Unfortu-
nately, no government funding for this study was available. The For-
est Service then attempted to interest the Ohio Power Company in
financing the study, but the company was not interested in such a
careful scientific evaluation of the problem. Instead it hired a con-
sulting agency to produce the quick answer it wanted. This field
study was completed in three days instead of three years; it consisted
of making measurements of oxidants for a total of nine hours under
a line designed to carry 765 kv, but no record was made of the voltage
actually being run at that time.
It is obvious that an environmental investigation funded by a
company that has a vested interest in the results of the investigation
is apt to be self-serving. Federal funding appears to be the only way
of obtaining an impartial study, but federal funding is not always
 Power Over People 154
available even to a government agency that is convinced of the need
for the research. "The questions raised by these lines," said the at-
torney general, "are sufficient to merit the utilization of the federal
government's research facilities to determine the full environmental
impact of EHV transmission lines."
In the meantime two lines continue to operate in Ohio. Rights
of-way are being bought for two more. If the attorney general of
Ohio is powerless to prevent the electric companies from building and
operating questionable equipment, what chance does the ordinary
citizen have? What chance does Clovis Strasbow have? Or Kiziah
Hough? Or Taterbug Brown?
 14
Wnat Are
the Alternatives?

The hazards and environmental damage associated with extra-

high-voltage lines might be justified if they were necessary, but they
are not. Sufficient energy for all our needs can be carried in less de-
structive ways. However the technological improvements necessary
to do the job right can only be achieved by a greatly stepped-up re-
search and development program.
For at least a decade now the electric industry in the United States
has not been investing sufficient time or money in research. Fifty-one
of the two hundred and twelve major electric companies, according
to the Federal Power Commission, did not spend a cent on research
and development in 1968. In the industry as a whole, less than one
cent of every dollar of gross revenue was spent on research in 1971.
The consequence is that we have been steadily falling behind the
other advanced countries of the world in pioneering designs for elec-
trical equipment. Creative new solutions for power transmission and
generation problems are actually at hand today, but almost all of
these innovations have been invented and developed in other coun-
tries. The relatively few contributions made in the United States
were made not by the electric power industry, but by the aerospace,
chemical, electronic, oil, and gas industries. As far as our power in-

155
 Power Over People 156
dustry is concerned, design innovations are judged on how well they
immediately serve the prime objective of delivering maximum power
at minimum cost. If the objective was, instead, to produce and trans-
mit power with maximum economy of natural resources and mini-
mum impact on the environment, then a number of alternative solu-
tions would be attractive.
An overall look at our power transmission needs suggests that the
ideal solution would involve the establishment, over a period of time,
of a planned countrywide network of high-voltage transmission lines
which would provide maximum efficiency of power transmission with
losses so minimized that electricity could be routed by a longer circuit
without serious loss of power. In this manner peak loads could be
balanced and shortages could be made up from other, relatively re-
mote, parts of the system. Such rerouting of power is not practical
over long distances in the present system. The older, lower voltage
lines lose a considerable amount of power per mile through heating
losses. The new extra-high-voltage lines have lower heating losses but
are so designed that the corona losses to the atmosphere are consider-
able; these losses make it economically necessary to send the power in
the shortest straight-line route from plant to consumer. Although a
grid of minimum-loss lines would be more expensive to build than
the present marginally designed lines, over the years the investment
in a system of this kind would pay back dividends in reliability and
economy of operation. By averaging out peak demands it could re-
sult in important savings in generating facilities; and at the same
time it would serve the important function of conserving the quality
of our environment.
A larger investment in equipment, more expensive towers and
conductors, would make it possible to build overhead high-voltage lines
that would carry electricity with lower losses per mile than any lines
in service at the present time. Such low-loss lines would produce less
corona discharge and cause less radio and television interference. The
visual pollution could also be reduced by more graceful tower designs
—already available today—and by planning the routes to avoid cutting
straight swaths through scenic areas. These improvements would not
157 What Are the Alternatives?
require further research expenditure. The principles are already
known.

Underground Transmission
However, the most effective way of reducing the environmental
impact of power transmission would be to bury all or most of the
lines. Underground transmission would solve many problems at once.
Underground lines would not mar the landscape or electrify the air;
they would not attract lightning, and would be much less vulnerable
to storm damage. They would never cause the build-up of static elec-
tric charge. Their installation would require the destruction of fewer
trees, and once the earth was replaced vegetation could be allowed
to grow back across most of the cleared strip.1
Electric lines have been buried throughout urban areas and many
suburban areas for years. The power is carried in cables laid in
trenches three and a half to five feet deep. The most commonly used
underground cable has copper conductors, each conductor consisting
of a bundle of several hundred strands of copper wire elaborately
interwoven. This design requires meticulous care in manufacture,
and splicing the lengths of cable together is a very time-consuming
operation. The entire conductor is wrapped with insulation paper
kept saturated with oil under pressure to improve its electrical insu-
lating properties.
These cables are made as small in diameter as possible so they can
be handled more easily. The distance from the outer surface of the
conductor to the sheath is usually on the order of one inch. With an
alternating current, there is a flow of so-called "charging" current be-
tween the conductor and the sheath and this current represents an
electric loss. Its magnitude decreases with the thickness and effective-
ness of the insulation; it increases with the length of the cable and
with the voltage. The energy in these charging currents, and also the
losses caused by resistance to the current flow, are dissipated in heat
that must be absorbed by the surrounding earth. Removal of this heat
creates problems that are particularly troublesome in ac underground
transmission. These facts put a natural limit on the length of under-
 Power Over People 158
ground line that is economically practical for the transmission of ac
currents at high voltages. At low voltages like those used on most dis-
tribution lines (4000-35,000 volts) the losses from charging currents
are not important.
The demanding tolerances required in manufacturing and joining
together lengths of this copper cable add to the expense of the line.
Pulling the cable into pipes and providing manholes for splicing and
repairing sections of cable also represent a major part of the cost of
underground installation. These problems vary enormously with the
type of terrain and other obstacles such as buried sewers and gas lines
that exist in the area. Threading power cables through an existing
maze of other pipes and lines is a costly undertaking. In spite of these
difficulties, however, new work methods for placing distribution lines
underground have resulted in major economies in the past decade.
Within new residential subdivisions underground installation costs
only 1.5 to 2 times that of overhead lines.
Because there has been little necessity in this country for putting
major transmission lines underground, the art of transmitting extra
high voltages by underground cable is in a. much more rudimentary
state of development than the lower voltage methods suitable for dis-
tribution lines. The techniques currently in use are essentially adap-
tations of the lower voltage technology and are costly and inefficient
for high voltages. An underground cable of the oil-insulated type
carrying ac current at 345 kv has so much charging current that al-
most all the current-carrying capability of the line is wasted in a dis-
tance of about twenty-six miles. Lines carrying 345 kv are not in-
stalled underground for spans of more than fifteen miles.
These limitations can be overcome by transmitting direct current.
With dc there is no charging current and, therefore, dc underground
lines can be run for long distances. Dc cables are less expensive than
comparable ac cables. They require one less conductor per circuit
and they carry a larger current for a given size. The insulation can be
thinner because the heating problem is much less important with dc
cables. However, high voltages are most efficiently obtained with ac
current and most electrical appliances are designed for ac. Therefore,
159 What Are the Alternatives?
when high-voltage dc transmission is used, ac current is usually con-
verted to dc, transmitted, and reconverted to ac before it reaches the
consumer. To make these conversions, rectifiers and inverters are nec-
essary, and these are expensive. However, the development of solid-
state technology is resulting in significant price reductions for rectify-
ing and inverting equipment. Further research and mass production
of the units will undoubtedly continue to improve these economies.
In order for dc transmission of any kind to be competitive in price
with ac at the present time, large blocks of power must be moved
long distances. Dc is especially advantageous where sections of line
are to be put underground. Both of these conditions apply in many
locations in our country; but our utility companies are clinging to the
old solutions. They are attempting to avoid any underground trans-
mission. Where such a run is absolutely necessary they use the exist-
ing ac technology, even though the cost for this underground stretch
is very great, rather than put the money and effort into developing dc
technology. No high-voltage underground dc cables have been in-
stalled in the United States, but such cables are in use in other coun-
tries for long underwater crossings. In New Zealand a 5oo-kv dc line
with a total length of 385 miles has been installed between North
Island and South Island. Twenty-five miles of this passes underwater
across Cook Strait. Another dc cable links the electric power systems
of France and England under the English Channel. Another cable
60 miles long connects Sweden and Gotland.
Several new types of underground cable have been designed, utiliz-
ing different conducting and insulating materials. Cables have been
filled with polyethylene, polypropylene, and various other synthetic
polymers, which have insulating properties far superior to oil-
impregnated paper. Cable with conductors made of sodium has been
used in several installations in the United States. This cable is rela-
tively lightweight and flexible, but, although sodium cable is con-
siderably less expensive than the commonly used type of under-
ground cable, there is not enough demand to justify commercial pro-
duction. Union Carbide announced in 1971 that it was discontinuing
it's manufacture.
 Power Over People 160
Union Carbide has also been active in the development of a trans-
mission technique that offers maximum efficiency for power transmis-
sion—superconducting cables. When the temperature of a metallic
conductor is reduced to near absolute zero (—459°F), the metal be-
comes an almost perfect conductor. Heating losses are so dramatically
reduced that the conductors can carry a very heavy current load. The
low temperature is maintained by a refrigerant such as liquid helium
pumped through the conducting pipe.
Superconducting systems are most easily adapted to dc transmis-
sion. In fact, a superconducting dc line would offer the ultimate in
transmission without loss; and cables to do this job have been de-
signed. One detailed study, made some time ago at the Thomas J.
Watson Research Center of International Business Machines Corpo-
ration, estimated that a 6oo-mile long superconducting dc line with
a capacity of 100,000 megawatts would cost considerably less than
comparable overhead transmission. However the potential advantages
of this system have been neglected in this country. Great Britain has
been the leader in the development of supercooled dc electrical
equipment. Russia also is pioneering in this technology. A super-
cooled dc line will deliver power to an aluminum plant from the
Bratsk Dam in Siberia.
In the early 1960*5, scientists at Union Carbide began a search for
a superconductor that would handle ac. By 1967 they had discovered
a conductor made of very pure niobium that was capable of carrying
ac with extremely low losses. Theoretically, one 345-kv superconduct-
ing line twenty inches in diameter would carry enough power for all
of New York City. Twenty-two conventional cables ten inches in
diameter would be required to carry the same amount of power. Such
superconducting cables installed underground would offer price ad-
vantages over conventional underground cables. The idea looked so
promising that the Edison Electric Institute financed a study that
culminated in 1969 with the demonstration of a twenty-foot-long
superconducting cable. However, when Union Carbide proposed to
follow this study with an $8-million pilot program to build a short
superconducting line for field tests, the U.S. electric companies failed
i6i What Are the Alternatives?
to put up the money for it. In 1971 they undertook a less ambitious
project financed jointly by Edison Electric and the Department of the
Interior. This $2.u-million, three-and-a-half year study is devoted to
constructing and testing a laboratory model. Although several more
years of engineering work will be required before superconducting
lines are commercially feasible, scientists at Union Carbide see no
fundamental obstacles to the successful use of these lines.
A modification of the supercooled line has been developed by Gen-
eral Electric, using aluminum underground cable cooled to a minus-
32o-degree level. This cable can handle ac voltages up to 435 kv and
large current loads, so that the power transmitted could be seven times
greater than the highest-power underground cables now serving met-
ropolitan areas. Cables of this design represent a compromise between
the present oil-insulated systems and the superconducting cables
made of niobium and cooled to absolute zero. They are less expensive
to build than the niobium cables, but they operate with higher electric
losses. A forty-foot section of this "cryogenic" cable has been built and
tested; the next phase is to design a commercial underground system.2
A different concept in transmission technology has been used in
Europe and is feasible today for ac current at voltages as high as 345
kv. This is a gas-insulated cable, using the inert non-toxic gas sulphur
hexafluoride (SFe), which has such •superior insulating qualities and
such great stability that it fully insulates a conductor from the outer
tube. Aluminum tubes carrying the conductors and the insulating
gas can be placed side by side on low pylons, in open trenches, or
underground. Such installations represent an enormous economy of
space as compared with the minimum separation of 10 feet required
by bare metal cables. These lines can be made completely enclosed,
grounded, and safe. Lines carrying enough power for an entire metro-
politan area could be laid under highway median strips where they
would cause no visual offense, no shock hazard, and no air pollution.
SFe-insulated lines and substations are at present about 20 to too per
cent more expensive than overhead installations (not counting land-
cost savings), but aggressive development of this technology could
rapidly close the cost gap.
 Power Over People 162
Again, the United States utility companies have followed rather
than led in the development of the new technology. Companies
abroad have already dotted the European landscape with SF6 substa-
tions which use up only one-twentieth of the land required for con-
ventional substations. Although several small test installations are
presently being planned or built by U.S. utility companies, the in-
stallations are designed on principles developed abroad, and one of
them has been contracted through a European firm.
The SFe technology does offer a practical and viable alternative to
extra-high-voltage overhead transmission. Steadily rising land costs
will reduce the cost differential between the two systems. If our util-
ity companies were required to underground a significant portion of
their new transmission lines the SFe would soon become economically
competitive.

Alternative Technologies
The transmission problem could be solved indirectly by the devel-
opment of power sources to generate electricity at the point of con-
sumption. Fuel cells which convert gaseous fuel directly into elec-
tricity perform this function and have a number of other advantages
as well. Fuel cells convert energy into electricity much more effi-
ciently and with fewer undesirable by-products than the steam-turbine
conversion process. Therefore, their use would conserve natural re-
sources and reduce the thermal and atmospheric pollution caused by
conventional generating plants. Even small units suitable for houses
or apartment buildings are efficient enough to warrant their installa-
tion at the point of consumption, thereby avoiding electric transmis-
sion problems altogether.
Fuel-cell technology, which was pioneered during the 1930*5, was
vigorously pursued during the early 1960*5 in order to perfect a light-
weight, efficient power source for space vehicles. These cells, devel-
oped for the special needs of the space program, are too expensive to
be commercially feasible for home use. However, the theory of fuel-
cell design is well understood and a relatively small investment in
engineering work could result in fuel cells that would be economi-
163 What Are the Alternatives:1
cally practical for small installations as well as for large-scale central
generating stations. Unfortunately, government support for fuel-cell
development has dropped to a fraction of its former figure, and al-
though some research is being conducted by industry, particularly the
gas companies, the total effort is very inadequate considering the im-
portant environmental advantages of the fuel-cell system.
Fuel for these cells can be natural gas or gas produced from coal,
oil, or organic wastes. Coal is the most abundantly available energy
resource in this country, but burning it as fuel poses many environ-
mental problems. It creates soot, fly-ash, sulphur fumes, and nitric
oxides. In the present state of the technology these elements can-
not be removed completely from the stack gases, and the existing tech-
niques for partial removal are expensive. As a consequence, much of
our coal, especially the high-sulphur type, is unsuitable as fuel.
However, industrial processes have been in existence for the past
thirty or forty years for the conversion of coal to manufactured gas.
During the gasification process the sulphur content can be removed
and a relatively clean fuel produced. The burning of gas does not
create soot or fly-ash. Because the technology for making and using
coal-gas has been with us for years, a minimum of time, effort, and
expense would be required to convert our most abundant source of
energy into our cleanest source of energy.
Gasifiers are already used extensively in Europe, where fifty-eight
installations are now operating. Only two pilot plants have been built
in the United States. One of these experimental plants, built to test
the "Hygas" process, is part of an eight-year program financed by the
American Gas Association and the Department of the Interior. The
plant is expected to be able to produce 1.5 million cubic feet of gas
a day and to make gas equivalent in quality to natural gas.
A form of gas can also be made from agricultural and urban or-
ganic wastes by a process of fermentation. In the absence of oxygen,
microorganisms transform the organic matter into a gas which can be
easily cleaned of pollutants. The solid-waste produced annually in the
United States could yield half again as much gas as our current natu-
ral gas consumption. Although the conversion equipment would rep-
 Power Over People 164
resent a considerable capital expense, it would be performing two im-
portant functions simultaneously: disposing of the polluting organic
wastes produced by our cities, farms, and food-processing plants and,
at the same time, making the chemical energy stored in these organic
compounds available as a renewable energy resource.
Gas manufactured by these methods can be used to fuel electric
power plants at the sites where it is produced. Cost estimates indi-
cate that power plants using coal-gas, for instance, would actually be
less expensive than conventional coal-fired steam boiler plants with
good stack clean-up equipment to remove soot, fly-ash, and polluting
chemicals. However, the electricity generated in this manner must
then be shipped by high-voltage transmission lines across the country
to consumers.
Alternatively, the gas itself can be transmitted in underground
pipelines to population centers. These underground gas pipes can be
installed much more economically than the oil-insulated underground
electric cables in current use. It is estimated that the distribution costs
of gas are only about 20 per cent of the cost of distributing electricity
through overhead cables. During off-peak hours some of the gas can
be stored underground in liquid form under pressure. It can also be
stored and shipped in pressurized containers. Some of the gas can be
used directly for heating purposes and the remainder used to gener-
ate electricity in small power plants or in individual fuel cell
installations.
This system of transporting the gas to the point of consumption has
a number of advantages over the transmission of electricity. The abil-
ity to store gas makes it possible to even out annual and diurnal vari-
ations in energy demand. Electricity, on the other hand, cannot be
effectively stored in any quantity. The higher efficiency of using gas
directly for heating results in a significant saving of natural resources
and a reduction in the amount of waste heat added to the environ-
ment. Finally, the transmission of gas is much more economical than
the transmission of electricity, and the gas can be piped underground
without destroying the landscape.
It is not surprising, however, that the big electric companies such
165 What Are the Alternatives?
as Westinghouse and General Electric are pushing the system based
on converting coal-gas immediately to electricity, since this system
gives the electric industry the biggest slice of the energy market. It
sustains a high demand for kilowatts as well as for the various appli-
ances that operate on electricity. The large electric companies are
currently seeking government support for this system. The gas in-
dustry, on the other hand, favors the alternative that utilizes gas
transmission technology and appliances using gas. The federal gov-
ernment's decision on the amount of funding for these two competi-
tive systems may well determine the nature and effectiveness of the
technology that will bring energy into American homes in the igSo's.

Another promising energy source for fuel cells is hydrogen, which

can also be made from fossil fuels and can be transported efficiently
in pipes, using basically the same technology developed for the trans-
mission of gas. The burning of hydrogen produces only water as a
by-product. It is an ideally clean fuel. This method of transmitting
energy has already been put to commercial use in Germany, where
hydrogen made from crude oil is transmitted in underground pipe-
lines to large steel mills. By the summer of 1970, 125 miles of hydro-
gen lines had been installed in the Ruhr.
Hydrogen can also be produced by passing a current of electricity
through water. Using this conversion process, Dr. Derek P. Gregory
of the Institute of Gas Technology in Chicago has suggested a very
interesting new concept in energy distribution. He proposes that elec-
tricity at the power plant be used to decompose water electrolytically
into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen would then be transmitted by
underground pipeline to the point of consumption. As with natural
or manufactured gas, some of the hydrogen could be stored under
pressure in liquid form in underground reservoirs, or alternatively in
pressurized containers. Some of the hydrogen could be used directly
in fuel cells for home heating or as a fuel in industrial processes.
Some could be converted to electricity in small local stations and dis-
tributed to the consumer.
Dr. Gregory believes that the system he proposes would be no more
 Power Over People 166
expensive and might actually offer economic advantages over the
present methods of generating and transmitting electricity. He calcu-
lates that the capital costs of installing a hydrogen-delivery system,
including the electrolyzer plant, would be competitive with the costs
of installing an EHV transmission line and its transformer stations.
Although the hydrogen might cost about 60 per cent more to trans-
port than gas (because of their physical differences), this still means
a very nominal transmission cost per mile. When the fixed expense
of conversion to hydrogen is added, it appears that energy delivered
to the consumer in the form of hydrogen would be cheaper than elec-
trical energy at distances of more than 500 miles. For longer distances
much greater savings would be effected because the transmission itself
is so economical.
The economy in transmission would make it possible to locate large
atomic power plants far from metropolitan centers, thereby providing
an extra safety factor against the eventuality of nuclear accidents. It
would make possible the interchange of energy from distant parts of
the system to compensate for unusual loading conditions and to even
out peak demand. All these advantages would be obtained without
visual damage to the intervening landscape.
The technology for implementing a hydrogen system would re-
quire considerable developmental work. However the basic concepts
are well understood, and satisfactory models for the various compo-
nents are actually at hand today. Reliable and highly efficient fuel
cells and rocket engines burning hydrogen and oxygen were devel-
oped for the space program. With a reasonable investment in time and
money, the technology that took us to the moon and has put sophisti-
cated instruments into orbit around Mars could help us make our
own planet a better place to live.

The crisscrossing of the planet's surface with towers and cables is

defacing our broad vistas and creating a visual tick-tack-toe across
little scenes of hill and field and rock outlined against the sky. None
of us would build a house or even a mobile home with all the plumb-
ing lines and electric conduits strung out in full view and cutting
167 What Are the Alternatives?
diagonally across the living room. Of course it would be cheaper to
do so, but we would rather pay a little more to create clean, unclut-
tered living spaces in our homes. We Americans are the richest peo-
ple in the world; we can afford to preserve uncluttered beauty in our
outdoor living spaces as well.
The telephone company is embarking now on a program to bury
almost all of its lines. The company estimates that in the year 2000
over 90 per cent of the lines will be underground. Visually, however,
telephone lines are much less offensive than the enormous electric
lines. So while the telephone company is investing money in improving
the attractiveness of our countryside, the electric utilities are moving
full speed ahead with plans to invest millions in new overhead lines
that will desecrate the landscape.
In February 1971, the New York Public Service Commission pro-
posed rules to require both electric and telephone companies to put
their existing overhead local-service lines and equipment under-
ground throughout the state. The proposal called for the companies
to earmark 2 per cent of their gross revenues each year for the follow-
ing year's conversions. Some of this cost would be borne by the con-
sumer in increased rates. The commission also studied the possibility
of requiring that transmission lines be placed underground.
Estimates of the expense involved in burying all new lines—both
distribution lines and transmission lines using the old oil-insulated
design—vary enormously. In some cases the expense is estimated to
be twice that of overhead lines and in other cases 15 to 20 times
higher. Perhaps the best way to weigh the advantages of an under-
ground transmission system versus the cost is to consider how much
it would cost each householder in terms of increased electric bills.
In 1966 the Federal Power Commission estimated that if 10 per
cent of all transmission is underground by 1980, the average cost of
power to the retail consumer would be increased 11.8 per cent. If 20
per cent of all transmission is underground by 1980 the cost increase
would be 21.5 per cent. However, at the same time the FPC esti-
mated that improved technology in the power industry in general
would cut the cost to the consumer by 27 per cent. Therefore, accord
 Power Over People 168
ing to these figures, a quarter of our transmission lines could be
buried over a fourteen- or fifteen-year period and the cost would be
totally absorbed by the technological economies. At this rate all lines
could be buried within 60 years for no cost increase to the home-
owner.
Furthermore, if the utility companies were required to bury many
of their lines, the technology of underground installation would be
aggressively developed. The newer and less costly ways of doing the
job would be exploited so that this conversion time would be re-
duced. The sooner we start on this program, the sooner we will reach
the day when Americans can enjoy again an expansive view of land
to an unbroken horizon.
Clutter is disturbing to the spirit. It destroys the serenity of broad
vistas; in crowded areas it is intolerable. As the years go by our
living space on earth will inevitably become more restricted, but the
feeling of spaciousness can be augmented even in restricted areas by
an orderly and harmonious arrangement. Hiding the ugly mechanics
of our civilization will make our living space seem less crowded. It
will give us back views of tranquil countryside and space for the
expanding spirit.
I once heard a twelve-year-old girl describe her pleasure when dur-
ing a trip to our plains states she had seen for the first time a clean
sweep of prairie land to an unbroken horizon. "Just earth and sky,"
she said, stretching out her arms in a joyous gesture of freedom.
"There were no buildings or people or things to mix you up, so you
could really feel how the earth is and see the curved shape of it
against the sky."

Alternative Power Sources

The solution of the two key problems of low-loss transmission and
effective storage of energy would immediately make the utilization of
certain alternative power sources practical. There are a number of
energy sources that are free and constantly renewed by nature. Some
are abundant, and most could be utilized without the addition of any
polluting elements to the environment. However the inconvenient
169 What Are the Alternatives?
location and extreme variability of these natural resources has made
them difficult to develop without good transmission and storage sys-
tems. Within the very rigid framework of our present energy de-
livery system, an energy resource must be continuously available at
locations accessible to the population centers. These requirements
have led to the almost exclusive exploitation of the fossil-fuel-fired
steam-boiler power plant. Eighty per cent of the electricity produced
in the United States is generated in this manner in spite of its in-
trinsic inefficiency and severe pollution problems.
About 7 per cent of our power is generated in hydroelectric plants
by the energy of falling water. This is the only significant utilization
in our country of the vast resources of energy of motion that exist on
the surface of the earth. The atmosphere and the waters of the earth
are in constant motion. Waves pound ceaselessly on every shore.
Ocean tides drawn by the moon's gravitational force rise in vast
rhythmic movements twice every twenty-four hours. Water is drawn
up into the atmosphere by the warmth of the sun and falls again as
rain, flowing down streambeds, thundering over waterfalls, or pour-
ing in steady powerful currents to the sea. Prevailing winds con-
stantly move the entire atmosphere of the planet from west to east.
Sometimes the winds blow in wild gales; sometimes they barely ruffle
the surface features of the earth. Here and there, in weak fault zones
along the planet's crust, geysers of hot steam erupt, driven by heat
energy deep in its molten core.
Taken together, these natural happenings involve enormous
amounts of energy in the form of motion. And motion can be made
to do useful work with a high degree of efficiency. The technology
for converting this type of energy to work is already well developed.
Windmills and water wheels were among man's first mechanical in-
ventions for harnessing energy. Propellor-driven generators can con-
vert the wind's energy into electricity at an efficiency of somewhere
between 60 and 80 per cent, as compared to the maximum efficiency
of 40 per cent for the steam-boiler method. Although wind power
is available everywhere in the world, it is extremely variable. In
order to use it effectively there must be a system for storing the elec-
 Power Over People 170
trie energy in peak hours and using it when the wind has died. The
electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen and oxygen would provide
such a system and make wind power a practical resource.
Turbines driven by moving water also operate at high efficiencies,
and could be used to harness the energy of the tides. There are cer-
tain particularly favorable locations where the ocean tides have suffi-
cient range to make them feasible as a power source. In the Bay of
Fundy, for example, the average range of the tides is 18 feet. It has
been estimated that 100 thousand megawatts of electric power could be
harvested from tidal energy in the United States if all the favorable
locations were developed. Because these special geographical sites are
rarely convenient to heavy-load centers, transmission systems would
be needed to deliver the power. Underground transmission would
make it possible to harvest this energy without destroying the unique
beauty of these deep coastal bays and inlets. A tidal power plant of
240 megawatts has recently been placed in operation by the French
government in the estuary of the Ranee River, where the tides aver-
age 27 feet. But no use has been made of tidal energy in the United
States.
Wind power and all forms of water power have the great advan-
tage of not introducing any waste heat or other polluting by-products
into the biosphere. They utilize energy sources that are constantly re-
newed by nature and would, therefore, help to conserve our non-
renewable resources.
"Free" energy to operate electric turbines is also available from
underground reservoirs of water heated under pressure to 300-700 de-
grees Fahrenheit by thermal processes inside the earth. Weaknesses
in the earth's crust along major fault lines such as those in California,
Japan, Italy, and the oceanic ridges allow this water to erupt into
steam geysers with sufficient pressure to run electric generators. Al-
though the steam from these geysers contains some impurities—salt,
carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulphide—these chemicals can be re-
moved, and some can be marketed as by-products. Since there is no
combustion, the total pollution produced by geothermal power is less
than that of coal-fired power generation.
17i What Are the Alternatives?
It is estimated that the United States may hold between 5 and 10
per cent of the world's ge.othermal reserves. If tapped, these fields
could contribute as much as 5 per cent of the total power generated
in this country. But the United States has lagged behind other na-
tions in utilizing this resource. The Italians, for instance, recognized
its value very early. As far back as 1777 they recovered borax from
the mineral-rich steam of fumaroles in Tuscany. Now Italy harvests
about 400,000 kw of electricity from geothermal steam. New Zealand,
Iceland, Japan, and Russia have also tapped this power source. The
U.S. has one geothermal plant (near San Francisco) that has just
recently been expanded to produce 192,000 kw of power.
Federally financed geologists are investigating the possibility of an
important geothermal field near the Imperial Valley. They are hoping
that this will prove to be a very large underground reservoir which
would not only provide an enormous amount of power but would also
provide millions of gallons of irrigation water for the desert lands of
our Southwest. The Mexican government has already developed sev-
eral geothermal power sites near the California border. It is estimated
that a lOoo-mile region straddling this border may contain more
power capacity than the six highly polluting new coal-burning plants
built or planned for the Southwest at the Four Corners.
The most abundant source of free energy for the earth is the sun,
which every day pours upon our planet more energy than we could
dream of using even in our present power-hungry society. The total
energy striking the land area of the United States is about 240,000
kwh per person per day. But this energy is spread very thin; and
dilute energy is difficult to convert into work. The energy must be
collected from a large area and the equipment is apt to be large and
cumbersome. These disadvantages offset the fact that the energy itself
is free.
A number of very ingenious devices have been invented, however,
for harnessing this energy of the sun. These devices heat water,
pump water, cook food, warm houses, and even air condition. In
November 1955, a World Symposium on Applied Solar Energy was
held in Arizona. Nine hundred engineers, scientists, and businessmen
 Power Over People 172
came from countries around the world bringing along an astonishing
assortment of interesting inventions such as a solar furnace capable
of producing temperatures up to 4000 degrees Centigrade, a solar still
for desalinating sea water, and a solar battery that turns sunlight
directly into electricity.
In judging the feasibility of these inventions and estimating their
usefulness, considerable attention was given to the unit cost of the
energy provided by the solar power and comparing this cost with the
unit cost of electricity in the location where the utilization would
occur. Solar devices could rarely compete on this cost basis with elec-
tricity even in 1955. Today with the price of electricity lower rela-
tive to the rest of the economy these inventions utilizing solar energy
suffer an even greater disadvantage in competitive pricing. However,
if the electric rates reflected the real cost of producing the power—if
they included the extra expense of avoiding unnecessary damage to
the environment—then many of these solar-energy systems would be
economically competitive and their development could be commer-
cially pursued on this basis.
Even with these economical handicaps imaginative engineering
has created designs that look promising for the utilization of solar
energy. Dr. Maria Telkes invented a solar-heating system which has
been installed in two experimental houses. Based on this design, the
Center for Energy Management and Power at the University of
Pennsylvania hopes to develop solar-heating components that can be
mass-produced at a price competitive with conventional heating sys-
tems. The solar-heating would cause no air pollution and require no
transmission of energy.
Several large-scale systems for converting solar energy into elec-
tricity have also been proposed. Professors N. C. Ford and J. W.
Kane of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst suggest that
large areas in the desert could be utilized for collecting solar energy
by means of a system of plastic lenses. These lenses, mounted and
geared to track the position of the sun, would concentrate the inci-
dent energy onto boilers. By this method water could be heated up
to 1500 degrees centigrade and used in steam turbines to generate elec-
i73 What Are the Alternatives?
tricity. Such lenses are presently mass-produced and available at a
price that would—Ford and Kane believe—make this system economi-
cally feasible.
Another proposal for collecting sunlight on desert areas has been
made by Dr. Aden Meinel, director of the Optical Sciences Center
of the University of Arizona, and his wife, Marjorie Pettit Meinel.
Their system for concentrating solar energy envisions large collecting
areas covered with selective films. These special materials act like
one-way glass, transmitting the sunlight that falls on the top surface
and reflecting or absorbing energy that tries to pass back out in the
other direction. There are selective films available today capable of
concentrating energy 10 to 20 times which cost about one dollar per
square meter. The Meinels estimate that a desert area of one square
mile could collect by this system enough energy to produce nearly
100 megawatts of electricity. If 14 per cent of the desert regions of the
United States were turned into efficient solar farms, one million
megawatts of power could be produced, approximately the amount of
additional power that may be "needed" in the United States between
now and 1990.
A similar plan, using a large recepter area of 50 to 70 square miles
covered with solar cells instead of selective film, has been suggested
by W. R. Cherry of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Solar
cells, which convert the sun's energy directly into electricity, were in-
vented at Bell Laboratories in the 1950*5 and have been perfected for
use in the space program. At the present time the cost of solar cells
makes this plan prohibitively expensive, but Mr. Cherry suggests that
design development and mass production could reduce the price
dramatically.3
All these plans are dependent on a good energy storage system, be-
cause the energy we receive from the sun varies enormously from
hour to hour and from day to day. They also depend on a good en-
ergy transmission system to make them economically and aesthetically
attractive. Large solar farms would be ideally located in the desert
areas of the Southwest, where the sun delivers maximum energy per
square foot and the land is relatively valueless for other purposes.
 Power Over People 174
Power produced in any such large-scale projects would have to be
transmitted great distances to service cities and industrial areas in
other parts of the country.4
None of the exotic energy resources described above would be
sufficient alone to replace present power production methods and pro-
vide for the projected increased demand. But the simultaneous ex-
ploitation of several of these resources, added to the generating facili-
ties we already have, would relieve the current energy crisis and at the
same time add no extra burden of pollution to the biosphere. Hope-
fully they might tide us over until the time when fusion power fi-
nally becomes a reality.

Atomic energy released by the fusing of two light nuclei appears

to be the best hope for meeting future energy needs. Fusion power
would be capable of providing almost unlimited power with less pol-
lution per kilowatt than is produced by our present methods. The
atoms that would be used for fuel (isotopes of hydrogen and lithium)
are widely available and nearly inexhaustible. Because the products
of the reaction are not radioactive (with the exception of tritium,
which may be reusable as a fusion fuel), there should be no problem
of disposing of radioactive wastes. Better thermal efficiency can be
achieved with the fusion reaction, resulting in less waste heat than is
created by the atomic plants in operation today. However, scientists
have not yet been able to harness the fusion process so that it takes
place in a controlled and contained manner. They hope that a break-
through in this field will occur soon; but even after such a hope is
realized, fifteen or twenty more years and a great deal more money
will probably be required before the process yields safe, reliable elec-
tric power.
During these interim years the electric companies plan to increase
generating capacity manyfold. If the new facilities are built on the
current designs of atomic-fission reactor and coal-fired plants, the
earth's resources of fossil fuels, uranium, and thorium will be con-
sumed at a prodigal rate. Air and water pollution will inevitably in-
crease. On the other hand, increased power needs could be met by
175 What Are the Alternatives?
utilizing some of the earth's "free energy" resources which are non-
polluting and constantly renewed by nature.
The electric industry, however, backed by the Atomic Energy Com-
mission, is betting its money on a different interim solution—the
liquid-metal-fast-breeder reactor. Breeder plants create more fission-
able material than they use up and thereby offer a'way of stretching
the world's supply of uranium and thorium. Under normal operation
they create less radioactive waste and less waste heat than the atomic
reactors in current use. The breeder program is especially attractive
to the power industry because it promises cost advantages in the pro-
duction of electricity. It is estimated that the liquid-metal-fast-breeder
reactor will produce power at a savings of from .025 to o.i cent per
kilowatt over present reactors.
However, breeder plants present greater public safety hazards than
the type of atomic fission plant now in common use. Breeder plants
will contain large amounts of plutonium 239, a highly toxic radioac-
tive element used in making atomic bombs. Plutonium is virtually
nonexistent in the earth's natural crust and is very long-lived; its half-
life is 24,000 years. Plutonium is known to be carcinogenic and so
dangerous to human health that the "permissible" air concentrations
are about one part per million billion. If the breeder reactors are de-
veloped according to the projections of the Atomic Energy Commis-
sion, by 1980 thirty tons of plutonium may be produced annually.
The designers expect that elaborate protective devices built into the
plants will prevent the release of any of this extremely dangerous
element. However, it is not possible to guard against all acts of vio-
lence or natural catastrophes—earthquakes, fires, war, or sabotage.
Such events could cause the release of an element that would con-
taminate a large area of the earth for more than 24,000 years.
If breeder plants are built as projected in the 1980*5, they will cer-
tainly need to be located far from population centers or indeed from
any human habitation, for the rural citizen should be able to expect
the same protection from dangerous installations as the city resident.
These extraordinary siting requirements for breeder plants will cause
massive damage to the environment unless a really effective under-
 Power Over People 176
ground transmission system has been developed. The electric industry
was spending less than $i million annually as recently as 1970 on
the development of such a system. On the other hand, it is backing
the breeder reactor program much more substantially than any other
area of research. According to the estimates of the Energy Policy
Staff, in 1970 non-federal spending on this program amounted to $25
million. Federal spending that same year was about $100 million.
Many people feel that it is unwise to promote the development of
the fast-breeder reactor, which would cause an accumulating burden
of a very poisonous element. They believe that this amount of money
would be much more wisely spent on speeding the development of
fusion power, which offers a safer source of energy. Funding by both
government and industry is very inadequate for this important re-
search project. Figures for fusion research in 1970 were $i million
for non-federal and $30 million for federal spending. In 1971 the
government increased its support of breeder reactor research to $180
million and at the same time reduced its commitment to fusion power.
The Energy Policy Staff estimated that $200 million annually over
about 20 years would be needed to bring fusion power to realization.

Improvements on Old Systems

In addition to discovering ways of harnessing alternate energy
sources, research and development programs could find more efficient
ways of using the old resources and could effect many improvements
in present power-plant design. But in these areas also the electric in-
dustry is not devoting sufficient money to development. For example,
the removal of a large percentage of the sulphur and nitrogen oxides
from stack emissions is possible; the sulphur and nitrogen can be
marketed as by-products. Combined financing by industry and fed-
eral government in 1970 was only about one-tenth the amount needed
to fund the development of this technology. In the meantime, large
plants are being built with stacks 1000 feet tall in order to distribute
the sulphur dioxide over a wider area of countryside. "This," says
American Electric Power Company's 1971 Annual Report, "remains
today the best known means of effective SOa dispersal."
177 What Are the Alternatives?
Similarly, research on the technology of dry cooling towers to dis-
pose of waste heat is not being pursued in this country, in spite of
the fact that this type of tower appears to offer the solution least dam-
aging to the environment. In dry towers the hot water is channeled
through tubing exposed to an air flow and gives up its heat to the air
without evaporation. Dry towers, therefore, do not add water vapor
to the atmosphere; they have the added advantage of providing much
greater flexibility in the siting of power plants because a large source
of cooling water is not necessary. But dry cooling towers cost, more
than wet cooling towers and cooling lakes. To date, only one dry
tower has been installed in this country, on a relatively small power
plant; and this tower was manufactured in Germany.
Many plants being built today will empty their cooling water di-
rectly into lakes or rivers. The Commonwealth Ijdison plant at Zion,
Illinois, the Donald C. Cook plant in Michigan, -and the Kewaunee
and Point Beach plants in Wisconsin are expected to pour 5.5 billion
gallons of water warmed 20 degrees Fahrenheit or more into Lake
Michigan every day.
A number of interesting ideas for using waste heat constructively
have been suggested. Waste heat might be used for heating and cool-
ing greenhouses to permit year-around raising of special crops; to
warm city streets in winter and keep them free of ice and snow; or
for space heating, especially in new urban developments. Systems of
this kind would be effective if peak needs were supplemented by ad-
ditional heating sources. Systems that combine winter space heating
with air conditioning in summer are theoretically possible making use
of the waste heat. Another possibility with great potential in desert
areas near salt water is the use of waste heat to desalinate sea water.
The water could be used for cooling, then desalinated and made
available for irrigating the desert.
In most of these proposals flexibility in choice of site is important.
Here again the design of a really efficient transmission system must
go hand in hand with the exploitation of the various advantages to
be gained by appropriate choice of plant location.
It has been suggested that it would be advantageous to locate power
 Power Over People 178
plants underground. In the case of nuclear plants, this construction
would reduce the hazard of accidental discharge of radioactive or toxic
elements. It would also reduce the aesthetic impact and make it
possible to locate the plants closer to populous areas, thereby mini-
mizing the need for transmission lines. Only one underground nu-
clear plant has been built anywhere in the world. Again the innova-
tion has been spearheaded abroad—a joint French-Belgian venture in
the populous Meuse Valley.
The discovery of better techniques for producing and delivering
power offers our best hope of conserving our environment, while at
the same time providing more energy for an expanding economy. By
taking the initiative in exploring these fields, the United States could
provide technical leadership for the world. Since research and devel-
opment programs require capital and know-how, the United States
is in an ideal position to make this positive contribution toward im-
proving the standard of living of all peoples. This would be a more
constructive way of achieving world leadership than being the world's
most prodigal consumer of the earth's limited resources.

Who Are the True Luddites?

The power industry accuses conservationists of advocating a return
to horse-and-buggy days. Those citizens who question the rapid esca-
lation of present technology are branded as "Luddites"—a name given
to a group of Englishmen who advocated the destruction of all ma-
chinery in the early nineteenth century.
But in failing to invest money and effort in research for an ongoing
technology, the barons of the power industry are the true Luddites of
today. Clinging to old methods and refusing to fund research for
better solutions adequately, they demonstrate a fundamental lack of
faith in the ability of scientific innovation to improve our way of
life. If they believed in it they would invest in it. "We're not spend-
ing money on technology we know won't work," said Donald Cook,
exemplifying the industry's attitude toward research.
Instead of improving their technology, they are attempting to force
scaled-up monsters of out-dated technology on the American people.
179 What Are the Alternatives?
Using the power of monopoly, the power of eminent domain, and the
power of their vast financial empire, they are able to overcome almost
all protest. And where they encounter unusual resistance they mount
a scare campaign of desperate haste.
The psychology of desperate haste should be avoided at all costs.
Haste is contrary to the most important conditions of scientific re-
search. Haste is the cause of inadequate testing of side effects; it is
the reason for putting into service equipment that has not T)een ade-
quately checked; it is the reason for clinging to old engineering meth-
ods (the new take too long to develop).
Better research and development programs in the electric industry
would conserve space and preserve the natural beauty of our country-
side. Money now spent on promotion and advertising, diverted to re-
search, would make approximately seven times more financing avail-
able for these programs.
Money to fund the needed programs could also be raised by taxa-
tion. This system has been initiated in Maryland, where a law passed
recently imposes a surcharge on electricity of one tenth of a cent per
kilowatt hour. The revenues are being used for research projects and
to conduct environmental impact studies. Several spokesmen from
both government and industry have proposed a federal tax on elec-
tricity. A one per cent tax would bring in approximately $300 million
annually for a joint government-utility research fund.
If seven to ten times more money and effort on a national basis
were spent on research for better methods of producing and trans-
mitting power, by 1980 we should have solved many crucial prob-
lems. According to estimates prepared by the Energy Policy Staff of
the Office of Science and Technology, an effort of this magnitude
over the next decade can be expected to produce satisfactory technol-
ogy for the removal of the sulphur, nitrogen oxides, and particulates
from stack gases, the constructive use of waste heat, the design of a
practical underground transmission system, more efficient power pro-
duction cycles, and techniques for utilizing some of our free-energy
resources. We would be much nearer to harnessing fusion power.
Through this research we would learn how to produce more power
 Power Over People 180
with less pollution than we have today, and would have a sound
scientific foundation on which to base the next stage of expanded
energy use. Facilities designed and ordered at that time would incor-
porate the improved technologies. Only on this kind of real advance
can we build an expanding economy that can be truly described as
progress.

Updating Notes, 1992

1. One adverse effect from underground transmission was not recognized
at the time this book was written. Magnetic fields which result from un-
balanced lines are not shielded by burying the lines in cables. This problem
can be mitigated (at least temporarily) by proper balancing (see p. 207).
2. Research at Argonne National Laboratories has produced an important
breakthrough in superconducting technology. Materials have been dis-
covered which remove all resistance to electricity when cooled to minus
320 degrees F instead of minus 452 degrees F, the previous requirement
for superconductivity. The economic advantages are tremendous; they
bring the goal of loss-free underground transmission much nearer to
realization.
3. The development of solar cell technology has made impressive progress,
although government support for this work has been steadily cut back. In
the last decade the costs of solar-cell-generated power have been reduced
fortyfold. It has now approached a level that is competitive with some
types of conventionally generated electricity, and there is potential for
considerably greater reduction.
4. The combination of solar generated electricity and superconducting
underground lines that would carry power thousands of miles without loss
would go a long way toward correcting the problems that have resulted
from the generation and transmission of electricity.
 15
Progress Comes to
Zilckville, U.S.A.

Two bulldozers from the Ohio Power Company rumbled slowly up

the narrow lane to Aunt Kiz's place very early on a summer morning.
A thin haze obscured the newly risen sun and dimmed its light, as
though nature had drawn a veil over the day. The mist lay like white
clouds in the little valleys, softening the outlines of the fence rows
and blending the colors of golden wheat field with green pasture and
yellow drifts of sweet clover. In the stillness of the morning .the bawl-
ing of a bereaved cow mourning for her weaned calf could be heard,
sad and insistent from far away.
It was known in the village that construction was to start that day,
and in spite of the early hour several spectators were standing by the
gate watching the progress of the giant bulldozers.

The right-of-way on the Hostler property had been bought and

paid for, although Aunt Kiz had fought bitterly against it until the
very last. Her two nephews, who owned one-third shares in the place,
had supported her resistance for many months. After some difficulty
they had found a lawyer who handled the negotiations. The first half-
dozen law firms the Hostlers had approached regretted that they were
unable to take the case because of conflict of interests. They ex-
plained that the electric companies regularly hire law firms on a re-
181
 Power Over People 182
tainer basis. Usually the best-known and most prestigious firms in
each county are in the employ of the electric industry. Even though
these firms might not be involved at the moment in any legal pro-
ceedings relating to rights-of-way, the fact that they are regularly
receiving money from the electric industry means that they are not
free to represent private citizens in a case against any electric com-
pany. The retainer system gives the electric industry another imme-
diate advantage. Wherever and whenever an argument crops up,
they are assured of top legal representation. In addition, of course,
there are thousands of lawyers employed full time by the industry.
However, the Hostlers had finally managed to locate a sympathetic
attorney and had negotiated for over a year with the power company.
The prices offered for the right-of-way slowly rose. Every week or so
Aunt Kiz received a long-distance call from one of the nephews,
urging her to agree to a settlement. But Aunt Kiz was adamant; she
did not want to settle at any price. Finally the Ohio Power Company
had filed legal proceedings and the case was due to come up within
a month.
"Fine," said Aunt Kiz over the phone. "Let it go to court!"
At that point the nephews came down to Ohio to talk to her. It
would be very expensive, they explained, to argue the case in court.
Because of the way the laws were written, it was considered impos-
sible to win an appropriation case, and the legal fees might amount
to $10,000. Several thousand had already been spent on negotiations.
The Hostlers had also been advised that the settlement granted by a
court would be considerably less than the sum the power company
was offering. All in all, by taking the case to court they would prob-
ably lose $15,000 or $20,000. Of course, if Aunt Kiz wanted to
squander that amount of money herself—. But Aunt Kiz did not have
any money to squander. She was absolutely dependent on the little
bit of capital she had put away.
"Why should it cost so much to defend what belongs to me?" she
protested.
Protests, however, could not alter the facts. Aunt Kiz had finally
given in because she could see no alternative. But she felt that in
183 Progress Comes to Zilchville, U.S.A.
doing so she was betraying a trust, not only to this family home but,
in some more general sense, to the future. As she signed the docu-
ment she said, "I have never done anything in my life that seemed
as wrong to me as signing this paper!"

It was just a few weeks later that the bulldozers and the construc-
tion crew came down the lane. They were not deflected for a moment
by Taterbug Brown's "bend in the line." They tore down the orchard
fence and crashed through the thick grass, toppling the sweet cherry
tree loaded with dark red fruit. Then with one crunching shove they
demolished the ancient vine-covered springhouse.
For four generations this springhouse had served the Hostler fam-
ily, providing coolness throughout the summer heat. It had been re-
tired now from active service for almost fifty years. But during all
that time the fresh little spring had bubbled up irrepressibly inside
the springhouse, run down through the stone troughs, and spilled
over into the rivulet that meandered through the calf-lot and eventu-
ally joined the larger flow in Slick-a-way Creek. Now two scoops of
the bulldozer destroyed this natural drainage and the water began
to back up into an ugly yellow puddle. The machines sloshed in and
out of the mud, spreading it throughout the construction area. Here
and there the crushed forms of ripe cherries made red pockmarks in
the yellow mud.
"I know it's foolish to feel sentimental about a springhouse," Aunt
Kiz said. "It wasn't useful anymore, but it brought back lots of good
memories. It made me think of the times I used to help Mama set
the crock of fresh milk in the cold Water that stood in the stone
trough. Then we skimmed the cream off the crock that had been
there all night. Mama had an old tin skimmer with holes in it big
enough to put a pencil through and anything that went through those
holes wasn't cream." She smiled wryly. "I remember once we had a
city friend come to visit and he stood watching the skimming. I can
still see his face—sort of amazed and horrified at the same time. Fi-
nally he said, 'What's that on top of the milk? Cheese?' Imagine, he
didn't even know what real cream looked like!"
 Power Over People 184
We were silent for a while, watching the bulldozers scoop up the
stone troughs from the ground and deposit them with other rubble
on the little flowerbed by the screen porch. In this shady corner Aunt
Kiz had coaxed a number of delicate wildflowers and perennials to
grow—yellow primroses and white columbine, bleeding hearts and
fragrant lilies-of-the-valley. The flowerbed was buried deep now
under the debris. Then clay and brush were added to the pile,
branches from the white peach tree still festooned with green fruit,
and the knobby trunk of an old apple tree. On top of the pile a rob-
in's nest was impaled on a broken bough. The pink featherless bodies
of two baby robins lay limp on the tangle of brush nearby. But one
baby bird still clung to the nest, its mouth open, blindly searching
the empty air.
Finally the day's work was finished. The construction crew went
away and the clash of the machines was stilled. I stayed on for a
while with Aunt Kiz and we sat on the porch watching the sunset
glow slowly fade on the fields. The acreage beyond the orchard was
planted in wheat this year. It was ready for harvesting, its mobile
surface stirred by wind ripples. With the first shadow of dusk the
fireflies came, just a few sparks of lights at first, then magically multi-
plying until it seemed as though all the stars in the Milky Way had
descended over the field of ripe grain.
By the time another harvest is ripe, I thought, the fireflies will
have gone somewhere else. They will never light the sky over this
field again. And the robins will not return to nest in the apple trees.
Between where I sit and the fields will rise a steel skeleton twelve
stories high.
For a long time now Aunt Kiz and I had been making small talk,
unable to voice the feelings that were uppermost in our hearts. Fi-
nally I said, "Perhaps you should consider moving out. Sell this place
and buy a small house in some part of the country that hasn't been
spoiled." The words came out wrong and I was sorry the minute I
had said them.
Aunt Kiz shook her head. "I can't see a scrap of sense in that," she
said angrily. "No other place would ever seem like home to me.
185 Progress Comes to Zilchville, U.S.A.
Everyone says, 'Sell out and move on,' and when that place is threat-
ened—what then? . . . 'Sell out and move on.' Soon there will be no
beautiful places left because this is happening everywhere—all over
America."

"There are always a few crackpots who feel sentimental about dear
old grandfather's place," remarked a power company executive, "but
we have standard ways of dealing with them. In rural regions and
small towns there's rarely any effective opposition. It's easy to force
our way through Zilchville."
One of the time-tested strategies that the power companies have
found very effective in squeezing out the last remnants of resistance
is to proceed with construction as though they owned the entire
right-of-way. The bulldozers were already hard at work on the Host-
ler property although a number of other landowners had not yet
signed. Several cases were being vigorously protested. Clovis Stras-
bow's legal action was still pending. Nevertheless, construction was
going full speed ahead. After most of the towers are in place, the
neighbors paid, the construction brought up to the boundary lines of
the few property owners who are still holding out, most of the re-
maining opposition crumbles and the owners settle out of court. The
few cases that go to court have always been decided in favor of the
utility company. How could you reasonably ask a company to move
a multi-million-dollar line that is 90 per cent finished?
The law as presently constituted gives almost unlimited power to
the electric industry. It allows them to uproot people as casually as
they topple the trees with their bulldozers. It allows them to decide
arbitrarily that many scenic and fertile parts of our country will be
used as utility areas to serve the big cities. By these materialistic and
self-serving policies, big industry is progressively narrowing the num-
ber of options open to Americans. It is destroying the special charac-
ter of life in the little villages and on the farms. The small indigenous
communities with roots that go back deep into our history are being
squeezed out in order to accelerate the building of high-rises and
suburban housing. As Spengler predicted half a century ago, "The
 Pierson Studio from Fair Is Our Land, 1942

The peaceful rural scenes will have been replaced by an industrialized

countryside where no one would want to live anymore
Billy Davis III
 Power Over People 188
giant city sucks the country dry, insatiable and incessantly demand-
ing . . . till it wearies and dies in the midst of an almost uninhabited
waste of country."
The wasteland is growing every day. There are very few places
left where people can retain a continuity with the generations that
bred them and with the landscape that has become part of them.
Those who do still know and love this way of life are powerless to
protect it against the march of "progress." Because they are few, their
rights are trampled. Because they do not have large financial re-
sources, they are unable to fight effectively for these rights in the
courts. Multi-billion-dollar combines like the public utilities have the
power to force upon people their goal of an all-electric mechanized
megalopolis, fed and energized by an industrialized countryside where
no one would want to live anymore.
In that world of tomorrow the peaceful rural landscapes will have
disappeared, and the little villages like Laurel and Sparksville will
have become truly Zilchvilles. Inexorably, step by step, this destruc-
tion is proceeding, not because people want it but because big busi-
ness is insatiable for growth and profits. To feed this ever-increasing
appetite, large monopolies such as the electric industry abuse the dis-
cretionary powers entrusted to them by the American people. Unless
the people recognize what is happening to their land and take power
back into their own hands, the destruction will not end until it has
created one vast Zilchville, U.S.A.
 Epilogue 1992

In the nineteen years since Power Over People was first published
a remarkable story has been slowly unfolding. The questions raised
in this book for the first time sparked inquiries, inspired protest
groups, and opened up a whole new area of concern about the ultimate
health effects of the electromagnetic fields. This new factor in the
environment—different from any other known on earth throughout
most of the evolution of mankind—is enveloping us all. Silent and
invisible, it is steadily increasing in strength, although its nature is
imperfectly understood, and the precise mechanism of its interaction
with human physiology is still a mystery.
Like the crumbs dropped by Hansel and Gretel in the forest, a small
trail of information has led from one revelation to another, carried
forward by the work and inspiration of a few individuals, the cou-
rageous action of local groups. Unlike the trail of crumbs in the fairy
tale—more bits of information and pieces of evidence have been ac-
cumulating as time has gone by. From its beginning as a poorly
defined path, it has become an avenue that could lead to a safer
world and homes where no wicked witch wearing a benign disguise
is willing to sacrifice even one small child to serve the public con-
venience.
The publication of Power Over People alerted many citizens who
were threatened by the installation of a very high voltage line across
189
 Epilogue: 1992 190
their property to the possibility of health hazards. Local protest groups
were formed. I testified in several Public Utility Commission hear-
ings and my mail was filled with requests for advice from people who
felt (quite justifiably) that they were helpless in the face of this
threat.

Discovery of the Russian Studies

One day in late 1973 I received in the mail a large manila envelope
with no return address. It contained a letter from an electrical engi-
neer who explained that he (or possibly she?) preferred to remain
anonymous because he was sending me information that had been
privately circulated among members of the electric industry but had
not been reported in the technical literature or in the publications
available to the general public. He feared that he would be in danger
of damaging his professional career if it were known that he had sent
the information to me.
Inside the envelope were reprints of papers presented by Soviet
engineers at the 1972 International Conference in Paris on Large
High Voltage Electric Systems (commonly known as CIGRE). This
meeting had been attended by a number of American electrical engi-
neers. The papers described studies which had been conducted in
the Soviet Union since 1962. After the first 5oo-kv (500,000 volt)
lines had been operating in the Soviet Union for several months, men
working at the substations began to complain of headaches and a
feeling of general malaise. Abnormal fatigue and sleepiness were
mentioned by a majority of the workers. They associated these symp-
toms with exposure to the electric fields.
A long-term study was made of these effects with regular medical
examinations of about 250 men working at 500- and 75o-kv substa-
tions. These results were compared with medical examinations of
men working at lower voltage substations. The investigation con-
cluded that long-time work at joo-kv substations without protective
measures resulted in "shattering the dynamic state of the central ner-
vous system, heart and blood-vessel system, and in changing blood
structure. Young men complained of reduced sexual poten[cy]." The
191 Epilogue: 1992
severity of these effects seemed to increase with the length of time
spent in the field. As a result of their findings the Soviets set up rules
for exposure of their substation personnel to electric fields. According
to these regulations no workers should be exposed for any time to
fields over zj-kv (25,000 volts) per meter without special protective
screens or wire cages. In a field of 25-kv per meter the maximum
exposure should be five minutes. At zo-kv per meter, 180 minutes
was allowed, and 5-kv per meter was taken as the level where any
length of exposure could be considered safe.
The general use of the right-of-way was also restricted. A zone
about 360 feet wide centered on the line was limited to certain
authorized uses and personnel only. It could not be used for any
recreational purposes or as places where people might congregate
such as transportation stops or collective vegetable farms. No build-
ings were allowed in this zone. Farmers were given cautionary in-
structions. The crossing of a right-of-way was recommended near the
towers. No vehicle or piece of machinery should be stopped or re-
fueled under the line. If a mechanical failure occurred, the vehicle
must be towed away. Metal shields must be used over the seats of farm
machinery to reduce the strength of the electric field impinging on
the farmer.
The information about these Soviet studies was included in an
Epilogue of my book which appeared in paperback in 1974.

The Light Bulb Demonstration

This new edition of my book also contained another piece of infor-
mation which had been suggested to me by a letter from a woman
in Oregon. She enclosed a picture of herself standing under a 5oo-kv
line, holding a lighted fluorescent bulb in her bare hand. This bulb
was not touching any wire or any metal object. It just lighted up all
by itself. My husband and I duplicated the experiment under a 765-^
line. At the height of a man's head near the low sag point of our
76 5-kv lines, this field of influence encompasses a band about 400
feet wide, twice the width of the earlier rights-of-way. This space
includes homes, yards, roads, and thousands of acres of farmland
 Epilogue: 1992 192
where people work for many hours a day. A man riding on a tractor
under a 765-!^ line would be exposed to an electric field so intense
that the Russians would not allow their personnel to be exposed to it
for more than five minutes. At that time in the United States we
believed that we had more respect for human rights and human life
than the Russians had. Yet we had not made as much effort to under-
stand the effects of exposing people to intense electric fields. Nor had
we taken comparable measures to protect our citizens from this type
of biological damage.
A photograph of me standing under a 765-^ transmission line
holding two lighted fluorescent bulbs appeared on the back cover of
the paperback edition of my book. The demonstration was copied and
photographed for a number of newspaper and magazine articles.

Response of Electric Industry

The electric industry reacted strongly to these new pieces of infor-
mation. The Soviet studies, they said, could not be considered valid
scientific studies because they lacked sufficient quantitative data and
precise clinical diagnoses. Contrary to usual professional procedure,
they pointed out, no control groups were used.
Up to that time the only studies that had been conducted by
American engineers was a survey of ten linesmen who did repair
work on 345-kv lines. Their health had been followed for nine years.
The regular medical exams had not revealed any serious health prob-
lems although three of the ten linesmen had reduced sperm count
at the end of the nine years. The final report stated that it would be
hazardous to draw any conclusion on reduced sperm count from such
a small sample. Quite right, research of this type, of course, should
examine a much larger number of people over a longer period of time.
In this study no control group was used—the very criticism that had
been levelled at the Soviet studies.
It was obvious, of course, to even the most optimistic of the electric
industry's experts that this study alone was not sufficient to settle the
questions raised by the Soviet engineers. Therefore, a massive research
program was undertaken by Electric Power Institute (EPRI) which
193 Epilogue: 1992
is the research arm of the electric industry and is totally funded by the
electric companies. Over the next nineteen years EPRI has spent
many millions of dollars to fund studies on the effects of exposure to
electromagnetic fields. This effort might be a constructive step toward
resolving these concerns except for the fact that all of this research
was planned and supported by the very organizations that would have
the most to lose if power lines were found to be a health hazard.
The public perception that scientists are motivated only by a single-
minded pursuit of the truth is an oversimplification. Research as it is
conducted today is totally dependent on large grants to cover the
expenses. Since funding is absolutely essential, the fear of antagonizing
the supporting agency and perhaps losing the grants is ever present.
It is understandable that the desires and objectives of the funding
agency are given careful consideration and often some compromise is
reached.
The reports of the studies that were completed under the aegis
of the Electric Power Research Institute are interesting examples of
the ways these conflicts of interest may be resolved. In most cases
(about eighty percent of the several dozen that I have read) statis-
tically significant biological effects were found in the experiment—for
example, decreased litter size in exposed animals, increased incidence
of deformed fetuses, and altered growth rates. But in the concluding
paragraph it was stated that no detrimental biological effects had been
discovered. Since the large majority of people who are following this
issue do not read the whole report but rely on the final summary, the
incorrect assumption is made that these studies have all turned up
negative results.

First Epidemiological Studies

Fortunately, there have been a few research projects that have not
been funded by the utility companies. In some cases, they have been
funded only by the scientist himself. One very interesting example
is the research of Nancy Wertheimer in Denver. She was a trained
epidemiologist, interested in the subject of childhood leukemia and
she wondered if the incidence of the disease might be related to some
 Epilogue: 1992 194
environmental factor. Unable to obtain funding for this work, she
went ahead on her own and obtained from the Colorado Department
of Vital Statistics the home addresses of every child who had died of
leukemia between 1950 and 1960 in the greater Denver area. She
surveyed all of these homes, looking for some common factor, some
type of environmental stress that was not present in the homes of a
similar number of other children which she was using as a control
group. For a long time she was frustrated, not finding any common
denominator. But then one day she noticed that many of the homes
of children who had died of leukemia were in the close vicinity of
utility poles supporting transformers. At first she did not consider
that these transformers or the lines coming from them could be an
adverse influence. After all, nobody thinks that there is anything
dangerous about electric lines—do they? But then she suddenly re-
membered seeing a picture of someone standing under a transmission
line holding two lighted fluorescent bulbs in their bare hands.
This thought started Nancy Wertheimer with the help of a physicist
friend, Ed Leeper, on a search that occupied several years. When the
facts and numbers were all analyzed they led to the conclusion that
long-term exposure to elevated magnetic fields is significantly cor-
related with an increased risk of childhood leukemia. The levels in-
volved were relatively low—only 2.5 or more milligauss (mG), just a
tiny fraction of the strength of the earth's magnetic field. But the
fields that were implicated in this case were pulsed while the earth's
magnetic field is a relatively steady phenomenon. The magnetic field
caused by the flow of alternating current changes direction 60 times
a second and, therefore, it is different from the magnetic field of
the earth.
The publication of Wertheimer's paper in the American Journal
of Epidemiology in 1979 caused another flurry of activity in the elec-
tric industry. The possibility that electric wiring normally in use in
homes and along the streets might be hazardous opened a whole
Pandora's box of troubles and could possibly cause extraordinary ex-
pense for the industry.
Power company engineers were quick to point out that magnetic
195 Epilogue: 1992
fields in the home were caused by electrical devices that people had
installed for their own convenience: the vacuum cleaner, the hair
dryer, the mixmaster and so on. But these fields, although strong in
the immediate vicinity of the device decrease rapidly with distance
from the appliance. At a distance of one or two feet the exposure is
negligible and it only occurs for a brief period of time. Wertheimer
and Leeper were careful to state in their paper that long-term exposure
to even very slightly elevated field levels is the factor that they had
found to be correlated with childhood leukemia rather than the occa-
sional spurts of exposure from electrical devices. They believed that
the fields of greatest concern are carried by the wires that bring
electricity into the homes.
For a number of years Wertheimer and Leeper's findings were
not given any serious consideration by the medical or scientific com-
munity. But the power companies, on the other hand, recognizing an
important challenge, put considerable time and effort into an attempt
to discredit this work.

New York State Hearings

In the meantime action was occurring on another front and this
led eventually to studies that corroborated Wertheimer's work. The
Power Authority of the State of New York (PASNY) announced a
plan to build a 765-^ line to transport electricity generated by a huge
hydroelectric project at James Bay from the Canadian border across
155 miles in New York State. A few months later Rochester Gas and
Electric Corporation and Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation ap-
plied for a certificate to build another 76j-kv line. Groups of local
people who would be directly affected by the lines mounted a well
organized protest citing health issues that had been raised in Power
Over People.
It happened that one of the lines was expected to pass close to
property owned by Robert O. Becker, an orthopedic surgeon and
research scientist at the Veterans' Administration Hospital in Syra-
cuse, New York. For many years Dr. Becker had been studying the
effect of electricity on living organisms. He had found strong evidence
 Epilogue: 1992 196
that the growth rate of certain types of biological tissue can be changed
by exposure to electric fields. For example, it could be used to aid the
regeneration of fractured bones. He also found that the rate of brain
activity is altered by placing the animal in a strong magnetic field.
Becker and Howard Friedman, a psychologist at the Veterans' Hos-
pital, exposed chimpanzees to pulsed magnetic fields and found sig-
nificant signs of stress in the hormone levels of the animals' bodies.
It was well known at that time that stress can adversely affect the
immune system.
Andrew Marino, who had been working with Becker at the VA
lab was a thirty-three year old biophysicist. He had conducted several
experiments with animals exposed to pulsed electric fields. He studied
three generations of mice from birth through maturity and mating
and he found that the second and third generations were severely
stunted in comparison with unexposed control animals. There was
also a significant increase in the mortality rate in the exposed group.
Becker recognized that pulsed electromagnetic fields of the kind
produced by very high voltage power lines were similar in strength
and frequency to those which he and his colleagues had found to
produce biological effects. When he heard about the plan to construct
y65-kv lines (one of which would pass very close to his property) he
sent a letter to the Chairman of the New York State Public Service
Commission, expressing his concern about the health effects of ex-
posure to the electromagnetic fields produced by these lines.
In the meantime, the citizen protest groups had hired a young
lawyer, Robert Simpson, to represent them. He persuaded Becker and
Marino to testify at the hearings in Rochester and they agreed to do
so without any remuneration because they believed it was an im-
portant public issue. To counter their testimony PASNY and Roch-
ester Gas and Electric hired (with large consulting fees) several
"experts" who had in the past publicly expressed disbelief in the theory
that electromagnetic fields of that intensity could affect biological
tissue.
The New York State hearings dragged on for two and a half years
and resulted in 14,000 pages of testimony by thirty-one witnesses.
197 Epilogue: 1992
Over this time a very bitter struggle was waged with acrimonious
debate and gruelling cross-examination. Marino underwent this treat-
ment for eight days; Becker for four. Vigorous efforts were made to
discredit Marino and declare his experiments flawed.
The hearings finally ended in March 1977 and the two Administra-
tive Judges Thomas R. Matias and Harold L. Colbeth who had pre-
sided over the hearings wrote a recommended decision for the Public
Service Commission. They concluded that "continuous long-term re-
peated exposure to electric fields exceeding 2.5-kv per meter might
result in some biological effects that might be harmful." They recom-
mended that no person should live or work regularly in areas where
the electric field exceeded i .o-kv per meter at one meter above ground.
A similar report was filed by the Public Service Commission Staff.
They suggested an even more restrictive standard—400 volts per meter
maximum level for human exposure.
The decision of the six-member Public Utility Commission was
issued in June 1978. Although admitting that the record "contains
unrefuted inferences of possible risks that we cannot responsibly
ignore," the Commissioners yielded to the demands of the electric
companies in setting the maximum allowed exposure to electric fields
at the edge of the rights-of-way. The industry was alarmed because
many 345-kv lines already existed around the state and these lines
have narrow rights-of-way (150 foot maximum). People living near
these lines are, in many cases, exposed to electric field levels higher
than the 400 volts per meter recommended by the staff. So the Com-
mission compromised and set the maximum field exposure at the edge
of the right-of-way at 1600 volts (i.6-kv) per meter which is the
amount calculated to exist on the edge of the rights-of-way for 345-kv
lines. In addition the Commission ordered the following standards:
forty-eight foot minimum conductor to ground clearance, fifty-two
feet over private roads, sixty-three over public roads, a 250 foot right-
of-way with an extra fifty feet on each side until studies have shown
that this large a right-of-way is not needed. All precautions to prevent
shock must be taken by suitable grounding of metal objects and a
program undertaken for informing persons living near the right-of-
 Epilogue: 1992 198
way of the possibility of induced shocks from the line and the best
methods for avoiding them.
Furthermore, the Commission required the Power Authority and
the seven electric companies in the state to contribute funds for a
program of studies into the biological effects of the electric and mag-
netic fields generated by the extra-high-voltage lines, this study to be
planned and carried out by independent scientists.
Although more conservative than the recommendation of their staff,
this was a landmark decision. It was the first time any regulatory body
had gone on record as stating that electromagnetic fields such as those
produced by power lines might cause biological effects.
The airing of this problem, however, had a tragic result which
demonstrates a frightening aspect of the manner in which science is
conducted in the United States today. Robert Becker and Andrew
Marino, who testified free of charge at these hearings and devoted
months of their time to the project, were subjected to savage criticism.
The funding for their research projects at the Veterans' Administra-
tion was terminated and within a few years they were told that there
were no suitable positions open for them at the Veterans' Hospital.
Thus money and influence can be used to block avenues of research
which might be disadvantageous to entrenched power. It is important
to recognize that this power is not confined to industry but is also
characteristic of government and military organizations. Many federal
and even state agencies are in a position to fund scientific studies and
to influence the results of these studies by choosing sympathetic indi-
viduals to conduct the studies, by directing the planning of the re-
search, and by interpreting the results. So political and military pri-
orities as well as the financial priorities of big business may affect the
results of the investigations.
This insidious perversion of the scientific process can only be
overcome by truly independent and impartial funding sources and
by the courageous action of dedicated individuals who refuse to be
subverted by the system, who stand behind their research results in
spite of almost intolerable pressure.
For several years after the publication of Wertheimer's paper re-
ig9 Epilogue: 1992
lating childhood leukemia to magnetic field exposure, the electric
industry worked hard to discredit her studies. They hired consultants
to analyze the published report. They harassed her with demands for
more detailed data, and finally they produced a report which cast
doubt on the scientific validity of her study.
Shortly after the decision of the New York State Public Utility
Commission was handed down, a committee was formed to organize
the biological studies ordered by the Commission. One of the projects
under consideration was an attempt to confirm or disprove Werthei-
mer's results, although it was generally expected that the new study
would not come up with positive results. In this case the fear that
ordinary household wiring could be a factor in the incidence of cancer
could be laid to rest. The project was given to David A. Savitz, an
epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina's School of Public
Health and scientists at the University of Colorado. The researchers
soon reported that the method used by Wertheimer to estimate the
level of exposure to magnetic fields was substantially correct. Then
in November 1986, Savitz and his colleagues dropped a bombshell
by announcing that they had confirmed the findings of Wertheimer's
research. They concluded that "prolonged exposure to low-level mag-
netic fields may increase the risk of developing cancer in children."
The relative risk factor for all types of childhood cancer was ap-
proximately 2.0 for children exposed to elevated magnetic fields. The
factor for leukemia alone was 1.9, very close to the number reported
by Wertheimer. These figures imply one additional case of cancer
in 10,000 children; so the danger for each individual is not large but
for the United States as a whole it could mean hundreds or even
thousands of cases, depending on the degree of exposure of our
young population.

New Research Results

The year 1986 also brought interesting information from Sweden;
the report of an epidemiological study was published in the journal
Bioelectromagnetics. This project, conducted by Lennart Tomenius,
a medical officer with the County of Stockholm, was essentially a
 Epilogue: 1992 200
replication of the Wertheimer and Savitz studies of childhood cancer,
although there were necessarily some differences because in Sweden
the electricity is 50 Hz AC and it is usually transported in buried
lines in and near the city of Stockholm. Tomenius measured the
strength of the magnetic fields outside the entrance doors of each
home where a young cancer victim had been born or was living at
the time of diagnosis as well as the dwellings of a similar number
of controls. He recorded the presence of high tension wires, substa-
tions, and transformers near those homes. After surveying 2098 dwell-
ings, he concluded that the incidence of cancer in children who
lived in homes where magnetic fields measured 3 mG or more was
twice the incidence in the control children. Twice as many of the
homes of children who had developed cancer were within 150 meters
(about 500 feet) of 2oo-kv power lines and the magnetic fields at the
entrance doors of these homes averaged 2.2 mG.
From England, New Zealand, Canada, and several areas of the
United States, studies of workers who were regularly exposed to
electromagnetic fields revealed increased incidence of leukemia. In
fact, by 1986 fifteen out of eighteen surveys of electric and electronics
workers around the world showed a correlation between exposure to
electromagnetic fields and the development of various forms of cancer.
In Texas a survey showed that maintenance men exposed to elevated
electromagnetic fields between 1969 and 1978 died from brain cancer
thirteen times more often than did workers who had not been ex-
posed to such fields. Although there are some problems in this type
of study in determining the exact level of each individual's exposure,
the consistency of the results is so striking that it cannot be ignored.
The results of these surveys suggest that the adverse effects are
directly related to the degree of exposure—either the length of time
or the strength of the fields. The exact nature of the dose relationship
is controversial. Time is certainly a factor but there is a question
about the effectiveness of increased strength of field. Some experi-
ments have indicated that certain "windows" of exposure exist, that
doubling or tripling the power does not appear to increase the effect.
Other more recent studies, however, have turned up evidence that
2oi Epilogue: 1992
casts doubt on this hypothesis. The question can only be resolved by
further research.
In the 19805 Nancy Wertheimer followed up her first epidemio-
logical studies with two more projects. One was a survey of women
who used electric blankets and had experienced spontaneous abortion.
Those who slept under the blankets had significantly increased in-
cidence of miscarriage during the months when the blankets had
probably been turned on. The second study demonstrated an in-
creased risk of cancer (about 1.5) in adults exposed to high mag-
netic fields.
When this last figure is compared with the risk factor of approxi-
mately 2.0 found in epidemiological studies of childhood cancer, it
suggests that children are especially sensitive to the damaging effects
of pulsed magnetic fields. This conclusion is accepted by most of the
scientists who are active in this type of research.
All this information and much more accumulated during these
years. I have barely sampled the field which by early 1991 included
nearly a hundred studies that had shown positive results. There were
also many that reported negative results. Although all of the projects
that showed significant biological effects have been attacked by
power company spokesmen, it is impossible to believe that a hundred
teams of respected scientists have produced unacceptable research
results.
In 1988 the final report of the five-year five-million dollar program
set up at the order of the New York Public Service Commission was
written by the Scientific Advisory Panel that planned and supervised
the program. Twelve of the seventeen studies had shown significant
biological results but the panel seemed reluctant to admit that these
indicated any adverse human health effects. They did seem concerned
about the Savitz confirmation of the relationship between childhood
cancer and exposure to magnetic fields. If this proved to be a true
causal relationship, they said, it would mean that ten to fifteen per-
cent of all childhood cancer cases are attributable to magnetic fields.
Furthermore ". . . because the magnetic fields associated with in-
creased cancer risk (on the order of 2.5 milligauss) are equivalent to
 Epilogue: 1992 202
those found in many homes, the appropriate regulatory response
could involve fundamental changes in the way electrical energy is
distributed and used in society."
In making this statement, the Panel expressed their recognition of
the enormous implications of this issue, and this admission provides
an explanation for their reluctance to accept the evidence of any
biological effects from exposure to electromagnetic fields. It should
be remembered that this program was funded by the Power Authority
of the State of New York and seven electric utility companies.
Finally the members of the Panel fell back on the last line of de-
fense. All positive evidence must be viewed as doubtful, they main-
tained, because no causal link has yet been established between
biological effects and exposure to extremely-low-frequency electro-
magnetic fields. This objection has been raised throughout the whole
controversy and airing of this problem.

The Issue of the Causal Link

Conventional wisdom has held that low-frequency electromagnetic
radiation could have no biological impact because it does not carry
energy intense enough to cause significant tissue heating or ionization
and because all cells maintain large natural electric fields across their
outer membranes. Viewed in a simplistic, mechanical way, the strength
of the impacting force should be large enough to overcome the natural
defensive barriers set up by the cells. It is well known that electro-
magnetic radiation of sufficient energy (such as high-frequency waves
like gamma rays and X-rays) can cause irreversible damage to the cells
and molecules of living matter. But in these cases we are dealing with
packets of energy millions of times more powerful than those carried
by low-frequency magnetic and electric fields. However, researchers
in various areas of science have recently identified many ways in which
natural phenomena can magnify very small causes to produce enor-
mous effects.
Chemists have found remarkable substances called enzymes which
control reactions in such a way that much less energy is needed to
203 Epilogue: 1992
produce an important chemical change. In the fixation of nitrogen,
for example, the presence of a few molecules of an enzyme called
nltrogenase can serve the same function as a stroke of lightning which
heats the air up to 18,000 degrees F in a fraction of a second. Meteo-
rologists have discovered that very sensitive trigger reactions are in-
volved in the production of snow and rain. A single pellet of dry ice
the size of a pea falling through a cloud two-thirds of a mile thick
can produce a hundred thousand tons of snow. And in physics it has
been known for many years that resonance can cause a dramatic
enhancement of an electric system to the impact of radiation that has
a wave length identical with that of the natural system. The tuning
of a radio set is an example of a resonant phenomenon.
Over the last two decades several research groups have been con-
sidering some of these processes in trying to solve the problem of
biological response to low frequency radiation. And they are begin-
ning to come up with some interesting possibilities. W. Ross Adey
and several colleagues at the Memorial Veterans' Hospital at Loma
Linda have found that electromagnetic fields modulated at very low
frequencies (between one and a hundred hertz) can alter the flow of
calcium ions from brain cells in live experimental animals. Calcium
flow through the cell membrane is an important part of a process
that sends a signal to the interior of the cell and triggers cell division.
Certain frequencies appear to have much more effect than others;
16 Hz is especially effective. Adey concluded that the pulsing of the
AC fields was the significant factor in producing biological changes.
He postulated that a resonance phenomenon was involved, magnify-
ing the effect of certain specific frequencies within the brain cells.
With Daniel Lyle, a research immunologist at the University of
California at Riverside, Adey demonstrated that an electromagnetic
wave modulated at 60 Hz could significantly suppress the ability of
cultured T-lymphocyte cells from mice to kill cultured cancer cells.
T-lymphocytes are an important part of the body's defense against
disease.
The formation and development of a tumor involves several stages.
 Epilogue: 1992 204
The first two are initiation and promotion. "Initiation occurs," Ross
Adey observed, "when the DNA in the nucleus of a cell is damaged
by ionizing radiation, such as gamma rays and X-rays, or by certain
chemicals. The damaged cell has undergone mutation, and is now
capable of passing its damaged DNA to daughter cells. It is, there-
fore, a cancer cell, but it may not necessarily form a tumor. The next
phase in carcinogenesis is promotion of tumor formation. This involves
unregulated growth."
Adey and Craig Byus found that exposure of human lymphoma
cells to a 60 Hz electric field of a strength commonly experienced
near power lines produced a fivefold increase in activity of ODC (an
enzyme known to be associated with the presence of a cancer pro-
moter). "We can now hypothesize," Adey said, "that exposure to
low-energy fields, such as those emanating from power lines, may
provide a tumor-promoting stimulus. . ."
Other studies support the hypothesis of electromagnetic fields as
cancer promoters. A project conducted by Jerry L. Phillips at the
Cancer Therapy and Research Center in San Antonio, Texas showed
that cultivated human colon-cancer cells exposed to 60 Hz electric
and magnetic fields in combination, and to magnetic fields alone,
proliferate more easily and are more resistant to attack by immune-
system lymphocytes than unexposed colon-cancer cells. Scientists at
Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory have demonstrated that low-
frequency radiation can inhibit the pineal gland's secretion of me-
latonin, a hormone that regulates circadian rhythms and has been
shown to inhibit tumor o growth.
As time has gone by, more and more evidence has been accumulat-
ing that electromagnetic fields undermine the effectiveness of the
immune system. And if this hypothesis proves to be correct, it would
account for the fact that many health effects other than cancer, for
example nervous system disorders, have also been reported to be
associated with exposure to electromagnetic fields. It could also ex-
plain the fact that some studies have not shown any effects. The tumor
must be present before it can be promoted.
2O5 Epilogue: 1992
Magnetic or Electric?
Although a great deal of the research on the biological response to
electromagnetic fields has been concentrated on the electric field ex-
posures, the epidemiological studies showing an increased risk of
serious childhood health effects like leukemia and brain cancer, have
all been related to magnetic field exposures. This difference might
be explained by the fact that magnetic fields cannot be shielded (ex-
cept by extraordinary means) while electric fields are effectively
shielded by the presence of a metallic surface or the walls of a typical
house. Most of the regular long-term exposure of children occurs
within the home or school and, therefore, it is the magnetic field that
is the more significant biological factor in studies involving children.
On the other hand, some workmen are regularly exposed to strong
electric fields outdoors (electric linemen, cable-splicers, and telephone
repairmen). Surveys of people engaged in this kind of work have
quite consistently shown a strong correlation with leukemia and brain
tumors.
Effective defenses against both electric and magnetic fields are the
maintenance of suitable distance from the source and limitation of
the exposure time. Both electric and magnetic fields cause small cur-
rents to run in the body tissues of exposed organisms. Both of them
have the ability to affect the movement and even the shape of mole-
cules that perform important functions within the biological system.
Until much more complete understanding is achieved both of these
closely related manifestations of the electromagnetic phenomenon
should be considered potential health risks.

The Larger Issue

As the information from all this recent research has come together,
it is apparent that the issue of electromagnetic pollution has .entered
an entirely new phase with enormous implications for industrialized
societies around the world. The hazard is no longer restricted to those
comparatively few individuals whose land has been appropriated to
serve as corridors for the transmission of electricity. For the large
 Epilogue: 1992 206
majority of the population, the presence of this hazard is unsus-
pected. It comes in silent and unseen, sometimes invading from under-
ground, sometimes from innocent-looking poles along the alleys. It
lurks in the houses and backyards, in the schools and play grounds
of a million cities—in farm houses, and big city skyscrapers, and along
quiet suburban streets.
Fortunate are those communities where there is sufficient knowl-
edge of this potential problem to spark citizen concern. Some recent
publicity in the media—Paul Brodeur's articles in the New Yorker,
newspaper stories, and television interviews have helped to disseminate
the news.
In 1990 the people of Wilmette, the suburb where I now live,
became aware of the plan to build a new substation on the property
occupied by the L terminal which lies in a residential area of the
town. Vigorous protests were mounted and questions asked about the
strength of the magnetic fields which might be caused by the substa-
tion. The Village Board hired a consulting firm to take magnetic field
measurements, not only along the L terminal but throughout the
whole town—the streets, the parks, the public buildings, electric sub-
stations and power line rights-of-way. The results of this survey were
made available to the citizens and public meetings were held to dis-
cuss their significance. Some of the information was truly alarming.
Although the majority of the field strengths measured were within
the range that is considered acceptable (less than 2 mG) there were
some areas where the fields were much higher. The measurements
along one of the suburban streets showed levels of 30 to 50 mG. This
street bordered on a park containing a children's playground. Levels
at the sandboxes and baby swings measured as high as 4 to 6 mG.
A number of houses along this street were severely affected, having
interior readings as high as 170 mG. Several other streets and parking
areas in the town were also experiencing elevated levels. Most of
these readings increased during peak power summer hours.
In many of these cases buried distribution lines were the cause of
the problem. Although burying these lines reduces the electric fields
(due to shielding), magnetic fields exist if the lines are "unbalanced".
207 Epilogue: 1992
The out-going current is not balanced by an equal return current
which would tend to cancel the magnetic fields. A net current flows
in the system, producing magnetic fields that cannot be shielded.
Since underground lines lie only a few feet beneath sidewalks and
parkways, people using these areas are exposed to magnetic fields
stronger than those caused by lines fifteen or twenty feet overhead.
From the underground lines the net current is carried into nearby
houses on the plumbing pipes which are connected to the electric
system in order to provide grounding.
The unbalanced condition of these lines can be mitigated fairly
inexpensively by changing the relative loading on the outgoing and
returning lines. But this is not always a permanent solution. Fluctua-
tions in power demand can disturb the balance again. It is interesting
to note that the balancing increases the efficiency of the system and
results in less loss of energy. The fact that this problem has not al-
ways been routinely checked and corrected by the electric companies
is another example of the economic policy we noted much earlier
(see p. 19) in connection with the construction of big transmission
lines. The companies can afford to lose some electrical energy in
order to do the job less expensively.
Unbalanced lines, however, did not account for all of the elevated
magnetic fields revealed in the consulting agency's report. And these
other problem areas are more difficult to correct. For example, through-
out much of the town, when the street lights are turned on, the
magnetic fields along the sidewalks suddenly jump from approxi-
mately i mG to 6 or 8 mG. These high magnetic fields are created
by the manner in which the lights are wired. The older lights are
connected in series, a method that requires less wiring and simpler
installation. Here again we see the unwise policy of maximum
economy at work. Newer parallel two-wire systems connect some
more recently installed street lights and these produce much lower
magnetic fields (between .6 and 1.8 mG). The Village of Wilmette
conducted two public hearings on the electromagnetic fields (EMF)
problem with expert witnesses to present both sides of the issue. After
considering all the evidence, the Board of Trustees acknowledged
 Epilogue: 1992 208
that a potential health risk exists and they issued the following
recommendations:
Government can educate the public concerning EMF issues,
assist residents in identifying and controlling exposures within
their homes, identify and reduce (in conjunction with Com-
monwealth Edison) any unusually high magnetic field levels
caused by the electric power distribution system in Wilmette
and update land use and building regulations as it seems rea-
sonable in light of current and future information on EMF
[electromagnetic fields].
Individuals can follow a policy of prudent avoidance by learn-
ing as much as possible about magnetic field effects on adults
and children, by identifying the EMF sources and field strengths
at various locations in their homes and work places, and by alter-
ing their ongoing exposures to magnetic fields consistent with
their evaluation of risk to themselves and their families.

Other progressive communities are also beginning to take some re-

sponsibility for protecting their citizens against this possible health
hazard. In Lincolnwood and Wheaton, two more suburbs of Chicago
protest groups have demanded information on the field levels to which
they and their families are regularly exposed. Surveys have revealed
the presence of high magnetic fields beneath transmission lines and
above underground lines similar to those found in Wilmette. Several
other villages and towns around the country are beginning to respond
to this concern but the response is only a very tentative first step
toward the kind of citizen involvement that will be needed to achieve
a real change in the way electricity is transmitted and distributed.
The vast majority of people are totally unaware that any such problem
exists.

Measurements Under a 765-!^ Line

When I recognized the importance of magnetic field levels (in ad-
dition to the electric ones which I had been studying for many years)
I purchased a magnetic field meter and took it with me to the farm
that we still own in Ohio and which is crossed by a 765-^ line.
209 Epilogue: 1992
Measurements taken under the line revealed a wide range of field
strengths depending on the position in relation to the line and on the
current the line was carrying. The magnetic fields under the low
point of the sag varied from 90 mG on a Sunday morning to about
154 mG on a warm Monday afternoon. But under maximum loading,
according to experts speaking for the electric industry, the levels can
be as high as 700 mG. Under the towers where the conductors are
much higher above ground the maximum readings varied between
35 and 95 mG. Even under the most favorable conditions when the
loading on the line was light, levels of 2.5 mG or more (the fields
that have been considered unsafe) extend 200 feet from both edges
of the right-of-way. Under the worst conditions the region severely
impacted by magnetic fields encompasses an area at least 400 feet
beyond the right-of-way. Many people live and work within this
region.

Personal Stories
As I mentally mapped out this picture, I thought about the people
I had visited twenty years ago. I remembered their little houses, their
barns, and vegetable gardens, in many cases butting right up against
the right-of-way. The enormous towers loomed over these properties
like giant scarecrows casting grotesque shadows. Many of these people
had been trusting: "The government will protect us," they said, "the
electric company wouldn't do anything to hurt us." Some were angry
but could get no satisfaction, no redress for the discomfort, no real
answers to the fears they expressed.
I decided to find out what had happened to these families after
twenty years of life under the line. I found to my sorrow that Clovis
Strasbow had died of cardiovascular problems in 1989 at the age of
fifty-seven. After his death his wife sold the property and moved. She
said that the line had passed between their house and barn; she was
glad to be away from it.
In attempting to track down the ten other families I had visited,
I was able to contact five who had lived under the line since 1969.
 Epilogue: 1992 210
Two of these families had experienced no special health problems.
In the other three families, one woman had died of colon cancer;
another had surgery for cancer of the cervix. Most disturbing, how-
ever, was the information that two of the men had been suffering
from health problems which some studies have shown may be related
to electromagnetic field exposure. One had been diagnosed to have
leukemia in 1987 when he was forty-two years old. The other has
been fighting brain cancer for the past fifteen years and has had
four major operations. He is now crippled and feels so badly that he
frequently has to spend the day in bed. This is the same man who
had trouble painting his barn roof because the electric shocks had
been so frightening. When he complained to Ohio Power Company
they suggested that he ground himself by running a chain down his
pant's leg and allow it to trail behind him on the barn roof (see
p. 102).
Of course, we cannot assume that a sample of five families gives
any scientific measure of the risk of regular exposure to electromag-
netic fields beneath 765-^ lines. The number is much too small; it
would have to be a hundred or even a thousand times larger to be
significant. But these stories do provide a little glimpse into the lives
of a random sample of people who have spent a large part of their
lifetimes in the shadow of these lines.
Even those families that had suffered no serious health problems
were far from being resigned to having this monstrosity over their
property. "I sure wish it weren't here;" one owner said, "it has ruined
our farm." "It interferes with my TV. On a rainy night I see the
wires turn blue and glow." "I can't work in my garden without getting
bitten around my ankles by electric shocks. I told those power com-
pany guys who stopped around here one day, 'Get your electricity
back into your d— lines!' "
This last remark strikes at the heart of the electromagnetic field
problem. The transmission line does not carry all of its deliverable
electric power within its wires; part of this energy exists in measurable
fields even beyond the right-of-way, in the region of space that be-
longs to private citizens and is their regular environment. The quality
2ii Epilogue: 1992
of their lives is greatly affected by the presence of this strange and,
in many ways, frightening intruder.
Considering these facts, it is alarming to read that one option being
seriously considered by the electric industry to increase transmission
capacity, is to add additional circuits to existing towers or to increase
the voltage on existing lines. "Voltages can be fairly easily doubled,"
states the report of the Transmission Task Force to the Federal Energy
Commission, "(providing for a four-fold increase in capacity) on
many older transmission lines. One reason for this is that ground
clearance standards have been relaxed allowing some existing lines
to meet standards for higher operating voltages." The reduction of
ground clearance standards occurred during a time of growing con-
cern about the health effects of exposure to the electromagnetic fields
caused by transmission lines. Distance between the lines and the
ground is a crucial factor in determining exposure levels. So much
for the people's belief that the government will protect them!

Broader Areas of Concern

After I left Ohio I brought the magnetic meter back to Wilmette.
It was a cold November evening and I set the meter down on the
library table in my apartment. Just as a matter of curiosity, I turned
it on and was astonished to see the digital read-out recording 10 mG.
The reason for this elevated magnetic field I soon realized was the
presence of electric heating cables in the ceiling of my apartment.
They act like a giant electric blanket. A survey of the apartment over
the next month or so revealed the fact that I am exposed approximately
half the time in cold weather to fields that vary from 3.5 to 12 mG,
depending on position in each room. When the thermostat is not
calling for more heat the coils are turned off and the readings drop
to one or less milligauss—with one exception. The kitchen has three-
way light switches and when the lights are turned on, the magnetic
fields near one of the switches are very high. At the door between
the kitchen and dining room I recorded magnetic fields up to 30 or
even 50 mG. Elevated fields from this source extend into almost half
of the kitchen area. Since this is an inside room, the lights are on
 Epilogue: 1992, 212

whenever it is in use. As I work there I am exposed to magnetic

fields as high as if I were standing under one of the towers of our
765-kv line!
Having discovered these problems in my own apartment, I mea-
sured the fields in a number of other electrically heated buildings. In
most of the locations when the heating coils were turned on, the field
strengths were in the same range as those in my apartment, but there
was one single family home where the fields were two or three times
higher.
The Chicago area and northern Illinois have a large number of
buildings fitted with these electric heating systems. Commonwealth
Edison promoted them especially in the 1970'$ when it was believed
that the number of nuclear plants built and planned by Edison would
make electricity very inexpensive in this service area. But their proph-
esy did not come true. The rates in northern Illinois are among the
highest in the country.
Commercial office buildings represent a previously unsuspected
source of electromagnetic exposure. Richard Tell, of the Environ-
mental Protection Agency's Office of Radiation, has reported that he
has identified offices where the entire accessible areas have magnetic
fields in the range between 400 and 900 mG. Modern office buildings
demand a very large amount of electricity to run the elaborate com-
puter systems, switchboards, fax machines, duplicating machines, and
intercommunication systems. When the current to feed such a build-
ing flows in unbalanced circuits, some workers are exposed without
their knowledge to extremely high whole-body magnetic field ex-
posure.
It is becoming obvious from these random spot checks that a sig-
nificant segment of the population is exposed to fields that are believed
to be hazardous. This fact may be one reason for the inconsistent
results from some of the epidemiological studies. The so-called "con-
trol" group may contain a number of individuals who are routinely
subjected to fields as high or higher than those in the "exposed"
population group that is being studied.
213 Epilogue: 1992
As we begin to identify many previously hidden sources of exposure
it would seem reasonable to expect a significant increase in the rate of
the health problems that are believed to be associated with electro-
magnetic fields. As a matter of fact, that is just what is happening.
The incidence of cancer in the United States has mounted steadily
over the last few decades during the time when the usage of electricity
has been escalating. Between 1960 and 1970 the statistics compiled
by the American Cancer Society showed an increase of approximately
twelve percent per 100,000 population. From 1973 to 1988 (the latest
year for which statistics are available) the incidence of adult cancers
increased 14.6 percent. At the same time brain cancer among white
men and women approximately tripled. In children up to fourteen
years of age cancer is a relatively rare phenomenon. But between 1973
and 1988 leukemia and brain tumors have increased sharply in this
age group. The most common childhood malignancy, acute lympho-
cytic leukemia, rose 10.7 percent, and brain tumors (the second most
prevalent cancer among the young) soared by 30.5 percent. Research-
ers are dismayed by the number of children requiring treatment
involving harsh chemotherapy and high doses of radiation. Those
who do not die immediately are left vulnerable to other forms of can-
cer. Recent studies have shown that children who are cured of leu-
kemia have about seven times the normal risk of contracting some
other form of cancer. If only brain tumors are considered the risk for
leukemia survivors is twenty-two times as great as for other children.

What Can Be Done?

Our society is faced with a problem of really frightening propor-
tions. The rebuilding of a large proportion of the transmission and
distribution systems as well as household wiring would create a fi-
nancial burden of a size that is difficult to imagine. It is no wonder
that the electric industry is loath to acknowledge that this problem
exists.
But short of this sweeping reconstruction, there are a number of
less expensive measures that could reduce the health hazard and con-
 Epilogue: 1992 214
tain it within reasonable bounds. The worst cases can be quite simply
and quickly identified using modestly priced equipment. And many
of these cases can be corrected without a significant outlay of time or
material. It is particularly important that schools, playgrounds, and
athletic facilities be corrected immediately even if it does involve some
extra expense. Schools have often been built close to transmission
lines because the land is inexpensive. Recreation areas are sometimes
sited on a right-of-way because the land is free-of-charge (donated by
the electric utility).
All future installations and devices should be designed to produce
minimum, magnetic fields. Federal codes should be rewritten to de-
mand the best possible design to achieve this result, even though it will
require additional wiring and some extra cost.
One possibility for reducing the biological hazard associated with
electricity is the use of direct current (DC) instead of AC. There is
considerable evidence that the rapid pulsing caused by alternating
current, at certain critical frequencies, is the factor that causes a
resonant response in body cells. If this factor were not present—as in
DC magnetic fields—the biological response might be eliminated.
This is an option that should be very seriously considered and re-
searched. The technology for handling DC and converting it to AC
is well known. DC power is transmitted and used in many applica-
tions right at the present time. When electrical systems were first
being installed, Thomas Edison maintained that DC was the proper
current to use. He believed that AC was a more dangerous form of
electricity. He called it "the killing current." But the advocates of
AC power won out because high voltages can be produced more
simply and economically with AC current.
A total change over to DC power would be a major undertaking
and would take many decades to accomplish because almost all ap-
pliances are designed to run on AC. There are, however, some devices
that could be rather inexpensively converted—for example, electric
blankets and heated water beds and ceiling heating cables. The trans-
mission of DC underground in supercooled lines offers an option that
would solve many problems. It would be almost totally loss-free and,
215 Epilogue: 1992
perhaps, free of the biological effects that seem to be associated with
AC transmission.
It has been obvious for some time that the policy of wasting elec-
tricity in order to reduce the price of power delivered has resulted
in increased air and water pollution, in the stripmining of thousands
of additional acres, the destruction of valuable forest cover, and the
flooding of prime farmland for more cooling lakes. But the policy of
deliberate waste and cheapest possible installations has also led in-
evitably to the exposure of a large segment of the population to
elevated electromagnetic fields.
The response of the power industry to this issue is the funding of
more and more research programs which they hope will produce
negative or inconclusive results that cannot be used as the basis for
a change in their traditional methods of delivering electric power. At
the very least, more long-term research will delay the day when any
change in policy must be made.
Although relatively little research money has been spent on better
ways of transmitting power, a great deal has been spent on attempts to
make the electromagnetic field problem go away. Most of the financing
for the EMF studies has come from the power industry. There is a
serious conflict of interests involved here. It is no wonder that the
results of these studies do not preseent a clear, unambiguous picture.
Several large research programs are currently being planned. EPRI
is expecting to contribute yearly funding for a thirty million dollar,
five-year program in the United States on the health effects of AC mag-
netic fields and they are providing some financing for a similar five-
year program in Canada. The assumption has been made that some
funding by the power industry is acceptable because these programs
will be planned and managed by a government agency or a panel of
independent scientists, but this assumption is na'ive. Money is power.
Its influence will be felt in many subtle but important ways. Imagine
what would have happened if the tobacco industry had been allowed
to provide funding for the studies designed to identify the health
hazards of smoking. Or suppose the chemical companies had financed
the studies about DDT. These industries are still spending money
 Epilogue: 1992 216
attempting to disprove the conclusions of the independent research.
The delaying tactics of the electric industry will simply postpone
the time when constructive action is begun. It will result in a con-
tinued escalation of the hazards and steadily mounting expense as
more and more installations are built on the old design specifications.
The money that they have earmarked for more research should be
redirected to fund a program for identifying and correcting the places
where their previous work has been responsible for producing un-
acceptably high electromagnetic fields.

Prudent Avoidance
Most experts who have studied this issue and considered the most
constructive immediate response on the part of the individual citizen,
have recommended the principle of prudent avoidance. For example,
don't sleep under an electric blanket. Turn the blanket on to warm
your bed, if you like, but turn it off before you get in. Tell your
children not to play under a transmission line or in an alley where
utility poles carry large transformers. Instruct them not to put their
faces up to the window of a microwave oven to see what is cooking
inside. These are sound bits of advice but they deal only with the
tip of the iceberg. Nine-tenths of the danger is still hidden beneath
the surface.
In order for prudent avoidance to be an effective defense, the pub-
lic must be informed. They must know what they are avoiding and
where the dangers lie. There has been a tendency for those in authority
to try to keep this whole problem under wraps. "We should not alarm
the public," they say. On the contrary, the people have a right to
know. Only in this way can they make their own decisions—whether
to accept the risks or protect themselves by prudent avoidance.
When the people here in the United States as well as throughout
the industrial world are made aware of the importance and scope of
this problem, they will be able to join together and demand that
corrective action be taken wherever installations pose unusual hazard.
They will exert political pressure for better building codes, more
realistic safety standards, improved design of transmission lines and
217 Epilogue: 1992
electric appliances. All of these things can happen if the people are
informed.
There is wisdom in the old adage "The truth will make us free."
Give the people the facts, unembellished by soothing statements and
little tranquilizing pills. Then people will triumph over power.
This page intentionally left blank
 References for
Original Text: 1973

The numbers refer to

the corresponding text pages.

Chapter i
5 Quotations: cited by Brewer, p. 28.

Chapter z
16 Conductor diameter and corona: Kolcio etal.,p. 1352.
17 Dubos quotation: Dubos, p. 15.
17 Conductor diameter and voltage: Kolcio et al,, p. 1352.
19 Kelvin's "law": Barthold and Pfeiffer, p. 41.
21 AEP's lines: Kolcio et al., pp. 1353-54.
21 Plan to go to 1500 or 2000 fev., "Tests on 765^ Line Enhance
Outlook for UHV," Electrical World, Sept. I, 1971, p. 39.
22 Corona Discharge: Coffman and Browne, pp. 90-100.
25 Ozone in smog: Haagen-Smit, pp. 25-31.
26 Singlet oxygen: "Ozone Reactions Produce Singlet Oxygen,"
Chemical and Engineering News, May 4, 1970, p. 34.
26 Report on Dr. Khan's work: "Another Pollution Culprit," Science
News, Dec. 6, 1969, p. 539.
26 International conference: "Another Pollution Culprit," p. 538.
27 Nitrogen dioxide and lung damage: Air Quality Criteria for Photo-
chemical Oxidants, Chapter 9.
219
 References for Original Text: 1973 220
27 Nitrous acid and cancer: Sanders, "Chemical Mutagens," pp.
62-63.
27 Biological destructiveness of PAN: Sanders, "Chemical Muta-
gens."
28 Classification of radio reception: Kolcio et al., p. 1345.
29 AEP signal-to-noise estimates: Kolcio et al., pp. 1345-46.
29 Criteria of acceptability: Kolcio et al., pp. 1345-46.
29 Quotation about voltage: publicity folder by OVEC-IKEC,
"Twins on the Ohio."
30 Increase in radio noise and corona with voltage: Kolcio et al,,
Figure 7, p. 1347; Figures 12 and 13, p. 1352.
30 Plan to increase voltage on AEP 765/0" lines: Vassell and Malis-
zewski, p. 1328.
30 Statements about TV interference: Clark and Loftness, TP 104-
PWR.
30 Quotation concerning complaints: Clark and Loftness, p. 3.
31 Quotations concerning interference: Kolcio et al., pp. 1355-56.
31 Canadian engineers' comments: Kolcio et al., p. 1354.
31 Quoted statement: J. Reichman in personal conversation.
31 Audible Noise measurements: "Radio Noise Design Guide for
High-Voltage Transmission Lines," p. 839.
32 Description of audible noise levels: "Industry's Quiet Rush to
Silence," Iron Age, Dec. 16, 1971, pp. 73-78.
32 Chicago ordinance on noise levels: cited in Chicago Tribune,
July 6, 1972, i-A, p. i.
32 Audible noise from power lines: Juette et al., p. 1171, Fig. 5.
32 Acceptable level for audible noise: "Tests on 765^ Line En-
hance Outlook for UHV," Electrical World, Sept. i, 1971, p. 39.
33 Radio noise criteria: "Radio Noise Design Guide," p. 842.
34 Miles of trans-mission lines to be built this century: Environmental
Criteria for Electric Transmission Systems, p. iii.
Chapter 4
41 Law of eminent domain: see Ohio Revised Statutes, Section
163.08 and Section 163.09.
42 Legal commentary: American Jurisprudence, Vol. 18, Sec. 108,
P-735-
43 Capital wealth of electric industry: The Price of Power, p. 4.
43 Quote from Business Week: cited in Conservation Foundation
Letter, March 1970, pp. 56-57.
44 State regulatory commissions: Electric Power and the Environ-
ment, pp. 56-57 and 202-4.
221 References for Original Text: 1973
45 National Electric Safety Code: Handbook 81 was published in
1961. Very minor revisions were published in 1965 and 1968.
46 Safe let-go thresholds: Dalziel and Lee, p. 46.
46 Magnitude of electrostatic shock currents under ^6^-kv lines:
Shankle, Fig. 9, p. 16. See also "Electrostatic Effects of Over-
head Transmission Lines, "Report of the Working Group on
Electrostatic Effects of Transmission Lines, April 15, 1971, IEEE
Transactions, Paper No. 71 TP 644-PWR, p. 4.
46 Shocks causing involuntary movement: Dalziel, p. 43.
47 On parking of vehicles: "Electrostatic Effects of Overhead Trans-
mission Lines," p. 3.
47 Pasteur's work on electric fields: Rene Dubos, Pasteur and Mod-
ern Science (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1906), pp. 36-37.
48 Statement on National Electric Safety Code: personal letter Wil-
liam J. Meese, Chairman ANSI Standards Committee C-2 on
National Electric Code, National Bureau of Standards, Depart-
ment of Commerce, May 5, 1970.
49 Height of AEP lines: Samuelson et al., p. 1366.
49 Comment questioning this interpretation of the code: discussion
comment by R. E. Moran following article by Samuelson et al.
49 AEP engineers' answer: discussion comment, Samuel et al., p.

Chapter 6
61 Mixed mesophytic forests: Braun, pp. 24, 35, and map inside
cover.
62 Ohio and mixed mesophytic forest: Braun, p. 35.
63 Guidelines: Environmental Criteria for Electric Transmission Sys-
tems, pp. 3-26.
66 Brookhaven studies: Woodwell, p. 70.
67 Carbon dioxide concentrations: Woodwell, p. 73.
67 Carbon dioxide and the earth's temperature: Peterson, pp. 34-35.
See also Bolin, pp. 128-32.
68 Decline in earth's mean temperature: Woodwell, p. 73.
68 Sears quotation: Paul B. Sears, Where There Is Life (New York:
Dell, 1962), pp. 214, 197.

Chapter 8
73 Carson quotation: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Hough-
ton Mifflin, 1962), p. 13.
 References for Original Text: 1973 222
73 "The amounts are minute and rapidly dissipated:" John Tilling-
hast, Executive Vice President, personal correspondence, July 14,
1970.
74 Oxidant injury to vegetation: Air Quality Criteria for Photo-
chemical Oxidents, pp. 6:8, 6:9.
75 Injury from PAN: Air Quality Criteria for Photochemical Oxi-
dants, pp. 6:6 to 6:10 and 10:2.
75 Plant sensitivity to ozone: Air Quality Criteria, pp. 6:13 to 6:17.
75 Decline in crop yields: Air Quality Criteria, p. 6:22.
76 Rate of photosynthesis: "Effect of Ozone on Photosynthesis," Bul-
letin of the Ecological Society of America, 51, No. 3 (June 1970).
77 Ozone exposure of laboratory animals: Clayton et al., p. 300.
77 "Mortality is enhanced . . .": Air Quality Criteria, p. 8:33.
78 Experiments on humans: Air Quality Criteria, pp. 10:5 to 10:8.
78 Quibbletown incident: as reported by Donald Jackson, "The
Cloud Comes to Quibbletown," Life, Dec. 10, 1971.
80 Reduced fertility in plants and animals: Air Quality Criteria, 6:4,
8:33, and 10:7.
82 Committee for Community Air Quality: Clayton et al., p. 301.
83 Zamenhof's work: Sanders, p. 63.
83 Aging due to oxidants: Air Quality Criteria, pp. 6:3, 8:9.
84 Stokinger's experiments: Air Quality Criteria, p. 8:10.
85 Oxidants in Los Angeles area: Air Quality Criteria, pp. 3:15 and
3:16.
87 High Air Pollution Potential Episodes: Brodine, pp. 3-27.
90 Radioactive concentrations in Lapps and Eskimos: Joel Alan Snow
and Alvin W. Wolfe, "Radioactivity in Arctic Peoples," Scientist
and Citizen, September-October 1964, pp. 26-33.
91 Biological concentration of mercury: Montague, p. 52.
92 Sampling by Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife: Montague,
p. 52.
93 R&D expenditures: 1970 National Power Survey, Federal Power
Commission, Chapter 22, p. 3.
94 Comment by Nassikas: quoted in New York Times, Jan. 15,
1971, 25:7.
95 Testing for presence of ozone: Kouwenhoven et al., pp. 506-11.
95 Quoted description of experiment: Kouwenhoven et al., p. 508.
96 Power company official quoted: John Tillinghast, AEP, in per-
sonal letter (July 1970).
223 References for Original Text: 1973

Chapter i a
106 Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons: Singer, pp.
186-88.
106 Particulates in the air: Schroeder, p. 21.
107 Heat from power generation: "The Space Available," p. 4.
107 Thermal pollution: Clark, "Thermal Pollution and Aquatic Life,"
pp. 19-27.
no Pollution at Pour Corners: John Neary, "Hello Energy—Good-
bye, Big Sky," Life, April 16, 1971, p. 64.
no Plans for new generating capacity: 1970 National Power Survey,
Federal Power Commission, Part n, 2-16 and 2-133.
in Sulfur dioxide standards: Brodine, p. 22.
in Air pollution measurements: U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, April Preconference Investigations (1971), pp. 1:1, 1:56,
1:61, 1:62.
in Air pollution damage in Pennsylvania: T. Craig Weidansaul and
Norman L. Lacrosse, "Results of a Statewide Survey of Air Pol-
lution Damage to Vegetation, 63rd Annual Meeting of the Air
Pollution Control Association, June 1970.
in Acid precipitation: Likens et al., pp. 33-40.
113 Strip-mining: Harry M. Caudill, "Lament for the Appalachian
Hills," Junior League Magazine (Nov./Dec. 1969).
114 Governor Gilligan quoted: address to the joint session of the Ohio
Legislature, Feb. 29, 1972, as reported in the New York Times,
March 5, 1972.
114 Reclamation for stripped mines: Caudill, pp. 61-62.
114 Schoolteacher quoted: Ben A. Franklin, "Strip-Mining Boom
Leaves Wasteland in Its Wake," New York Times, Dec. 15,
1970, 1:1.
115 Trace metals washed into strip pits: Wayne Davis, "The Strip
Mining of America," Sierra Club Bulletin, 56, No. 2 (Feb. 1971),
pp. 4-7.
115 Mercury in coal beds: "Coal Fields Fuel Environmental War,"
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), Feb. 7, 1971.
116 Wayne L. Hays quoted: Franklin, "Strip-Mining Boom."
116 Telephone operator quoted: "Coal Fields Fuel Environmental
War."
116 Ford Sampson quoted: Franklin, "Strip-Mining Boom."
123 R. W. Hatch quoted: Richard C. Widman and William D. Me-
 22
References for Original Text: 1973 4
Cann, "Strip Mine Industry Facing Attacks," The Plain Dealer,
Feb. n, 1971.
124 Electric rates: Commonwealth Edison's residential rates, 1972.
124 Home furnaces versus electric heating: Summers, p. 162.
125 Advertisement: Edison Electric Institute.
125 Fossil fuels for power generation: 1970 National Power Survey,
Chapter XI, Table XI-6.
126 Demand of an all-electric building: "Underground Power Trans-
mission," p. 5.
126 Quotation about electric heating: "Underground Power Trans-
mission," pp. 30-31.
126 Bulk electric rates: cited in "Another Lost Frontier," Forbes,
August 15, 1972, pp. 29-30.
126 Demand of steel mill: "Underground Power Transmission," p. 5.
126 Electric demand in primary metals industry: Abrahamson, p. 30.
127 Growth of aluminum industry: Commoner et al., p. 7.
128 19 million electrically heated by 1980: Abrahamson, p. 30.
129 Present power use compared to 1950: Abrahamson, p. 3.
129 Projected -power use: industry estimates reported in Abrahamson,
P-4-
131 Gas used to generate power: 1970 National Power Survey, Chap-
ter XL
131 New York City EPA Study: reported in Newsweek, Sept. 21,
1970, p. 48.
131 Cook quoted: Industry Week, Sept. 21, 1970, p. 48.
132 Simpson quoted: Sierra Club Bulletin (March 1971), p. n.
133 White House expert quoted: Newsweek, May 3, 1971, p. 82.
133 Surveys of operating delays: Letter of the Conservation Founda-
tion, March 1970, p. n.
133 Carl Bagge quoted: "Electrical Power Famine to Hit U.S.," En-
vironmental Action, June 25, 1970, p. 5.

Chapter 11
141 Corona as function of conductor diameter: Kolcio et al,, p. 1349.
141 Quotation from AEP engineers: Kolcio et al., p. 1355.

Chapter 12
144 Power use in India: Abrahamson, pp. 3-4.
145 Legend as told by Gamow: George Gamow, One, Two, Three . . .
Infinity (New York: New American Library, 1947), Mentor
edition, p. 19.
225 References for Original Text: 1973
145 Doubling of power plants: "The Space Available," p. 4.
147 Pipeline engineer quoted: Siegfried, pp. 8-15.
147 Use of rights-of-way: Environmental Criteria for Electric Trans-
mission Systems, p. 27.
148 Barnes quoted: "Tests on 765^ Line Enhance Outlook for
UHV," p. 39.
148 Estimate of miles of new line: Environmental Criteria, p. iii.
149 Acres needed for cooling lakes: Clark, p. 24.
149 New Cooling Tower: as reported by Gene Smith in New York
Times, April 7, 1971, p. 57.

Chapter 13
151 Field measurements: as reported to author by American Electric
Power Co., August 14, 1971.
152 Impressions of attorney general's representative: as reported to
author by Barry Smith in personal interview, May 1972.
152 Attorney general's statement: News Release, Office of the Attor-
ney General, William J. Brown, Columbus, OH, March 8, 1972.
153 L7.S. Forest Service proposal: as reported to author by Leon S.
Dochinger in personal interview, Sept. 1972.
153 Three-day field study: Battelle Memorial Institute, "Oxidant
Measurements in the Vicinity of 765 kilovolt Power Lines." As
reported December 3, 1971, to American Electric Power Service
Corp.
154 "The questions raised by these lines. . .": letter from Attorney
General William J. Brown to Kenneth E. Mclntyre, Colonel,
Corps of Engineers, April ;, 1972.
Chapter 14
155 Research by electric companies: Federal Power Commission state-
ment cited in "Electrical Power Famine to Hit U.S.," Environ-
mental Action, June 25, 1970, p. 5.
157 Information on oil-insulated cables: "Underground Power Trans-
mission," Federal Power Commission Advisory Committee on Un-
derground Transmission, pp. 14, 23.
158 Cost figures for underground distribution: "Underground Power
Transmission," p. 6.
159 DC underground transmission: Rose, p. 271.
159 Sodium cable shelved: as reported in Chemical and Engineering
News, August 10, 1970, p. 15.
160 l.B.M. study: Snowden, p. 91.
 References for Original Text: 1973 22,6
160 Superconducting DC lines: Meyerhoff, p. 99.
160 $8-mittion pilot program: Lessing (1970), p. 80.
161 $2-million program: News Release, Edison Electric Institute, Nov.
12, 1971.
161 Feasibility of superconducting transmission: Meyerhoff, p. 93.
161 Cryogenic cable: as reported by Gene Smith, "G.E. Discloses
Transmission Gain," New York Times, June i, 1972.
161 SFe-insulated cables: Business Week, March 20, 1971, p. 58.
163 Information on coal-gas: Squires, pp. 821-27.
163 Gas from organic wastes: Bohn, "A Clean New Gas."
164 Cost of using coal-gas: Smith, "A New Fuel: Coal."
164 Expense of gas transmission versus electric: Gregory, pp. 26-27.
165 Government funding sought: Smith, "A New Fuel: Coal," p. 3.
165 Hydrogen lines in Germany: Christian Isting, "Pipelines Now
Play Important Role in Petrochemical Transport," World Pe-
troleum, April 1970, p. 41.
166 Hydrogen system: Gregory, pp. 34-35.
167 Proposal of New York Public Service Commission: as reported by
Peter Khiss, "Buried Utility Lines Throughout the State," New
York Times, Feb. 28, 1971.
167 Federal Power Commission estimates: "Underground Power
Transmission," p. 41.
169 Wind power: Summers, p. 157.
170 Power from tidal energy: Summers, p. 157.
170 Power from geothermal energy: Rex, pp. 52-56.
171 Solar energy srtiking earth's surface: Farrington Daniels, "The
Sun's Energy," Proceedings of World Symposium on Applied
Solar Energy, Phoenix, Arizona, Nov. 1955, p. 21.
172 Solar-heated homes: Maria Telkes, Institute of Energy Conser-
vation, University of Delaware, personal correspondence, July
1972.
172 Collecting solar energy with plastic lenses: Norman C. Ford and
Joseph W. Kane, "Solar Power," Bulletin of the Atomic Scien-
tists, 27, No. 8 (October 1971): pp. 27-31.
173 Collecting solar energy with selective films: Summers, p. 158.
173 Cherry's suggestion: "Chance for Solar Energy Conversion,"
Chemical and Engineering News, Dec. 20, 1971, p. 39.
173 Solar cells: G. L. Pearson, "Electricity from the Sun," Proceed-
ings of World Symposium on Applied Solar Energy, p. 281.
174 Fusion Power: Post, pp. 42-48.
175 Breeder reactors: Seaborg et al., p. 21.
227 References for Original Text: 1973
175 Amounts of plutonium produced: Geesaman, p. 35.
176 Research expenditures: Electric Power and the Environment, pp.
44-45-
177 Research on dry cooling towers: ibid, p. 36.
177 Thermal discharges into Lake Michigan: Power Production and
Protection of the Lake, Proceedings of 2nd Annual Four-State
Lake Michigan Conference (Zion, IL, 1970), p. 107 (Fact Sheet).
178 Underground -plants: Rogers, pp. 38-42.
178 Cook quoted: Forbes, May i, 1972, p. 55.
179 Federal tax on electricity: proposed by Senator Warren Magnuson
of Washington in "Federal Power Research and Development
Act," submitted to Congress August 1971.
179 Estimates of Energy Policy Staff: Electric Power and the Envi-
ronment, pp. 44-45.

Chapter 15
187 Spengler quotation: Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West
(New York: Alfred Knopf, 1926), p. 102.
This page intentionally left blank
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 Rererences ror
Introduction: 1992

vii i Amount of ozone produced: "Determination of Coronal Ozone

Production by High Voltage Power Transmission Lines," p. 78.
ix Plan to go to 15000 or zoooo-kv: "Tests on 765-^ Line Enhance
Outlook for UHV," p. 39.
ix 105 billion kwhrs less than projected: Reisner, p. 26.

239
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 References ror
Epilogue: 1992

190 Soviet papers presented at C1GRE: Korobhova et al.

190 Quote from Soviet paper: Korobhova et al., p. i.
191 Soviet rules for exposure: "Rules and Regulations on Labor Pro-
tection at 400, 500, and 750 kv AC Substations and Overhead
Lines of Industrial Frequency (in the USSR)."
192 Survey of ten linemen: Kouwenhoven et al.
194 Weriheimer paper: N. Wertheimer and Ed Leeper.
196 Becker's work: reported by Sheppard and Eisenbud, pp. 5-20,
7-37-
196 Marino's work: reported by Sheppard and Eisenbud, pp. 5-15, 20.
197 Treatment of Becker and Marino: reported by Brodeau, July 12,
1989, pp. 71-72.
197 New York State hearings: "State of New York Public Service
Commission, Opinion No. 78-13.
198 Treatment of Becker and Marino by VA: reported by Brodeur,
June 12, 1989, pp. 75-76.
199 Attempts to disprove Wertheimer's work: reported by Brodeur,
June 12, 1989, p. 78.
199 Savitz study: David A. Savitz et al.
199 Swedish study: L. Tomenius, pp. 21-38.
200 Cancer incidence in electric workers: reported by Brodeur, June
12, 1989, pp. 79-80.
200 Other more recent studies cast doubt. . . : Research by Genevieve
241
 References for Epilogue: 1992 242
Matanowski, epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, School
of Hygiene and Public Health, as reported in Microwave News,
July/August, p. 4.
201 Nearly a hundred studies: Testimony by Gregory A. Gergans,
Chief of Nuclear Medicine, Hines VA Medical Center, public
hearing in Wilmette, Illinois, March 21, 1991.
201 New York State Powerlines Project: "Biological Effects of Power
Line Fields."
203 Show Storm Triggered: Cook, pp. 28-31.
203 Adey's work: reported by Brodeur, June 19, 1989, pp. 47-49, 54,
57-58.
204 Adey quote: cited by Brodeur, June 19, 1989, p. 57.
204 Adey quote about tumor promotion: cited by Brodeur, June 19,
1989, p. 58.
204 Research at Battelle Northwest: reported by Pool, p. 1378.
206 Wilmette field survey: "Electromagnetic Field Assessment, Wil-
mette, Illinois."
208 Recommendations of Wilmette Board: "Resolution No. gi-R-so."
209 As high as 700 mG: "Evaluation of the New York State Power
Lines Project," p. 7.
211 Doubling voltages: "The Transmission Task Force's Report to
the Commission," p. 50.
211 Lower standards for line clearance; "The Transmission Task
Force's Report to the Commission," p. 50.
212 T'ell's measurements: Tell, Letter to the Editor, Microwave News,
May/June 1991, p. 12.
213 Brain cancer increase: "Scientists Search for Reasons Why Child-
hood Cancers are on Rise," The Columbus Dispatch, reprint of
a New York Times article, June 26, 1991.
213 Brain cancer increase: Microwave News, March/April 1990, p.
14.
213 Recent studies have shown . . . : "A Special Risk for Leukemia
Patients," by Natalie Angier, The New York Times, November
7, 1991. Cites conclusion of a study reported by Dr. Joseph P.
Neglia at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine.
214 Edison and DC: reported by Lessing, p. 176.
215 Two major new projects: in the United States the National EMF
Research Program is planned to last 5 years and cost $30 million.
EPRI and NEMA (National Trade Association for Manufacturers
of Electric Products) have pledged yearly support. In Canada a
243 References for Epilogue: 1992
5-year, $800,000 program is supported by Health and Welfare
of Canada, the Canadian Electrical Association (representing the
nation's major electric utilities) and EPRI. Maclean's, August 6,
1990.
This page intentionally left blank
 Bibliography ior
Introduction ana
Epilogue: 1992

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245
 Bibliography for Introduction and Epilogue: 1992 246
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