need advice on high-tension wires

We had been looking for a property that met our criteria for
a long time and all we got was frustrated.
Just now we got a chance to get an acre property with
the right evrything,,,,except,,,,,, it has those HUGE
high tension wires just passing by the far corner of the property.
I know that this is NOT good. Electomagnetic fequencies
cause cancer. Worse the main power station is about 1/4 mile down the road.
Is there any hope? Does anyone know a good way to block those fequencies?
what about that power station??
Right price, scared to live there and try to grow stuff there.
Please, please give me ome advice.
I am also dealing with a short time constraint in escrow.

My advice is do not buy the property. You will never feel happy there. You'll always be afraid.

I second that. I recommend NOT buying this property. There was one like that around here. It was something like 80 acres, several buildings including a strawbale structure with some solar and/or wind electric already installed. It was basically a turn key permie site with a pond. Went to go see, it, HUGE lines cutting right across the whole property! No wonder the price is right. There have been some recent studies that are basically showing that that is one of the worst forms of detrimental pollution these days. I don't have any links right now. Because EMF and microwave frequencies are so prevalent this day and age, the best thing we can do is ensure that our sleep is free from magnetic frequency. There is a growing trend in natural homebuilding to have a "kill switch" for the bedroom so that there is absolutely no live circuitry surrounding the bed.

Molllison mentions that the high frequencies trap (and maybe draw -- my memory isn't perfect) Radon from the earth.
He tells a story of a friend living under them and the dust on the side of the house nearest the wires goes off the charts when measured with a geigercounter (sic).
From the sounds of it, I guess Radon is fairly radioactive -- I am more of an etymologist than scientist.
So, unless you can mess with harmonic frequencies on par with Tesla, and don't mind tons of Radon, run.
Not to mention, that powerlines will ensure that some powerline folks will access your property without warning and tromp on some stuff that is yours.
They did it today for the telephone lines just today at our place!
Well, at least they saw an interesting garden.
In fact, any powerlines or gaslines across a property just made my list of "no's" in the property search.

Tyler said it right.

I know of no real science pointing either way (but a LOT of anecdotal reporting) - and that means there is no way you can possibly reassure yourself, at least not while maintaining straight thinking. All studies I have seen are tiny or have large caveats and limitations which prevent them from closing the case one way or the other. But huge power towers certainly have a big impact at least on your feelings and nobody would be surprised some day down the road to find they are not good for your health.

Regardless whether they be bad or just big, there's no doubt at all that owning that land will stress you out every day cuz you can't be sure. So go w/what you _are_ sure of - power lines over your shoulder make you scared and anxious and that's no way to live! <g>

Rufus

Goodness, I thought permaculture was based on science, not rumors and fears.

A few years ago some friends of mine were panicking about a new cell phone tower going up, so I bought an EMF detector and wrote about what I found: http://blueboathome.com/EMF I'm not sure if the links are still valid. The crucial bit is that all EMFs decrease inversely with the square of the distance, so a cell tower or high-voltage line 30 feet or more above the ground is probably less harmful than the cell phone you hold against your head or the CFL bulb in your bedside lamp. My own testing shows that I'm liable to absorb more radiation from cooking over my electric stove (not the microwave, the stove) than by doing pretty much anything else in my house.

My advice to you folks is the same as to my friends in Fairfield: if you're concerned about EMFs, why don't you buy (or borrow) a meter and test your immediate environment? Don't just assume that somebody else's environment is unsafe and yours is safe. Test it and find out. The same goes for radon -- you can keep yourself up at night worrying about it, or you can test and find out whether you have anything to worry about. It's easy and cheap.

Admittedly, the kind of meter I bought and used is not the right kind for detecting ambient fields from far away (see the comments at the bottom of my article), so if you want to test high-voltage lines you may need a different kind of meter, which may be more expensive. And granted, the EPA's official position is that the jury is still out on health effects, and you should protect yourself by increasing the distance between yourself and the power lines: http://www.epa.gov/radtown/power-lines.html

But a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation will tell you you don't need to go far. The shortest power lines are 25 feet above the ground. Each time you double that distance, you cut your exposure by 1/4. By the time you're 100 feet from the lines, your exposure is 1/8, and your garden veggies will likely absorb less radiation there than when you cook them on the stove!

Well, we used to live next door to one of those unmanned powerplant stations. Nothing wanted to grow inside the fence they put up around it, even the weeds only made a very feeble effort, but outside? Business as usual. The plants there might have been a little scrubbier than they would have been otherwise, but not noticeably. And across the street was a wild lot with fabulous variety. I don't know if the effect on plants reflects the effect on animals, though. None of the local animals had any deformities or anything that would indicate that it was causing problems.
Note: if you have cats, you don't want that property. We had a cat that like to climb up on the lines. Apparently she slipped and stepped on two lines at once or something one day, because there was a greenish flash of light that traveled down the lines (I saw it, in broad daylight) and it put out half a block of lights. Kitty did not survive the accident, needless to say.

Ben: Thanks, that's very good to know!

Ben Stallings wrote:Goodness, I thought permaculture was based on science, not rumors and fears.

By the time you're 100 feet from the lines, your exposure is 1/8, and your garden veggies will likely absorb less radiation there than when you cook them on the stove!

!00% of my phone calls are made on a cell phone. All of my computer time is done through WiFi.

I have studied quite a bit of literature concerning cell phone and WiFi radiation. None of it matches my own experimental experience.

Back when I had a Motorola V 180 cell phone ,I got a headache if I used it for more than a few minutes. I also got an ear ache and fluid in the ear. To test wheather the ear thing was something else, I alternated ears for a week at a time. Only the ear in close proximity to the phone was affected. An internet search revealed that the V 180 model had one of the highest radiation ratings. My new android has a much lower rating. Still to be safe, I only use a cell phone on speaker so that it can be held at a distance from my brain. This reduces my exposure to about 1/10 of that recieved with a phone pressed against my head.

Until it was stolen, I had a lap top computer that gave me headaches and nausea. As a test, I tried using it for several hours while writing articles with the WiFi turned off just to rule out eye strain or other factors. The computer had no negative affect on me when used without WiFi. One hour with the WiFi turned on brought back the symptoms.(on a few occasions, I accidentally left the WiFi on and only discovered it when a headache or itchy watery ears alerted me to my folly) I found that it was worse if I was a long distance from a wireless router. Most of my usage occurs in coffee shops or other public locations. I now ask where the router is located and I try to sit near it. My worst experience with these symptoms came when I first learned how to load pictures onto this site. I did this while parked outside of a Starbucks that was closed. Later on, as a test, I tried walking away from the computer while loading photos and symptoms did not occur.

As I understand it, the computer has to send out a stronger signal when the router is too far away and there is much more communication between the devices during uploads and downloads. My personal experience has shown that signal strength has a huge affect on my health.

I now have a Dell Insperon and have had no ill effects from using it on WiFi. I'm careful to seek out good signal.

All of this would indicate that the culprit was my device and not the router. My old Motorola bothered me more when I was in areas of poor signal strength, so again this would indicate that my proximity to my own device and how hard it had to work to commmunicate with the tower was more important than any ambient radiation coming off of towers or routers.

Still, I suspect that 50 years from now the rules concerning EMFs will reflect findings that many have died from exposure. Time will tell.

Thank You: "The Human Guinea Pig" , Dale Hodgins

It is definitely true that some people are more sensitive to EMFs than others. I had a friend with fibromyalgia who described for me exactly where she felt the field was on my microwave oven. I was skeptical, but when I got my EMF meter and tested the oven, I found the "safe" threshold to be exactly where she said it was. She also avoided the refrigerator when it was running, and sure enough, the fridge throws as big/strong a field as the microwave did.

It's also definitely true that some devices have more powerful fields than others, and you can't necessarily generalize by their age. I just tested our new microwave oven and found the field to be about 5 times larger than the old one's! Too bad we didn't test it in the store!

By the way, I made an error in my post above, which I won't correct now because it's been quoted. If you increase distance from 25' to 100', the field strength will reduce by 1/16, not 1/8 as I said. 4^2 is 16, not 8!

I bought (for work) a small cheap meter for about $200. I was surprised what did and what didn't show spikes of EMF. One of the biggest was some of the microwaves I tested. I even found that my 2 year old microwave/hood put out as much EMF when not running as running. The field grew when it was running but the levels were similar. I have not tried it around any high tension wires, I'll have to do that soon. I went around exploring lights, computers, electronics etc. I was surprised how little to no EMF they produced, some did emit some when very close but most of those items are not usually next to your head. I have seen faulty wire connections show high levels. High levels is subjective, depending on who you believe and their accepted threshold. I would expect reducing them as much as possible would be healthful, though awareness is has it's place (if you use a microwave, stand well clear(yes there is a whole other topic there)). I tend to share the option of some of the other comments that it is worth avoiding living near those lines.

There are companies that will come out and do a site evaluations, with an array of equipment and give you a nice report showing problem areas and give you a variety of remediation and shielding options. That being said, IMO known or highly probable problem areas are worth avoiding or at least having the right education from the right people inform you on what actual conditions exist.

For me the looming aspect of the wires, the esthetic experience, would be enough to make me unhappy around them.

This is one of those issues that has been debated for years. Both the "Pros" and "Cons" seem to have loads of documents "proving" their argument.

I would say, if you feel uncomfortable buying such a property, then DON'T buy it. Even if the EMF is not harmful, the stress that it would cause you is harmful. You would never be happy there.

As for a previous quote:

Well, we used to live next door to one of those unmanned powerplant stations. Nothing wanted to grow inside the fence they put up around it, even the weeds only made a very feeble effort, but outside? Business as usual.

The power company probably soaked the ground with herbicides. That is extremely common with most utility companies. They would rather dump a barrel of poison once rather than pay a crew several times per year to 'control' the weeds/vegetation.

Karen Crane wrote:
Just now we got a chance to get an acre property with
the right evrything,,,,except,,,,,, it has those HUGE
high tension wires just passing by the far corner of the property.
I know that this is NOT good. Electomagnetic fequencies
cause cancer. Worse the main power station is about 1/4 mile down the road.

.

Just my two cents:

One thing to consider is WHICH frequencies. Power lines in the USA run at 60 hertz, which means the positive and negative flip directions 60 times a second. This is actually a very low frequency, and the lower the frequency, the harder it is for it to propagate through air. About all it can do is cause a low hum in florescent lamps or motors, which incidentally is handy for tuning a guitar (B note)

If there were a problem with high tension power lines and power stations, you would expect to see high rates of cancer in power line technicians and power station workers- but studies show no significant difference to people in other professions.

http://www.realage.com/womens-health/breast-cancer-and-environmental-risk-factors
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/147/6/548.full.pdf

To me, the main concern in your case would be simply having to look at those ugly power line towers.

exactly backwards. Lower frequencies with longer wavelengths propagate through medium easier....higher frequencies do not propagate as easily.

Thanks to everyone who replied to this question.
Turns out the seller took a higher offer so I did not
get the property. So don't have to worry about it!!