Public Comment

I have a proposal to make to all PGE customers. It is a fairly delicate matter, given the fundamental assumptions of this culture. So I will try to be soft and subtle about making it. But I know I will fail. 

PGE has been caught in a number of nefarious situations recently. An insufficiently maintained gas main blew up in San Bruno, killing 8 people and levelling around 40 houses. Then more recently the Director of PGE's Smartmeter installation program, William Devereaux, was caught infiltrating a number of email mailing lists of the anti-Smartmeter movement under a false name (the real word is "spying"). We caught him (yes, I'm a proud member of that movement) and issued a strong press release about his derogation on Nov. 8. The Chron and the Mercury featured it on their front pages (it even made the NY Times), leading to his suspension the next day by PGE, and his resignation the day after that. Ironically, the last event coincided with a power outage in the Martinez area, causing the Tesoro refinery there to vent massive amounts of gas, with accompanying huge flares, lighting the landscape and darkening the sky with smoke, forcing people to stay indoors to escape its toxic effects. 

These are not just spectacles on which we might have a ringside seat. Our rates for electric power from PGE will be going up as a result (more than the usual periodic increases). PGE has already said so, and started making phone calls to people to inform them. I got one myself. 

Therefore, a word about these events, please. 

San Bruno. The maintenance of equipment is PGE's first responsibility to us. When they spent $50 million trying to pass Proposition 16, which would have given them a de facto power monopoly, it amounted to a diversion of funds which should have gone for maintenance. Now 8 people are dead, amidst massive destruction. In effect, a crime has been committed, a crime of negligence. Call it "involuntary manslaughter." PGE has said that it will pass on to us those reconstruction costs not covered by their insurance. If we pay that, we will become accessories to PGE's manslaughter, under the laws of any state in this union. The law states that any person who contributes money (voluntarily or not) to an organization that commits a crime becomes an accessory to that crime, after the fact. 

Smartmeters. Smartmeters are new meters that radio their data on private residence energy consumption to PGE by means of microwave radio frequency radiation (902-928 MHz). This is a small part of the electromagnetic band that cell phones use. And they do so continually throughout the day as part of local "mesh networks." (I'll let my readers look that up, but it is like the internet.) The installation of Smartmeters contains a criminal component (for which a new term has been invented). That criminal component derives from the fact that these meters are detrimental to our health. Many people get unusual headaches, insomnia, numbness or tingling, etc. And it is easy to test if such ailments come from the Smartmeter on one’s their house. One has but to wrap the meter in aluminum foil, thus protecting oneself from its microwave radiation, and any meter-originating ailment will go away. 

Now, the name for the crime thus committed is "toxic trespass." PGE has prior permission (called an "easement") to come on a person's property to read and maintain its meters. But it does not have an easement to go on people's property and install a harmful device without the owner's permission. When they do so, they are committing a crime – at least, for those who are electromagnetic-sensitive. And they will be charging us for the device thus criminally installed. That is, the costs of the meters, their installation, and the increased use of energy in their operation will be passed on to us, making us accessories to the imposition of illness on those so affected. 

I needn't say much about the invasion of privacy inherent in the Smartmeters, which violates the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution. PGE will be getting data on our energy use hour by hour. What they will do with this data, and whether or not they will sell it, is not being discussed. But it should be kept private data. Nor need I say much about the meters' inaccuracies. They have caused energy bills to double, triple, even quadruple (but never, to my knowledge, to decrease). 

How can we protect ourselves against this, so that we are not just sitting ducks to corporate criminal negligence and profit-hunger? How do we keep from being accessories to PGE's crimes? Here is where my proposal confronts cultural assumptions. Let each neighborhood organize an assembly of residents that will discuss and decide for itself what would be a fair rate to pay for electric power, and pay that rather than what PGE bills. As long as people pay something, their power cannot legally be shut off. Call them "community power councils," or "rate-payer's unions," or "assemblies of resistance." It doesn't matter. But if a neighborhood is together in it, PGE will have to come down and negotiate. We were never asked if we wanted these meters. It is high time we had a say. If we can bring PGE to the negotiating table, we can hold them responsible for their criminal trespass against us. And those who wish their privacy to be kept sacrosanct, a Smartmeter opt-out option can be demanded.