Vancouver pharmacist Harlan Lahti was very upset. While he was working at his shop on October 17, a B.C. Hydro crew arrived. The workers were going to install the controversial new smart meters in his business’s building.

Convinced about the health risks posed by the radiation given off by these devices, Lahti tried to stop them. But he was bluntly told that he either got a new meter or his power would be cut off.

“They’re not even giving people a choice,” Lahti fumed on the phone. Earlier that day, he happened to be on the line with the Georgia Straight, feeling quite relieved that he still had his old meter at home. He was actually planning to write B.C. Hydro to say that he didn’t want a new one installed in his home.

B.C. Hydro is in the midst of installing 1.8 million new meters in homes and businesses across the province. These are designed to monitor energy use in real time, and to electronically transmit recorded data several times a day to the utility company.

Lahti is one of many who are not comforted by assurances from the Crown corporation, and authorities like provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall, that the technology is safe.

“It’s a very pulsing frequency that goes from very low to very high…very strong bursts,” Lahti said of smart-meter emissions. “This is extremely disruptive to the human energetic system. Some people are very sensitive to it.”

With these gadgets going everywhere, Lahti said that they’ll create what he describes as “electrosmog”.

Opponents of smart meters have found support from experts like Magda Havas, an associate professor at Ontario’s Trent University. Havas’s research deals with the health effects of low-frequency electromagnetic energy associated with smart meters and devices like mobile phones and wireless Internet routers.

“In areas in North America where smart meters have been installed, people are reporting ill health,” Havas told the Straight in a phone interview. “Some percentage of the population is extremely sensitive to this radiation. Most of us won’t feel anything, but a certain percentage of the people will.”

According to the environmental-science expert, these meters emit not only radio-frequency radiation but also what she calls “dirty electricity”. Together, she said, these two can cause a lot of health troubles.

“They vary from person to person but they include difficulty sleeping, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, confusion, dizziness for some, nausea for others,” Havas said. “Some people can actually hear a ringing in their ears. And some people become anxious or depressed. It causes mood disorders. For others, it causes heart palpitations.”

As of October 17, according to Cindy Verschoor, spokesperson for B.C. Hydro’s smart-meter program, about 170,000 smart meters have been installed.

“On matters like this, B.C. Hydro relies on the health authorities,” Verschoor told the Straight by phone about health concerns. “So we have been in contact with the provincial health authorities, and they have advised that smart meters are safe.”

Verschoor added that B.C. Hydro safety standards for radio frequencies surpass those in Europe. Online information provided by the Crown corporation cite as an example the “precautionary limit” of 4.5 microwatts per square centimetre in sensitive areas like schools and hospitals in Switzerland. B.C. Hydro smart meters emit less than two microwatts per square centimeter at the same distance of eight inches.

“It is the new global standard for delivering electricity, and currently in North America, there are about 113 jurisdictions that are implementing smart meters, and a vast majority of those are using radio-frequency type systems,” Verschoor said.

Opponents of smart meters often cite the work of Martin Blank, associate professor of physiology and cellular biophysics at Columbia University in New York City.

Blank was part of a committee that organized a voluminous collection of scientific studies released on August 31, 2007. Titled BioInitiative Report: A Rationale for a Biologically Based Public-Exposure Standard for Electromagnetic Fields, the document deals with electromagnetic radiation or electromagnetic fields created by wired and wireless technologies.

“Based on new studies, there is growing evidence among scientists and the public about possible health risks associated with these technologies,” the report stated.

It notes that public-safety standards “in nearly every country of the world look to be thousands of times too lenient”. Its recommendation: “Changes are needed.”

Victoria resident Sharon Noble is a director of the Coalition to Stop Smart Meters. She said she has been studying electromagnetic radiation for several years because of what has happened to her community.

Noble and her neighbours live on Triangle Mountain, where there are a lot of radio and cellphone towers. “Many of my neighbours became sick with cancer, with cataracts, with neurological problems, with memory problems, with sensitivity,” Noble told the Straight by phone.

Understandably, she isn’t happy with government health authorities. “When I hear someone say that there is no evidence of harm, it makes me angry because I know that they’re misleading people,” Noble said.