-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
Have you measured the -microwave- pollution levels
(harmonics) in your standard "AC household wiring" ?
Is it 'cooking' barefoot people (and animals) who walk
or stand on damp earth, damp grass, wet tile or concrete
floors (swimming pools), and shower floors and bathtubs ?
Not enough human bodies dropping to worry ? Here's a
news story about animal bodies dropping now - and why:
Electricity's dirty little secret
By CHRIS HARDIE Local news editor
La Crosse Tribune
Published on Sunday, February 6, 2000
(Copyright, 2000 La Crosse Tribune}
ATHENS, Wis. -- James Gumz fell silent as his eyes dropped to his
calloused, clenched hands. Outside in the cold fall night, the
day's final chore waits -- the evening milking. The chore hasn't
been the same since the winter four years ago, when 20 dead cattle
were dragged fromm the barn. The surviving cows limped on crippled
legs, with open sores on their body that would not heal. One day,
Gumz ran from the barn screaming because he couldn't take it
anymore.
"When it first started, we blamed ourselves," Gumz said, lifting
his face to display a grease-smeared cheek. "I went through
depression and had to see a psychiatrist. I'd come home and just
shake and cry. You just can't stand it."
On the kitchen wall of the modern farmhouse is a wooden plaque with
the words, "House protected by guardian angels." But there is no
protection from what James and Grace Gumz say is an invisible but
powerful force that has devastated their dairy herd.
The Gumzes are not alone. Across Wisconsin and in other states,
hundreds of dairy farmers struggle with stray voltage, electrical
current flowing through the earth. Scientific research suggests
that stray voltage has extreme physiological effects on cows and
other animals when it reaches certain levels.
In the Coulee Region, the stray voltage issue boiled over last
week, when more than 30 farmers presented a list of 13 demands to
the Riverland Energy Cooperative board of directors in Arcadia.
Those demands included the resignation of David Oelkers,
cooperative general manager, "unless he agrees to represent the
interests of the cooperative and its members."
Oelkers has not resigned. But the controversy over stray voltage
is not confined to dairy farms.
There are increasing concerns in industry, business and the
scientific community that the more than 2.5 million miles of power
lines that bring us heat, jobs, safety and light have a potential
dark side. Some are concerned our increasing appetite for power
and technology strains the aging power lines. They worry that in a
growing number of locations in the Coulee Region, electrical
current is showing up in streams, on pipelines, in buildings, in
barns and in homes.
(photo)
Arcadia dairy farmer Steve Haines has had stray voltage problems on
his farm since the 1970s.
While La Crosse area electrical utilities say their systems are
both adequate and safe, there is contention about how much
electricity normally carried on power line neutral wires is
actually flowing into the earth.
There also is concern about what effect that current has on animals
and humans. Farmers say their cows are crippled and gaunt, with
flesh burns and open sores that don't heal. Some cows go blind.
Others abort their calves and some simply break down, lying down
and never getting up. Those that don't die immediately are sold
for slaughter through rendering plants. "I should be thrown into
jail for treating the cows the way they look, but it's not my
fault," Gumz said.
Farmers also worry that stray voltage is harming them. "Common
sense will tell you, if it happens to a 1,200-pound cow, what's it
doing to a human being?" said Richard Asher of Independence.
The effects on both animal and human health is wrapped in a coil of
controversy, but power quality is not. Power quality "will get
worse before we'll be able to mitigate it," Marek Samotyj,
Electric Power Research Institute manager for power quality, said
in a July 1999 edition of Fortune magazine.
Power quality also is a focus of a newly organized state group.
The Rural Energy Management Council is an 18-member board that will
look at stray voltage and other energy-related issues facing rural
Wisconsin.
Why is power quality getting worse?
"We have a 19th century distribution system and 21st century
technology," said Dave Stetzer, an electrical contractor from
Blair, Wis.
Stetzer is leading a charge against the utility industry, whom he
blames for misleading farmers and the public about the problem of
electrical pollution and ignoring potential solutions. "It's a
very simple thing. We're using the earth as a conductor rather
than for safety."
The Electric Power Research Institute says 70 percent of all
electricity used by 2002 will pass through equipment that produces
wavelength distortion -- called harmonics -- that puts heavy
loads on the electrical system, up from 30 percent in 1999. A
higher estimate comes from the electrical industry magazine Power
Quality Assurance, which says 60 percent of the electrical load
already causes harmonics.
(photo)
Haines says he isn't sure if he wants to continue milking his
registered Brown Swiss dairy herd because of stray voltage problems.
Duane Dahlberg, a retired physicist who is now a consultant for
The Electromagnetics Research Foundation in Moorhead, Minn., has
studied ground currents and stray voltage since 1983.
"The ground currents have increased mainly because of the lack of
repair on the lines and because of the fact they have increased the
loads on the lines without improving them," Dahlberg said.
"Higher loads force a greater current to go through the ground
rather than the neutral."
Both Northern States Power Co. and Riverland Energy Cooperative say
they have a constant improvement plan to upgrade and repair power
lines. Oelkers said Riverland also has a contingency fund to deal
with emergency repairs. Mike Herro, an NSP spokesman, said the
utility has not seen evidence of increased ground currents and said
harmonics are under control.
"I've seen most of the concern in places where they have a lot of
switching power supplies like an industrial plant or a business
that has lots of computers," Herro said. And Oelkers said
harmonics are more of a concern in more industrialized areas.
A 1995 survey by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission of
48 utilities found that 59 percent of the conventional electrical
current flowed into the earth. The study did not measure
harmonics, however, and concluded that earth currents were not a
significant factor in stray voltage.
But the utilities picture nationwide is not as optimistic when it
comes to power quality issues. "Electrical utilities are
unanimous," Power Quality Assurance said in a recent article.
"The epidemic has barely begun."
'Stray voltage' on the farm
It is a bright, late fall day as a dozen or so farmers gather in
front of a newer concrete block barn on the farm of Duane and Renee
Suchla outside of Arcadia. Pigeons coo in the rafters and a thin
coat of dust from ground corn covers the dirt.
There is idle talk of mild weather, but the congregation came
together to hear about stray voltage. Giving the sermon is Dave
Stetzer, who stands in front of the barn with his hands draped over
a decorative concrete block pulpit. Standing nearby is Chuck
Forster, an electrical engineer and stray voltage consultant for
the state's electrical cooperatives, and other Riverland Energy
Cooperative employees. Many of the farmers, like the Suchlas and
their neighbor Steve Haines, have heard Stetzer's message before.
They and many other farmers have hired him to diagnose the cause of
electrical problems on their farms. They show no surprise when
Stetzer immediately attacks.
"I can plainly see this problem isn't going away," said Stetzer,
who claims he and his partner Martin Graham -- a retired professor
of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University
of California, Berkeley -- have invvested $4.5 million into
research. "I don't mince words. That's the way I am. I'm going
to call them paid utility whores because that's what they are,"
referring to scientists conducting stray voltage research that is
funded in part by utility companies.
"I could have sold you the Brooklyn Bridge and it wouldn't do any
good. Nothing I can sell to you can fix your problem. It's a
utility problem."
The utilities say it's not always their problem. "Most problems
are caused by on-farm sources," Herro said. "There are ways to
solve on-farm sources. Every single farm has stray voltage.
You can either attack by decreasing the amount of ground current
generated from the farm sources or the utility sources. And there
are documented ways to do both."
But Haines, who milks a 45-cow registered Brown Swiss herd about
three miles from the Suchla farm, says he still has his stray
voltage problem despite working with his utility.
"I've been dealing with (stray voltage) for many years and no one
wanted to do anything about it until Dave Stetzer came around,"
Haines said. Since taking over the family farm in 1970, Haines
said he has rewired his farm, put in an electrical grounding system
and still he has problems with electrical currents flowing through
his barn, despite numerous visits by Riverland (formerly
Trempealeau) Cooperative employees.
"Stetzer's going to set the record straight," Haines said. "We'll
share some opinions and see what side (the cooperative) is on.
Someone's going to be called a liar -- that's what I think."
(photo)
Duane Suchla of Arcadia says he's spent $40,000 trying to battle
stray voltage on his dairy farm.
Duane Suchla says he doesn't think he has gotten the truth since he
built the barn and expanded his herd from 100 to 300 cows in
December 1993. He saw problems with his cows almost immediately.
Milk production fell, the cows refused to drink, had trouble
getting up and were aborting calves at the rate of 20 percent.
Those are typical symptoms of cows being affected by electrical
current, or stray voltage, as detailed in numerous stray voltage
studies.
The cooperative was notified almost right away, Suchla said. "And
they've been out here many times, but never follow up on it."
Oelkers said the co-op has done and will continue to do everything
it can to help Suchla, including an offer to do a complete on-farm
assessment with the help of the Public Service Commission. He said
Suchla turned down the offer. Renee Suchla said she and her
husband turned it down because they requested an assessment from a
group independent from Riverland.
Oelkers said the cooperative has installed some new wires to serve
the farm and responds according to Public Service Commission
guidelines on stray voltage.
Suchla claims he has spent $40,000 installing new three-phase
wiring, a "ring of life" system where his farm is surrounded by
ground rods in an attempt to divert earth current and an isolation
transformer. The isolation transformer is designed to keep farms
from being affected by current coming from off-farm sources by
isolating the farm electrical system from the distribution line.
But Suchla said milk production continues to decline, despite
efforts to improve feeding and nutrition. "I've been milking cows
23 years. In 1978, I had an 18,000- to 19,000-pound herd average.
Now it's down to 10,000 to 11,000."
Suchla said he has replaced 200 cattle in the past year. Of the 64
he bought last summer, only half are alive. "I hauled over 50 dead
cows out, sometimes three or four a day," he said.
With milk prices at record lows and cows dying with no answers,
Suchla says, "I just want to fix the problem, whatever it is.
We just want the problem solved."
Oelkers said the cooperative is sensitive to Suchla and other
farmers who have stray voltage problems. But he said some of the
electrical measurements found by Stetzer are not part of what the
state recognizes in its stray voltage protocol, which he says ties
the hands of the utility by limiting the scope of what it can
investigate.
"It begs the question," Oelkers said of Suchla's farm problems.
"Is it something different than electrical?"
Widespread problem
Stetzer said he had no intention of becoming involved with stray
voltage when a customer contacted him in December 1997. "You can
have stray dogs or stray cats, but you can't have stray voltage.
It's got to come from somewhere."
Stetzer, who was trained as an electrician in the Air Force, said
he took an oscilloscope to the farm to check it out. An
oscilloscope measures voltage variations and displays the waveform
of the current.
"I left the scope there over the weekend and went back Sunday
morning because I didn't want to spend valuable time chasing
ghosts," Stetzer said. What his scope recorded was a series of
voltage spikes flowing through the barn floor. By the signatures
of the spikes, Stetzer said he could track them to off-farm
sources, including times when a nearby farm was using electrical
motors.
"I figured that would be the end of it," Stetzer said. "I'd call
the utility and they'd come out and fix it."
Instead, Stetzer said utility officials questioned him. He said
they denied that the source could be coming through their
distribution line from another farm.
"I said I don't care what you want to tell the farmer, but don't
lie to me," Stetzer said. "I'm not going to get involved in this.
This was my first and only case."
But Stetzer became involved when he asked the farmer's milkman if
he knew any other farmers with stray voltage. He was directed to
the farm of David Quarne near Blair.
"I went out there and checked and within 20 minutes I knew what his
problem was," Stetzer said. "It was an off-farm utility problem."
Stetzer said he pinpointed the problem to what he calls an
inadequate neutral wire on the power line between Blair and Taylor.
On a power system, unused power returns to the substation on the
neutral line to complete the circuit. Stetzer said the power line,
built in 1936, is not big enough to handle today's electrical needs.
"It's like running four inches of water through a two-inch pipe,"
he said. "You have an overflow."
Herro refutes Stetzer's claim that the NSP line is faulty. "The
Blair-Taylor line is more than adequate to meet their needs and
even for substantial growth," Herro said. The line may date to
1936 but has been upgraded with new equipment as needed, he said.
Stetzer said he discovered more than current overflow. Based on
his oscilloscope readings, he found that the current flowing
through Quarne's and other nearby farms was not regular alternating
current, or AC, which flows 60 times a second or 60 hertz. He says
he saw frequency similar to microwaves.
All wavelengths fall on the electromagnetic spectrum, where they
are measured by their frequency. Power frequency fields fall on
the low end of the spectrum. On the upper end of the spectrum are
ultraviolet and X-rays, which have shorter wavelengths but higher
frequencies.
When Stetzer measured the frequency of the current flowing into the
farms, he says he found readings near the middle of the spectrum,
close to microwaves. Microwaves are thermal and cause heating,
hence the microwave oven.
Utilities investigating stray voltage reports do not test for
high frequencies, both Oelkers and Herro said. Public Service
Commission guidelines established in 1989 said testing should be
done only on the 60-hertz cycle.
While in the Air Force, Stetzer said he saw frequency burns on
humans from exposure to certain radio waves. He said he saw
similar burns on some of the cows on farms with stray voltage
problems.
"Every farm that I went to that had these high levels, the cows had
these sores where they came in contact with the concrete," Stetzer
said. He had a biopsy performed on one of the sores and found
extensive tissue damage.
"The tissue underneath was dead. It looked gray, just like your
roast you would take out of the oven. But right underneath it was
OK. So there was more damage done on the inside than the outside."
Microwaves cook food from the inside out.
Human health effects
If these currents are burning cows, what effect do they have on
humans? That depends on whom you ask. There have been hundreds of
studies on the effects of electromagnetic forces on humans with
mixed results. But according to a 1989 study by the U.S. Office of
Technology Assessment called "Biological Effects of Power Frequency
Electric and Magnetic Fields," there are risks.
"As recently as a few years ago, scientists were making categorical
statements that on the basis of all available evidence there are no
health risks from human exposure to power-frequency fields," the
report said. "In our view, the emerging evidence no longer allows
one to categorically assert that there are no risks. But it does
not provide a basis for asserting that there is significant risk."
The government conducted another study through the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences released last year.
That six-year study concluded that evidence for a risk of cancer
and other human diseases from electric and magnetic fields around
power lines is weak.
A thesis review of peer-reviewed papers and reports by Neil Cherry,
a New Zealand researcher, shows brain function change, sleep
disruption, chronic fatigue, immune system impairment and cancers
associated with above average exposure to radio frequency and
microwave exposure.
Stetzer admits he is no doctor. "I know electricity," he said.
But after testing hundreds of farms he said he has found a pattern
of symptoms among farmers and homeowners similar to those disclosed
by Cherry and found in other research into radio frequency and
microwave exposure.
Stetzer said those symptoms include fatigue, muscle stiffness,
sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, joint pain, skin irritations,
heart palpitations and others.
David Jenkins, Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives manager, said
there is no evidence that harmonics and earth currents described by
Stetzer and his partner cause cancer or the other ailments detailed
by the men.
"We're concerned about those allegations and would like information
to substantiate that," Jenkins said. "We have asked Dr. Henry
Anderson, the state's chief medical officer of environmental
health, to please look into this. He's told me the state has no
evidence to substantiate it, not one. So we're very
conscientiously trying to find comparable or peer-reviewed
research."
Stetzer, who wants his medical information reviewed by an
epidemiologist, wonders whether the diseases of the '90s like
fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome could be related to a
chemical change from electricity.
One person who agrees with Stetzer is Jim Beal, a former NASA
engineer specializing in wavelength technologies. Beal also did
research with the Miami Heart Institute and Parkinson Foundation
and said he has collected information on electromagnetic and
microwave frequencies since 1960.
Beal said there is more research going on to look at the effects of
microwave and cellular phones on humans, but since the results are
long term it doesn't get much attention.
"This is one of the many consequences of technology," said Beal,
who believes that the fatigue and stress affects 80 percent women
and 20 percent men. "It's interesting how we kind of ignore these
things. But there aren't enough human bodies dropping now. The
cows and bird migration and the environment may help attract more
attention.
"We need research in-depth with the people who are electronically
sensitive, mainly women. Doctors aren't paying attention to them."
John Beyerl, who has battled stray voltage on his rural Colby farm
for seven years, believes there is connection between ground
currents and his health.
"You go to bed feeling like you're going to get the flu," Beyerl
said. "You have the symptoms but you never get it."
Beyerl has a rash that does not heal, which is scabbed over from
his constant scratching. "It's bad today," Beyerl said one day in
late October. He said his pelvis and chest hurt and often he has
heartburn, a headache and achy joints. Extreme symptoms usually
correspond to peaks in current that a computer records in his barn.
Sixty-two-old Leroy Asher of Independence has had many cows die on
his farm and has had several electrical engineers there to try to
fix the problem. He gave up last year and sold his cows. But he
says he lost it all when his wife died after a series of ailments.
An emotional Asher spoke up about his troubles during a Riverland
Cooperative board meeting last week.
"I lost nine cows in the last three months," he said. "My wife
died in our house four years ago. If you look at Stetzer's
readings, you'd know what I live with. I wished you people would
start doing something about it and quit lying to us."
Putting it on the line
Stetzer, a fast-food hamburger in one hand and the steering wheel
of his pickup truck in the other, points to the gray, weather-worn
power poles on the way to the Beyerl farm. He says he never paid
much attention to them until he became involved in the stray
voltage issue.
"Now I look at them all the time," he said.
Stetzer knows that his confrontational style and the letters he has
written to state officials have made him an outcast to some. Along
with putting his reputation and 21-employee business on the line,
he claims he has poured $2.5 million of his own money -- along
with $2 million from his partner Graham -- in research that
includes computer monitoring of more than 6,000 cows in several
states. Money he says he will never recoup because "I've got
nothing to sell."
"If I charged the Beyerls my normal rate of $150 an hour, they'd
owe me $500,000," Stetzer said. "This isn't about money. "I spend
21 hours a day on this. The three hours I'm supposed to be
sleeping I keep a pencil and paper next to my bed. Yes, it's
consumed me. It's obsessed me. I could lose everything."
Looking for hope
Just a few minutes after her husband, James, leaves to milk the
cows, Grace Gumz arrives home from her job. She quickly tidies the
kitchen and puts on a frozen pizza in the pizza oven that was an
anniversary gift from James. There's just enough time for a quick
meal before she needs to leave again to teach her son's religious
class at church.
Gumz has asked her pediatrician for medical information about the
possible effects of high frequency current on her three children.
"All of the utilities say there is no documentation and my
pediatrician gave me at least a one-half inch thick packet of
documentation," Gumz said. "Either they're doing a real bad job
or it's all a cover-up."
Gumz wipes the table with a dish rag and puts down some dinner
plates. "I shouldn't be tired in my own home. My husband
shouldn't have to come home walking like a 60-year-old man. He
shouldn't wake up crying because he's in so much pain. What's
this doing to my kids? I want to be taken care of. I just get
so angry..."
Gumz pauses, her voice choking and eyes watering. "It's just so
pathetic."
Reaching for a stack of papers and documents, Gumz shows pictures
of humped up cows and others with open sores that began to show up
on the herd in 1997. "This stuff is real, it's there."
The pizza is finished. She calls to her son to get ready.
"You know, most of us are happy to be living in the country and to
be called farmers," she said. "It's gotten to the point that we're
called stupid..." Gumz stops and blinks back the tears. She walks
past the guardian angel plaque and leaves for church.
Chris Hardie is the La Crosse Tribune local news editor. Call
him at 791-8218 or e-mail him at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright © 1997, 1998 & 1999, The La Crosse Tribune.
All rights reserved.
.
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