Kelowna

Photo: John O'Connor

Retired naval officer Jerry Flynn says if the City of Kelowna allows the sale of its eletrical utility to FortisBC, the health of Kelowna residents will be potentially compromised.

A retired electronic warfare naval officer says the City of Kelowna should put the proposed sale of its share in electrical utilities to referendum.

Kelowna resident Jerry Flynn, a 77-year-old former officer with the Communications Research Branch of the Royal Canadian Navy, says he fears the proposed sale of the City of Kelowna’s electrical utility rights will ultimately result in energy provider FortisBC installing smart meters in the city without public input, something Flynn says will put everyone’s health at risk.

“They’ll (FortisBC) get approval from BCUC to go ahead and rollout smart meters by 2015, and by that time, we’ll all be victimized,” Flynn warns.

Flynn, who spent 22 years “exploiting, disrupting, and denying” the enemy’s wireless communications while in the navy, claims industry is not telling the truth when it comes to health effects from wireless microwave radiation: like that from cell phones, cordless phones, baby monitors, and especially smart meters, and cites studies from military and international studies showing health effects ranging from headaches and insomnia to DNA damage, cancer, and increases in rates of childhood leukemia.

“The increase in the spread of wireless (technology) is consistent with the spread of all these diseases…the linkage is undeniable. ”

Flynn points to the Moscow embassy incident in 1976 when Soviet officials admitted beaming microwave weapons at the American embassy. Dozens of U.S. officials working in the embassy successively died or suffered from similar cancers.

As an example of the studies cited by Flynn, the late Dr. Eldon Byrd, a scientist for the Naval Surface Weapon Centre, USN, stated in a 1986 lecture, “We can alter the behaviour of tissues, cells, organs and whole organisms… you can cause up to six times higher fetus mortality and birth defects in laboratory animals, and these fields are so weak, you can hardly detect them…. It is known how to induce malignant diseases in human cells and…entrain human beings’ brain waves across a room with a very weak magnetic field.”

Flynn says the microwave radiation used in everyday electronic devices, at a frequency of 2.4 gigahertz, the most dangerous to the human brain, have the same capabilities as those tested and used by the military.

“The characteristics of wireless have never changed,” he explains.

“People don’t know, because you cannot hear it; you cannot smell it; you cannot see it.”

Flynn is not the only former military man to blow the whistle on microwave technology. Barry Trower worked in the microwave weapons warfare division with the British government. He concludes that the proliferation of wireless technology is the largest experiment on unknowing human subjects ever performed.

The BC government’s controversial rollout of smart meters through public utility BC Hydro, as mandated by the 2010 Clean Energy Act, has provoked opposition among those concerned with not only potential health effects but with security, privacy, billing, and economic issues.

Photo: Grant Scott

Retired naval officer Jerry Flynn says microwave radiation used in

everyday electronic devices, like this West Kelowna BC Hydro smart

meter, endanger human health.

BC opposition groups Coalition to Stop Smart Meters and Citizens For Safe Technology have recently been given the go ahead to pursue a human rights case against the BC government and Hydro, who have denied the accusations against the metering program, saying they are completely safe and secure.

And unlike some states in the U.S. and Canadian provinces, BC Hydro is not providing an opt out for those with concerns.

FortisBC is currently applying to implement a smart meter program using the same Itron meters used by BC Hydro.

BC Hydro and FortisBC rely on Industry Canada’s Safety Code 6 to defend their smart metering programs; however, the code deals only with thermal effects (where tissue is heated) and not non-thermal effects (expected from everyday electronic devices).

“Canada has never done its own studies,” says Flynn. Instead, he says, the Canadian government has relied on industry testing, placing the exposure limit threshold higher than any other country in the world. “It’s the worst in the world,” he says of Canada’s threshold limit of 1,000 uW/cm2. In contrast, the Bioinitiative Report, a rationale for a biologically-based public exposure standard for Electromagnetic Fields (ELF and RF), advises governments adopt a limit of 0.1 uW/cm2.

In 2011, the World Health Organization placed wireless radiation in its 2B classification, meaning it is "potentially carcinogenic."

The FortisBC website states; "Advanced meters operate around 900 MHz, which is similar to a household cordless phone and emit far less EMF than many of the common electronic devices we use every day in our homes such as microwaves or laptop computers. The emission levels from the advanced meters will be well below all regulations set by Health Canada."



Flynn challenges the utility companies’ data, saying it only accounts for one transmitter, not the second (ZigBee chip), nor the routing system or communication from other meters that make up the mesh network. He added that the microwave radiation from a common cell phone is concentrated at the antenna, whereas there is “whole body” exposure to smart meter radiation, an important factor which the utility companies don’t factor in.

Flynn says there are other important reasons the City of Kelowna should put the sale of its utility share to referendum, like Mayor Walter Gray's conflict of interest as a former director of the board of FortisBC. In 2004, then Premier Gordon Campbell—who instituted the smart meter program through the Clean Energy Act—appointed Gray to his Task Force on Homelessness, Mental Illness and Addiction—something Flynn calls another conflict of interest.

“If the mayor had any conscience, and the council as well, he would hold a public referendum or public forum, which I suggested to him.”

Gray stepped down from his post with FortisBC in June, 2010, before he became mayor.

The City of Kelowna will hold the last of two public open houses Thursday night at The Fairfield Inn (4 - 6:30 p.m) regarding its Electrical Utility Restructuring Opportunity.

The Restructuring Opportunity would transfer the city’s electrical utility assets to FortisBC for a negotiated sale price of $55 million, with the proceeds going to purchase common shares in Fortis Inc. (FortisBC's parent company).  

In the meantime, Flynn says he will prepare for a feature presentation he will make at the Mary Irwin Theatre, Rotary Centre of Arts, Oct. 4. His presentation on the dangers of wireless technology begins at 7 p.m.

Click here for a story from the city's perspective.

Watch a portion of Jerry Flynn's interview here: