They Knew it was unsafe in 1975, and it still is in 2026. New York Times Article
Ultrahigh‐Voltage Lines Studied as Possible Peril - New York Times, by Gladwin Hill Nov 10 1975
Ultrahigh ‐ voltage power lines that have been proliferat ing over the eastern United States are looming as a new environmental battleground—a source of electrical emissions suspected by some experts of being potentially, harmful to humans and ahimals.
The Federal Environmental Protection Agency's radiation division has opened a formal investigation to determine whether there are grounds for limiting the use of such lines or for imposing special precautions on public exposure.
Controversy over the suspected hazard has delayed the licensing of two proposed power lines in northern New York State, and protracted litigation has been blocking another project in Michigan.
There is no record of any person in the United States having been harmed by the heavy leakage of electricity from the ultrapo Werful lines, carrying 765,000 volts, which constitute only 1,300 miles of the 100,000 miles of familiar “bulk” high‐tension transmisgolf that lace the Country. However, in the Soviet Union enough adverse physiological effects among workers on lines below the ultrahigh‐voltage level have been reported for the Government there to have promulgated exposure limits, just as is done with radiation in the United States.
The ultrahigh‐voltage lines hum and crackle even louder than do the conventional transmission circuits. Noise levels of up to 60 decibels, comparable to city traffic, have been recorded under them.
The electric fields around the lines are strong enough so that if a person underneath one touches a sizable metal surface such as the side of a vehicle, he can receive a pronouncedi shock. Engineers say there Is no way of insulating overhead wires to prevent such leakage.
The lines carry alternating current, oscillating at the stan dard rate of 60 cycles a second. It is these fluctuations, combined with the strength of the current, that are thought to have harmful physiological effects.
Research Is Begun
Because of suspicions about possible adverse effects, the power industry in this country, five years after the introduction of ultrahigh‐voltage transmission in 1969, has begun a multimillion‐dollar research program on physiological and other environmental implications of the leakage.
But, because transmission is progressively less expensive as voltage is stepped up, the industry is pressing ahead with experimentation on lines more than twice as powerful as the 765,000‐voltlevel that is classified as ultrahigh‐voltage.
Ultrahigh‐voltage lines are now operating in six states: Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan. Nearly all belong to the American Electric Power Company, the nation's largest electric utility.
These are lines that run from major generating plants to electric companies’ distributing centers. From there the current is reduced in steps to the 110volt and 220‐volt levels supplied to households.
Great Leap In Voltage
Cross ‐ country transmission began with 138,000‐volt lines, in 1916. Then it went to 230,000 volts, which still account for more than half of the 100,000 miles of “bulk” cross‐country lines. In 1953, American Electric Power put in the world's first 345,000‐volt line, between Zanesville, Ohio, and Charleston, W. Va. The next jump was to 765,000 volts six years ago.
A 345,000‐volt line can transmit five times as much power as a 138,000‐volt line, and 765,000‐volt line 30 times as much, at a relatively small increase in installation cost.
This, the power industry notes, not only yields operating economies but greatly reduces the number of lines needed, and the consequent disruption of the countryside.
The 765,000‐volt lines are slung from 150‐foot towers and run about 40 feet above the ground along right‐of‐ways up to 250 feet wide. Thousands of people live, work and travel close to these lines.
Under state laws utility companies can generally get the right‐of‐way by condemnation, whether property owners like it or not. In general, there is no Federal jurisdiction over power lines.
45 Studied In U.S.S.R
“According to scientific papers that have been sent to this country, scientists in the Soviet Union several years ago studied 45 persons who had worked in 400,000‐volt and 500,000‐volt switch yards two to five hours a day for several years.
Forty‐one of the 45 showed, immediately after exposure, certain physical symptoms included “instability” of pulse and blood pressure, tremors of arms and legs, and sweating. About 30 per cent of the male subjects reported diminished sexual vigor. Ten or more subjects showed slowed heartbeat, slowed electrical conduction in the heart and anemia.”
These and similar observations led the Soviet Union in 1971 to set exposure limits for power‐plant personnel.
Doctors do not know how electrical fields bring about such changes. They do know that the human body is a complex of electrical currents and that these can be affected by external electricity.
Convinced of Harmfulness
Doctors in the United States consider the Soviet observations somewhat inconclusive because the study was not conducted under laboratory criteria, with unexposed individuals for comparison.
However, related studies in this country have convinced some researchers that ultrahigh‐voltage fields could have harmful effects.
Electrical fields below a line carrying 765,000 volts can reach a level technically described as 92 volts a centimeter. Electrical fields around household appliances range from 0.02 volt a centimeter near a light bulb to 0.3 volt, near a color television set and 0.9 volt near a phonograph.
Dr. Andrew A. Marino, biophysicist at the Syracuse Veterans Hospital, exposed rats for a month to a field of 150 volts a centimeter They lost weight, their blood protein distribution was altered and cer tain glandular excretions were decreased—all symptoms considered undesirable.
In a deposition prepared for the New York State Public Service Commission, Dr. Marino noted that Federal health regulations call for safety factors of 100—that is, that exposure to harmful entities should not exceed one‐one‐hundredth of the level at which adverse effects are observed.
The 150‐volt rat tests, he continue, suggested a working safety limit of 1.5 volts exposure. To keep within this limit, he said, a person would have to stay more than 100 yards from the center line of an ultrahigh‐voltage corridor.
On this basis he and a colleague, Dr. Robert 0. Becker, a physician, recommended against licensing two proposed 1765,000‐volt lines—one a New York State Power Authority project to run from Utica to Messina, and the other a line lbetween Rochester and Oswego jointly projected by the Rochester Gas and Electric Company and the Niagara‐Mohawk Power Company.
Public Service Commission hearings on the two projects opened last year and are going on intermittently, with the environmental aspects a major factor. The next sessions are scheduled for January.
The person who has been most active in bringing the ultrahigh‐voltage question to public notice is Louise B. Young of Winnetka, Ill., a physicist and former editor of scientific publications.
Fought Power Company
Mrs. Young became interested when a power company sought to run an ultrahigh‐voltage line across farmland she owned in southern Ohio. Her unsuccessful fight against the line led her to write a book on the subject, “Power Over People,” published in 1973 by Oxford University Press.
She became involved as witness in another power line battle in Livingston County in southern Michigan, tin which some farmland owners are opposing a 765,000‐volt project of the Detroit Edison Company. A county commission's denial of a permit on the ground of environmental imponderables was reversed by'a county court, and an appeal from that ruling is before the state circuit court.
A New York State interagency team spent several days last year talking with residents along an ultrahigh‐voltage corridor in Ohio—avoiding leading, questions in order to see if any apprehensions about health would be volunteered. None were, according to Dr. Daniel A. Driscoll, a member of the team.
Some research in the late 1960's—challenged by critics as intentionally limited to the point of meaninglessness yielded no evidence of ultrahigh‐voltage effects. Since then, the position of the power industry, as ultrahigh‐voltage mileage multiplied, has been that no adverse effects are known.
However, mounting controversy impelled the industry some 18 months ago to begin quietly, through its Electric Power Research Institute at Palo Alto, Calif., a far‐flung research program on which commitments currently aggro, gate some $2‐million. Six re search contracts have been let.
At Pennsylvania State University, researchers are studying the effects of high‐voltage fields on plants, birds, and small animals. The Illinois Institute of Technology's Research Institute is exploring whether electrical fields affect heart pacemakers. The Battelle Research Institute in Seattle is starting a study of effects on large animals.
Dogs and Baboons Exposed
At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Dr. Donald Gann for the last 18 months hasi been building a copper‐shielded room for reproduction of hightension electric fields and accustoming a group of test dogs and a baboon to intermittent exposures. No attempt has been made to analyze effects.
Last April the Environmental Protection Agency, in a formal notice in the Federal Register, solicited information on ultrahigh‐voltage effects. Some 50 responses from a variety of individuals and organizations, principally power companies. filled two file‐cabinet drawers, chiefly with previously published material. The agency says it has not had time to examine the data.
Meanwhile, one of the agency's radiation‐monitoring vans has been making measurements of power‐line emissions. The figures so far corroborate previous suppositions about the intensity of the electrical fields they create.
