Posted by ESther on
URL: https://www.es-forum.com/EHS-and-California-tp4023548p4023564.html

Hi Stefanie,

I lived in Daly City which is the first city south of San Francisco,  
and just south of Ocean Beach.  In SF, PG&E has installed smart  
electric and gas meters, and the water company was installed smart gas  
meters.  PG&E's electric smart meters are much stronger because of the  
need to get the signals transmitted over the hills in SF.   I believe  
there are also smart parking meters in SF, or soon will be.   I have  
to go into the city twice a month, and get dizzy when I do.

You can opt out of having a PG&E smart meter if you pay $75 upfront  
and $10/month.  If you qualify for their low income program, you pay  
$10 upfront and $5/month.  If you live in an apartment, the problem is  
that there are usually banks of meters for the building, so you'll get  
increased exposure, even if you opt out.

According to antennasearch.com, my friend who lives in San Francisco  
has 66 cell towers and 901 antenna with in a 3 mile radius of her  
home.  The San Francisco Bay Area is pretty much blanketed with 4G  
from the cell towers.

The houses here in most of the Bay Area are very close to each other  
in comparison to other parts of the country, so neighbors' smart  
meters, wifi and other wireless can be a problem.  (The houses on  
either side of me are about 10 feet away.)  My ES started with one  
neighbor getting a smart meter about a year before the rest of the  
area.  Now that my whole neighborhood has been "smart metered",  my ES  
has increased substantially.

The SF airport is located just south of San Francisco, so there's  
radar and all sorts of stuff coming from there, but that would only be  
a problem if you lived quite close I would think.

Joshua Hart is from Santa Cruz, and started stopsmartmeters.org  
because of the impending PG&E installation of meters there, which PG&E  
did despite a city ordinance prohibiting it.  It's possible he may be  
able to help.

I'm fairly housebound, and don't go further south than to San Mateo,  
which is down the Peninsula, so I really don't know much about areas  
further south from there.  On the coast, there's a town just south of  
where I am called Pacifica. I believe they have smart meters (you  
could check with PG&E's website), but they may not have so many cell  
towers (check antennasearch and verizon's website).  Pacifica is  
mostly surrounded by cliffs.  The drive is probably about 20-30  
minutes to SF.  Further down on the coast is Half Moon Bay which may  
also be worth exploring.

There's a city called Alameda in the East Bay that may not have smart  
meters.  I was told by a resident there that they have their own power  
company.  That was a few years ago, so I don't know if that has  
changed.  To get to San Francisco from there, you have to cross the  
Bay Bridge by car or bus, or take BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from  
Oakland.

Just to give you a head's up, housing costs, whether renting or  
buying, are very high in the SF Bay Area.  (It can be a shock.)

Hope some of this helps.

Esther



On Oct 17, 2012, at 1:17 AM, Stefanie Toth wrote:



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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