The Public and Powerline

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The growing confrontation reached its climax in January 1977 . . . at the foot of a stately, 95-year-old elm tree on the Barse family's North Covington farm. Protesters bodily guarded the tree and managed-for a week-to delay the felling of the aged hardwood. By the end of that heated clash (when the last resister was taken out of the tree's branches), a dozen people had been arrested and sentenced to jail terms . . . and their incarceration sparked a mass 1,000person protest march in isolated Edwards, New York on March 12, 1977.

The New York North Country-normally a placid, folks-mind-their-own-business area had never seen anything like this populist uprising. But neither had PASNY.

As one company crewman said at the time, "I've dealt with earthquakes, snowstorms, and floods . . . but hell, I never had to deal with people before!"

THE END?

Unfortunately, the deeply felt protest wasn't nearly enough to actually stop PASNY. And the state Public Safety Commission (PSC)-the last regulatory agency with any control over the highhanded utility was equally helpless to prevent the powerline's construction. The PSC did hold extensive health and safety hearings concerning the 765 project, though (while the line was going up!) . .. and its members heard several independent scientists present evidence that the type of electromagnetic fields produced by powerlines may cause electric shock, headaches, tension, fatigue, nausea, amnesia, cataracts, reduction in sexual capabilities of both people and animals, and more. But since the instances these researchers related did not come from laboratory-controlled experiments (just from "real life"), PASNY scientists argued that such testimony lacked proper scientific verification and was therefore invalid.

One witness, though, actually had run some relevant strictly controlled trials . . . a Dr. Andrew Marino of Syracuse, New York had exposed rats to extremely low frequency fields and discovered that the electromagnetic environment permanently stunted the animals' growth. Marino was harassed for his testimony: PASNY spokesmen heatedly cross-examined him (at one point, for eight consecutive hearing days), and the final PSC health report devoted an astonishing 49 of its 156 pages to criticizing the Syracuse scientist's experiments, credibility, and personal character.

Still, the final papers published after the Public Safety Commission's hearings did admit that the 765-KV line(s) "will probably cause biological effects in humans exposed to them on a chronic basis". And, in an attempt at compromise, the safety report recommended widening the powerline's right-of-way, allowing some people living near the line the right to have their homes bought or moved by PASNY, and establishing a utility funded long-term health study of area residents. But PASNY-which was as unbudging toward the PSC as it had been toward the landowners-tied all the suggested modifications up in court ... and finished building the 765 line just the way the utility had planned.

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