Panic Over Power Lines

By Anastasia Toufexis

Like the Land of Oz, technology has good and bad witches. The bomb is a bad witch, microsurgery a good one. Not so long ago, electricity was firmly in the benign category. After all, it delivers energy with great reliability and little expense. So essential has electricity become that more than 2 million miles of power lines, literally huge extension cords, criss-cross the U.S. But nowadays many Americans are increasingly fearful that the electric and magnetic fields generated by such overhead cables pose a serious threat to human health, causing everything from learning disorders to cancer.

Alarm has been growing for more than a decade. Scores of lawsuits have been filed by residents of Texas, New York, California and Louisiana, forcing utilities to delay, reroute and sometimes abandon construction of power lines. Seven states have set limits for the strength of electric fields created along power-line paths; Florida has also adopted a standard for magnetic fields. Fremont, Calif., requires that potential buyers of new homes adjacent to overhead lines be warned of possible health risks. Last month in Florida a judge declared that pupils of Sandpiper Shores Elementary School near Boca Raton could not play in a major portion of the schoolyard because of nearby power cables.

Similar concerns have arisen in other nations as well. To calm public protest, a Canadian utility proposed buying all the homes along a 90-mile power line that is under construction. But residents became so upset that the government ordered a halt to work on a segment of the line. Fears were further heightened last month when The New Yorker magazine published a series on "The Hazards of Electromagnetic Fields." Author Paul Brodeur charged utility companies and public health officials with trying to gloss over the threat to health posed by power lines and computer terminals.

The concerns have some justification. Last month the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment issued a report concluding that power lines are a legitimate health issue. More troubling, it suggested that household wiring, appliances like toasters and electric blankets, and such items as TV sets and computer terminals, all of which create electromagnetic fields, might also have an impact on health.

Even so, the evidence that electric currents can be damaging is far from conclusive, scientists agree. Some epidemiological studies indicate a higher than normal incidence of cancer, including leukemia and brain tumors, among children and adults living or working close to power lines. A study in California found that pregnant women who worked on video-display terminals for 20 hours or more a week had twice the risk of miscarrying as other clerical workers. Such findings are suggestive, but the researchers admit that their work does not establish a direct cause-effect relationship.

Laboratory experiments have shown that electric and magnetic fields can exert an influence on biological processes. Cells naturally maintain an electric charge across their membranes that is essential to the normal functioning of human tissues. In cell cultures, exposure to electromagnetic fields can affect the flow of chemicals across membranes, interfere with synthesis of genetic material, alter the activity of hormones and other chemicals, and change the behavior of cancer cells. Studies with mice show disruptions in eating, breathing and sleeping patterns. An experiment with human volunteers who were exposed to electromagnetic fields found they experienced a reduced heart rate and modified brain waves.

But all the studies so far have merely raised more questions. For example, How exactly do electromagnetic fields produce the alterations in cells? Are the changes temporary or permanent? Do they reflect normal adjustment or a harmful effect? Equally mystifying is what kind of exposure might constitute a danger. Is five minutes in a high-intensity field worse than 24 hours in a weak field? Says Imre Gyuk, manager of the electromagnetic program at the Department of Energy: "We don't at present have a scientific basis for regulatory action."

To resolve the issue, new studies are under way. If they show that electric power is harmful, the effect could be devastating. Appliances and electronic equipment would have to be redesigned, many homes rewired and the nation's power-distribution system overhauled. Lawsuits, already on the rise, would surge as citizens filed claims to cover illness or property devaluation.

Faced with the present uncertainty, what should a person do? Home buyers might want to consider whether electrical cables are near a desired property, but experts do not advise people to sell their homes to escape being close to power lines. Instead, some easy, inexpensive changes make sense. Among them: use electric blankets only to warm beds before retiring, place the electric alarm clock across the room instead of by the bed and sit at least ten feet away from the television set. Above all, avoid excessive worrying. Until the verdict is in, the watchword is prudence, not panic.

With reporting by Bruce van Voorst/Washington, with other bureaus