The energy put out by the city’s radio-read water meters, commonly referred to as “smart meters,” is about four million times less than that put out by a cell phone, according to a presentation at Monday’s City Council Committee of the Whole meeting.
“If you walk through the radio beam at the grocery store, you get more exposure,” said city Water Engineer Supervisor Abdoul Gafour during his presentation.
The council called for the briefing following concerns from some residents that the installation of the radio-read meters has caused birds to disappear from their neighborhoods.
The city began installing the radio-read meters in 2008, due in part to a high percentage of unaccounted-for water. The meters send out a signal every four hours to one of three data collectors positioned on water towers in the city. The idea is that leaks can be detected and dealt with much more quickly, as well as the budget savings to the city in sending staff to read meters in person.
When completely rolled out, the city will install 17,400 of the meters at a cost of $4.6 million. The receivers are placed on water towers in Rolling Hills, on West Hill and in the Highlands. The signal sent out by the meters is picked up by one, two, or all three of the receivers.
“The signal is omni-directional,” Gafour said.
Gafour also said the city’s meters are not “smart meters,” however, because they are a one-way instrument. “Smart meters” are two-way devices that allow for more control from the utility’s end.
City officials have insisted the meters are well within government health and safety guidelines and are safe to both humans and the environment.
According to Gafour, the exposure levels at three feet away from Renton’s meters are 1/14,000,000 of the FCC limit and at 10 feet from the meter, that level drops to 1/160,000000 of the limit.
Cellphones produce 4 million times the amount of radiation than the city’s meters, Gafour said.
“We don’t believe these meters are the cause of the concerns of the residents,” City Administrator Jay Covington said.
Gafour also compared the city’s meters to those used by PSE, which also transmit data to the company. Both are radio-read meters operating in the same general frequency (917 MHz for PSE, 923 MHz for the city). But the PSE meters send out a 48 millisecond burst every five minutes at 250 milliwatts, whereas the city system sends out a 56 millisecond pulse every four hours at one watt.
Gafour said both are well within government standards.
During his presentation, Gafour said not enough was known about non-thermal effects and that he could not find studies on bird migration and feeding in regard to the meters.
Council President Randy Corman said the numbers seemed “reasonable” and was interested to see that cell phones put out four million times the energy.
“I suspect it’s safe. I have a cell phone,” he said, but added “the jury is still out on RF (radio frequency) radiation.”
Councilman Greg Taylor wondered about the collective effects of all the RF radiation in use today, but Councilman Rich Zwicker said he was concerned the discussion “creeped a bit” from the original question about birds to focus on human safety.
Paul Ouellette, who first brought the missing-bird issue to the city council after noticing the feeders at his house in the Rolling Hills neighborhood were not being used after the meters were installed, said he appreciated the presentation but still had issues with their use.
“If you’re not close to one of these receivers, you have birds,” he said.
Oulette presented the council with a petition signed by more than 70 residents asking for a moratorium on the deployment of the radio-read meters.
The council did not take any action on the use of the meters.
