MARIETTA, Ga. - Experts say critics who oppose the erection of high-voltage electric transmission lines because of health risks and declining property values might be wrong.
But Rep. Warren Massey, R-Winder, is a real estate developer and former Navy electrician, and he says the concerns are valid.
"I know I avoid developing a piece of land that has a transmission line running through it," he said.
Where transmission lines go has become more controversial as areas grow congested. A few decades ago, many farmers were happy to get a little extra money for a line running across their property, and they might have continued to graze cows on the right of way.
Now that farmland is being subdivided or that existing homes are finding transmission lines over parts of their yards, property owners are speaking out.
When they do, many talk about electromagnetic fields, the belief that energy radiating from high-voltage lines is harmful.
"I wish I'd paid attention in high school physics about these power lines," said Rep. Judy Manning, R-Marietta, the author of a bill to regulate where the lines are built.
Strong magnetic fields can harm animal and human cells, but most scientists say there isn't a connection to the lines.
"No conclusive and consistent evidence shows that exposures to residential electric and magnetic fields produce cancer, adverse neurobehavioral effects or reproductive and developmental effects," write the authors of a 1996 study for the U.S. National Academy of Science.
If study after study has failed to link transmission lines to health risks, why do the fears persist?
Richard Barke, an associate professor of public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has a theory about why people suspect invisible radiation from the lines is so dangerous.
"It's imposed on people," he said. "The invisibility and the nonvoluntariness of it can be uncomfortable. They are just a sort of frightening thing to look at, and they remind you of how little control you have over your own life."
Another aspect, said Georgia State University economics professor Geoffrey Turnbull, is that the customers getting the power from the lines aren't anyone the property owner knows.
"If you're a person who doesn't want a power line in your property, of course you're going to use every argument," he said.
Mr. Turnbull's research shows that property values do drop very slightly for the homes where the rights of way touch. A block away, and the prices aren't decreased.
LEARN MORE
Two Web sites provide additional information: Homeowners Opposed to Powerline Encroachment is at www.hopeofgeorgia.com. Answers to questions about the medical effects of high-voltage transmission lines is available online by John Moulder, professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, at www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/powerlines-cancer-FAQ/toc.html.
Reach Walter C. Jones at (404) 681-1701 or waltermns@mindspring.com.
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