MR. MERTENSOTTO: Good morning. This is Thursday, March 22. And I am Charles Mertensotto, a member of the Mayors Steering Committee. And this gathering hopefully will be our last meeting as the steering committee. And because this meeting is an open meeting and it is being taped by NDC4, it obviously will be shown many times in the future and be available for -- the information will be available to the public through that medium.

The City of Mendota Heights has also retained the services of a court reporter. So the lady to my far right will be taking down the transcript of -- of the proceeding here today, as well as tape-recording that.

Now, by way of introduction, because the meeting is being taped, and it is a public meeting, let me just state that Northern States Power, who is now Xcel Energy, proposed to upgrade its southeast and Twin Cities metropolitan electric transmission line with the addition of a second 115 kV line connecting its Red Rock, Rogers Lake and Wilson substations. That is a 14.7 mile project along the alignment between Red Rock substation and Washington County. Connects through the Rogers Lake substation and the City of Mendota Heights and ends up at the Wilson substation in Hennepin County.

Now, NSP -- NSP proposes to construct a new line by replacing the existing single circuit 115 kV line with a double circuit line. And this will be conducted -- or will be established on the existing right-of-way. And it will be by replacing the existing structures with new single steel pole structures, which typically will be somewhere between 85 to 100 feet, or approximately 25 feet taller than the existing -- existing wooden structures.

Now, this project goes back -- sometime back in 1999, when NSP made an application to the City of Mendota Heights for a conditional use permit to construct the line for that portion of the line that is in the City of Mendota Heights. At that time the proceedings went on to the planning commission, where there was a public hearing. There was a large turnout from the public interested in the -- in the proceeding. And, of course, like anything else NSP proposed and provided the information. And there was a general accusation that, yes, here we are. The utility is handfeeding us. They are providing us the information they want us to know. They are not giving us the opposite or distaff part of it. So, as a result of that, the -- the proceedings at the planning commission -- the planning commission recommendation to the Mendota Heights City Council was to deny the project.

At that time I had discussions with Mr. Pat Kline of Xcel Energy. And he is in the audience here today. And he graciously agreed that possibly the way to do this, because we will also need -- when I say we, I meant Xcel Energy -- a conditional use permit in the City of Sunfish Lake and in the City of South St. Paul. And therefore they would have to go through three different proceedings. And if, in the interest of the disseminating the information to the public, in the public interest, so that -- and for efficiency purposes, it would be better off if we had one particular gathering or means of -- of generating all of the information and then passing it on to the various different communities.

Now, I am one member of the steering committee. With me today is Mayor Frank Tiffany, from the City of Sunfish Lake, and also Mayor Kathleen Gaylord, from the City of South St. Paul. The three of us constitute the steering committee. All of our meetings have been -- been public, as well as this meeting is public. And in order to comply with the open meeting law, each of the cities, to my knowledge, has also established this as a workshop meeting this morning so that we don’t run astray and follow that provision.

Now, let me state the steering committee is only in the -- the process of gathering information for the various different city councils. Each city council will follow its own ordinance or procedural requirements for the granting a conditional use permit. And they obviously will use any information gained through the steering committee’s activities.

And when we met the last time we agreed that we would have one final meeting. And at that time a spokesman for the Citizens Task Force against the power line, through Mr. Roger Conant, has requested would we have an opportunity to present our side of the information to you so that you’re not getting it from one -- one direction. And we graciously agreed to do that in the interest of the public. So let me state that this is where we’re at now.

I might mention that very early in the game, when NSP, now -- then NSP started with the petition, we requested, as well as City of South St. Paul and Sunfish Lake, to the EQB that they conduct and do an environmental impact statement. Well, after we went through that proceeding, that was denied. So therefore the EQS and -- as well as the law requires that it goes back to the local jurisdictions. And we certainly have that authority in conjunction with granting the conditional use permit to set whatever conditions might be necessary.

So let me just state what we’re going to do is -- this morning -- oh, I should mention -- what did the steering committee do? Under the agreement with NSP -- Northern States Power -- everything was put on hold. And we proceeded to request -- we sent out request for proposals to major engineering firms in the United States to see whether or not they would want to come in and conduct this study for us. We don’t call it AIS. We don’t call it -- we call it an ER --information review -- ER. Okay. As long as we’re in an acronym world.

And that the steering committee had responses from, I think, at least four, five or six national firms. And we selected -- I think it was four of those. And four of them came in. We interviewed those. And -- according to the criteria that we had established for the RFP. And we selected the Commonwealth Associates from Jackson, Michigan. So they have been our consultants. And these were totally selected by the steering committee. And these people have taken their direction from us, as a steering committee.

I know there’s been some complaints saying yes, Commonwealth has done work for NSP in the past. They’ve done work on this power line. I 5 guess you’re going to find that just about with every major engineering firm in the United States. But these gentlemen -- we queried them and they promised us that they would stake their professional reputation on providing us with honest answers. We think they have. And they have issued a final report to us which consists of two or three volumes. And no doubt some of that will be referred to.

And this should be our final meeting in which we are also going to take information relative to the magnetic affects of the line and also as it has affect on human beings or, you might say, health affects.

So gentlemen, Mayor, have I stated –

MS. GAYLORD: Very good introduction.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. With that we’ll proceed. And I’m going to call on Mr. Guidinger, who is the project manager for Commonwealth Electric.

And I believe, Mr. Guidinger, you are fully aware that this is going to be your final. And you’re going to give us the updated -- or the updates that we need to report at this point’ in time; is that right?

MR. GUIDINGER: Right. Well, our -- my name is John –

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Would you take the podium there, please.

MR. GUIDINGER: Okay. All right. My name is John Guidinger. And I work for Commonwealth Associates. And I have Dave Shafer here with us, who is our head of the —- of system engineering. I’m the head of environmental section. And we submitted our report last -- at the last meeting. And we have no further updates to the report. We -- we stand by the way that it’s written out.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. You might tell us -- I’m sorry to see what happened to your -- did you slip on some ice or something?

MR. GUIDINGER: Slipped on the ice. Has nothing to do with this project.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. So other states have the same problems we have here in Minnesota.

MR. GUIDINGER: Yeah. We have ice and snow in Michigan, too. Jackson, Michigan is in southern Michigan.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: It’s unusual --or amazing the number of people that have had fall-down accidents with all the icy conditions this year.

MR. GUIDINGER: Right, yeah.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: We do have a portable mic available. We could have used that --

MR. GUIDINGER: With us we have Doctor Peter Valberg, who is our consultant on the electromagnetic fields and health affects of those fields. Commonwealth Associates is not an expert in health affects, so we’re going to refer all our questions to Peter Valberg on health affects.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, at the outset we want to get all of the information. You say there are no further additions or updates to the re -— various volumes of the report that you presented to us.

DR. VALBERG: That’s correct, yes. We have an errata sheet and an updated errata sheet. We found other typos in the report. We passed that out. There are four copies of the complete report, which each of the cities has in the city hall. And Doctor Conant has a copy of that. And then there are executive summary -- brief executive summaries,

also. In addition, I think we printed 30 copies of the executive summaries.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. Before we -hear from Doctor Valberg, who is the expert that was retained by Commonwealth in regards to the health affects of the magnetic field associated with the proposed project, let me just state this. I’m going to probably ask Pat Kline, who is here from Xcel, if he has any comments in regards to the proceeding.

MR. KLINE: Should –

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Yes, John, you may -- we’ll use the -- we’ll use the portable mic for you.

MS. GAYLORD: Could we move the chair closer for him?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I feel like I should help him.

MR. KLINE: Good morning, Your Honors. Thanks for the opportunity again to come and try to wrap this up. We have one short presentation today. And that is a response to the consultant’s report that was given on February 14 here. And to do that Rick Gonzalez, who is our principal transmission reliability engineer, would like to comment on the alternatives to our original proposal and what the technical performance would be of those and the deficiencies that they would not solve.

So I’m going to turn it over to Rick. He’s going to give a short presentation. And then we can move from there.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. That’s right. Commonwealth did recommend, I think --there’s about three different alternatives. And as -- is that your intention, Mr. Kline, to respond to those alternatives?

MR. KLINE: Yes. And then we can go into the rest of the agenda. And then if we have any comments after the Power Line Task Force presentation, we’ll make them. They should be brief. And then open to questions from the steering committee.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, procedure will then follow allowing you to respond to the different options that have been proposed. And then I think we’ll get to the consultant that was brought in by Commonwealth in regards to the human affects of the magnetic field. And then I think after that we’ll permit the Task Force to give us their response or the information they want to present to us. Why don’t we just follow that procedure? Okay.

With that you may call your representatives.

MR. GONZALEZ: Good morning.

MR. KLINE: Just excuse me, Rick. We do have a handout of Rick -- of what Rick will present here. They were sent to the steering committee. They are available for the public here if they’d like a copy. We’ll do that as he begins.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: We appreciate your position in this. Let me just state that Xcel has taken the open-book stance. You’ve provided and made all the information available to us that we’ve requested and been cooperative. So we certainly appreciate that contract.

MR. KLINE: Thank you.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. ‘With that you may proceed.

MR. GONZALEZ: Is it okay if I do this from here? This side table.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Yes. But I think you will have to use the hand-held mic because this is being taped for later cable transmission.

MR. GONZALEZ: Okay.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: And the sound system is tied with the video.

MR. GONZALEZ: Okay. Is it working? I can’t tell. Is this microphone working here? Okay. Good.

My name is Rick Gonzalez. I’m a planning engineering in the transmission planning area at Xcel Energy. And the purpose of my presentation this morning is to give some comments on our review of the Commonwealth Associates transmission study report and to provide some background information on how we do transmission planning, what our methods and goals are here and then to summarize the performance of the alternatives Commonwealth developed.

As a transmission planner this is pretty much my goal in life. We tried to ensure the transition system is adequate to deliver electricity reliably to all the retail customers in our territory despite failure of any one piece of equipment and in the metro area -- inner metro area. We actually plan for failure of any two pieces of equipment, whether it’s a transmission line, a generator, transformer or any combination of those. And success is measured by being able to stand those contingencies; we call them, without causing overloading -- excessive overloading of other pieces of equipment or low voltage conditions. So that’s the ten-second description of what my job is.

In doing the transmission planning we develop computer models of the power system and then evaluate the power system’s performance under different conditions. These power system models have information on the generating units that exist throughout the system, the electrical characteristics of the transmission lines and the substation equipment that connect the units all together. And forecasts have to be embodied in that of the local consumer electrical demand, how much electrical demand is anticipated at each of the individual neighborhood substations for the year that we’re trying to model here.

Once we develop the power system model, we then go and simulate failure of the equipment. We take each element, each line, transformer, generator out of service one at a time. And you determine whether there are any excessive overloads or low -- or low voltage conditions that result.

So it’s simulate the system, determine what the deficiencies are and then -- this is the interesting part of the job, I feel. You come up with ideas for addressing those problems. Usually there are several alternatives available, several options you can come up with. Then you -- you evaluate how well those options work. And this is, again, going back and adding those new facilities to the model, evaluating their performance, relative —-contingencies that are relevant. You then can compare how effective the different options are. And then you can evaluate the options against each other with respect to their cost, effectiveness, environmental and routing considerations, factors of that sort. And then the ultimate goal is to identify recommended plan for system improvement.

Our overall comments on Commonwealth Associates’ effort here is that they applied their experience and judgment to evaluating the system deficiencies that are coining up and developing alternatives for addressing those deficiencies. The alternatives were of two types; there were system alternatives and route alternatives presented.

The route alternatives were known as Options A and B. And they essentially establish something electrically equivalent to Xcel’s proposal to establish a new circuit between Red Rock substation and the Rogers Lake substation. They just do it by taking a different route, different path between those points.

The system alternatives were described as Option C, D and E. And those try to address the system needs by building something totally 2 different. Instead of a line coming in from the east, from Red Rock, they are alternatives that develop circuits from the south or improve power supply from the west or north -- I believe were the options.

So we think they’ve done a good job at developing conceptual alternatives to the proposed development. Overall we think they’ve come up with alternatives that represent pretty much the spectrum of possible options.

The report they produced, because of the many contingencies they had to evaluate to evaluate performance, has lots of tables and numbers, facts and figures. I have made an effort here to summarize the performance of the proposed plan and the options they developed on this table.

There are two rows shown on this slide. The first shows performance during the peak load condition. And the second row is an off-peak condition. There were models developed for those two load levels.

The first column shows that the existing power system, if no improvements were made to it, would have 20 overload conditions present in the summer of 2,004. And during the off-peak load condition there could be 83 different overload conditions possible. So that’s the existing system, do nothing option. So that establishes the need for addressing upcoming system deficiencies.

The next column shows the performance of Xcel’s proposed Red Rock to Wilson 115 kV upgrade, where there is -- the number of deficiencies on the peak load condition is reduced from 20 to one, and off-peak from 83 down to five.

The next three columns show the performance of the system alternatives, the ones that develop a different electrical configuration. And I’ll get into this a little more in the following slides. But what we see here is that the system alternatives developed address many of the deficiencies, but don’t really quite do the job. They don’t do the job as well as the proposed development.

Now, this is the previous slide with a few footnotes added to it. One question that should come up from the previous slide, as well. The proposed system doesn’t quite eliminate system deficiencies. Why aren’t there zeros there, instead of one and five? And the answer is that the proposed development, the Red Rock to Wilson upgrade, isn’t going to solve all the deficiencies in the Twin Cities area. It addresses the ones that are most germane to this subregion. And there still are a few conditions that aren’t fully covered by a new facility.

However, the on-peak single deficiency remaining is a contingency that’s very improbable to occur based on our experience with equipment failure rates. It involves the failure of both the step-down transformers at the Red Rock 345 and 115 kV substations. And we have technical history and background on that indicating that that contingency is so improbable it’s really not worth doing anything to try to address that. Might take care of it in passing through other projects, but it’s very low on the list of the things to take care of.

On the off-peak condition there are five contingencies shown on the listing. One of the five is that same double transformer failure contingency. The other four contingencies, as described in footnote, are all double contingencies, one part of which is failure of a circuit in St. Paul known as the Terminal to Western 115 kV line. And the answer there or the -- the strategy there is that we do intend to do something about that contingency. The most likely option is going to be rebuilding that circuit as a double circuit or establishing a new Terminal Western circuit through some other route. So if that Terminal Western outage gets addressed, that takes care of the four remaining deficiencies of that five.

We have not taken that project to the point of being able to propose a specific fix for it. Part of it is because this project has taken us so long we haven’t gotten to addressing some other metro projects lately.

It might be a good point to stop if there are questions about that table, the summary data there.

MR. TIFFANY: I have one question for clarification, I think, to back up a little bit here. The whole thrust, I believe, of the CA report was planning for double contingencies, outages where more than one segment of the system was down at any one time. And we were informed in previous meetings of the steering committee that the reason for that is that the system is large and complex as the grid system in the metro area. It’s almost routine to have a simple contingency outage at any one time, that a transmission line might be out of service, a transformer being replaced, a power plant down for service.

Can you quantitate that and tell us to what extent or how -- what percentage of the time a simple contingency situation exists before we talk seriously about evaluating the double contingency scenario.

MR. GONZALEZ: Yes. That’s a good point. There are several reasons we have double contingency planning criteria for the inner part of the Twin Cities. One is because of the number of circuits and transformers here it is nearly always the case that at least one element is out of service either for maintenance, upgrade, repair or replacement.

MR. TIFFANY: Can you quantitate that?

MR. GONZALEZ: Any given day there are usually several chunks of transmission line out for some sort of road move or upgrade, that sort of work. And generating plants -- usually once a year they are out for about a month or so for major overhaul. So we are never operating in a system intact condition. We can try to schedule some of this work for the very low load periods, but even during the summer we have equipment out, either planned or unplanned, due to failure.

Another aspect is that whenever we want to go and upgrade facilities, such as our proposed upgrade of the Red Rock to Wilson circuit, if you don’t plan for double contingency operation, you can never take things out of service to rebuild them because you are -- when you take the facility -- the old facility out of service, you’re creating the first outage, the first contingency. And if anything else should fail during the several months it takes to rebuild the facilities, you don’t have adequate coverage of that condition.

Now, I’d -- to address this question a little more I did put together a -- another version of this table. These are the same numbers here. But of those 20 and 83 outage conditions, I broke it out as to how many of those overloads are caused by single versus double contingencies. This, again, is from the tabulations in the in CAI’s report. I just —aggregated it here.

So the 20 on peak overload conditions –

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Did you say in the manual how the –

MR. GONZALEZ: This is a supplemental handout which will be handed out at this point. The heading has Number 5 on the title.

Of the 20 overload conditions noted for the peak load condition, three of them can be caused just by a single contingency. The other 17 are caused by double contingencies.

Similarly on until the off-peak condition of the 83, it turns out that 33 of those overload conditions represent a single contingency condition.

To summarize, CAI did the analysis looking at double contingencies and single contingencies, also, which there are in their tabulations. And the reason for the double contingency planning is primarily because of the number of facilities involved, the likelihood of something being out of service either due to upgrade, replacement, maintenance or failure. This represents the likelihood of having something out of service at any given time. We consider those -- we call them prior outage conditions. You already have something out. You don’t want the next failure to already get you in trouble.

Were there any other questions at this point?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Did that answer your question? Did he answer it?

MR. TIFFANY: What?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Did he answer it?

MR. TIFFANY: I think so, yeah.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay.

MR. GONZALEZ: I can summarize at this point or can offer some conclusions. And three main items here. One is that we believe the analysis by Commonwealth Associates was appropriate and thorough in evaluating deficiencies, developing options to address them and evaluating their performance both for system and all the alternatives. The alternatives Commonwealth developed are not fully capable of addressing all the system needs identified and, in comparison to the Xcel proposal, fall short. They would need additional projects, additional facilities added to get the performance up to that level to address fully all of the deficiencies. So that would be additional facilities, additional impacts somewhere in the system and additional costs involved.

So overall our conclusion is that the Xcel proposal for the Red Rock to Wilson 115 kV upgrade is the superior option that addresses the system needs in order to be able to serve our customers reliably at reasonable costs and using existing rights of way.

MR. TIFFANY: Perhaps you could help us with clarification of terms. One of the terms that’s been used in previous meetings is that incapacity to the system, which I take it to mean, perhaps incorrectly, providing more electric power to the end users. An alternative scenario has been the use of the term redundancy, in which the delivery system is okay, but backup is needed in case of single or double outages. Can you help to clarify, for our purposes, what are your goals to clarify those terms?

MR. GONZALEZ: The goal in our planning of the transmission system is to be —able to deliver the electric power from the various generating resources throughout the region to the local distribution substations that the customers are supplied from in such a way that failure of facilities on a transmission system is not seen by the customer. Our job is done if no one realizes something failed. And we implement that by planning the system to be capable of surviving single and double contingency conditions, failure of any one or two pieces of equipment on the bolt power supply system, whether they are generators, transmission lines, transformers or other related substation equipment.

MR. TIFFANY: So in your long-range planning is it possible to make a distinction between the potential need for additional electric service in, let’s say, the Bloomington, Eagan area versus the need for redundancy providing additional routes in the present system? Are they both part of the same package or can you make that distinction?

MR. GONZALEZ: I’ll try to address that. The challenge is in the prediction of the future electrical demands, where they will be located and how much demands are of the various locations. And I think you got into the network design. We have to look at failure of the facilities and the ability to upgrade them in a timely manner to address those future load demands before they show up.

MR. TIFFANY: Okay. Thank you.

MR. GONZALEZ: That -- that concludes my presentation here, if there are no further questions.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Mr. Kline, do you have anything further?

MR. KLINE: No.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Not at this point? All right. Then -- you got a comment at this point, Mr. Conant?

DR. CONANT: Is this the opportunity where we make our presentations?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, I thought what we’d do is listen to the experts, the epidemiologists -- that’s going to be addressing us this morning. And then probably you could --because we’re talking about the needs assessment here.

DR. CONANT: Sure.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Whether or not NSP is invading, you might say, our area over here to double up their circuitry and putting lines up much higher for the basis of providing -- or supplying additional power at another source, okay, which could probably be furnished or brought in from another area.

DR. CONANT: We have expert testimony to present on the subject, but we’re perfectly willing to wait.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. But we’re also -- one the big factors here, probably one of the foremost things that has really precipitated all of the interest in this tine, is the health affects. Okay.

DR. CONANT: Sure.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: And that I think to that, if I pronounce this gentleman’s name right -- Doctor Valberg.

DR. VALBERG: Yes.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. You would like to take the stand at this time, please.

DR. VALBERG: Yes. Thank you.

My name is Doctor Peter Valberg. I’m an environmental health consultant at Gradient Corporation.

Let me just tell you a little bit about my background. My original Ph.D. is in physics from Harvard University. However, shortly after that I got an additional degree in environmental health.

And I spent the majority of my professional career at the Harvard School of Public Health, studying and lecturing and researching environmental health issues. My work there was supported by National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Cancer Institute. And one aspect of my research program was magnetic field affects on tissues. I’ve also followed this field for 10 or 12 years now in terms of the developments that have come out, the research work, the epidemiology studies and so forth.

I’ve been a consultant to the -- the National Institutes of Health in terms of evaluating grant proposals and providing expertise on what type of research needs to be done.

I -- I really won’t make a formal presentation because the steering committee didn’t ask me to make a formal presentation. However, I would like to point out that in the context of a project like this, which occurs all over the United States all the time, the important thing is to look at the conclusions of scientific consensus groups. Over the years there have been a large number of blue ribbon panels that have looked at the issue of what, if any, levels of electrical magnetic fields cause health affects. And there has been a lot of research.

There was a whole program called the RAPID program that the United States Congress funded to try to find out what would be an appropriate regulatory level. And in -- in spite of the review by the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Counsel for Radiation Protection, the World Health Organization, the International Radiation Protection Association, as we stand here today there are no regulatory limits on these kinds of fields, partly because there have been no established health affects on which you could hang your hat in that regard.

So if you look, for example, at the levels proposed by the International Radiation Protection Association, a project such as this is well within the guidelines that have been proposed there. Around the United States various state organizations have also proposed guidelines that power companies need to fall within. And this project is -- is well within those guidelines, as well.

So there continues to be controversy because whenever you are looking at research --it’s very close to the noise level. There --there may be affect or there may not be an affect. It’s very difficult, if not impossible to prove that there is an absence of affects. But I think what the steering committee probably should look at are those consensus reviews and the World Health the Organization documents. And, in fact, in the United States the American Conference of Governmental and Industrial Hygienists also look at these issues. All of these groups have proposed some guidelines. And in terms of the field levels that are encountered in this project, those guidelines are —- are far above them.

And so I think that I -- I understood my role here -to be -- is to listen to the presentation that we’re going to hear and then I am prepared to provide answers to the steering

committee, should they have questions on particular aspects.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Before we do that let me just focus in more on your background. Your background is not from the medical standpoint as much as it is from the laboratory; is that correct.

DR. VALBERG: Yes. It’s laboratory and public health. I mean I’ve spent a majority of my career in public health. And the -- the work that I did that was funded by the NIH was laboratory work, yes.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. And the studies that you’re referring to -- you’ve been following are the ones that -- various different medical committees or committees of experts like in your field, epidemiology, have been studying the magnetic affect of these transmission lines over the period of time. And -- and I guess there would -- more recently here there was supposed to be an overall compilation or study, a report coming out. Can you fill us in on --more on that information?

DR. VALBERG: Well, such reports come out quite regularly. Perhaps the most recent one has been put out by the National Radiation Protection Board in Great Britain. I mean, they are the ones that looked at the --that summarized the in for -- information most recently. And, again, like all good scientific boards, they said more research was needed. But the bottom line statement said that as we stand at this time we have no reason to expect that the -- the electric field levels -- electric and magnetic field levels cause diseases such as cancer. That’s not to say that there isn’t controversy in that area and that we should keep an eye on it. However, controversy and science is a very normal modus operandi. I mean, that’s what happens in all areas, whether we’re talking about air quality standards, you know, water quality standards, food quality standards and so on.

So I think this issue is being looked at. The -- the -- probably the latest United States review was the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which took the results of the RAPID program and tried to synthesize what they felt about it. And, you know, they said basically the same thing that I’m saying here, is that no particular exposure can ever be judged to be absolutely safe.

However, if you look at the laboratory evidence, if you look at the biophysical evidence, if you look at the cellular evidence, it doesn’t come back to support associations that have been seen in the epidemiology. Those -- those are the statistical associations that essentially started this field off back in 1979.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. With that, unless there’s some questions from the --

MR. TIFFANY: Just that I -- I’m sure you appreciate the fact that the -- the end product of this entire information-gathering excise is to prepare the three cities to process a request for the conditional use permit. That’s the very narrow focus. There are many larger issues surrounding this whole topic, obviously. But the task before the city council will be to process and vote upon a --conditional use permits.

Having said that, as I recall, the conclusions of the NIA study was that they did not feel the evidence warranted aggressive regulatory action -- I think is the term they used. Do you still support that conclusion as —far as the lack of evidence to require aggressive regulatory action?

DR. VALBERG: Yes, I certainly personally support that conclusion. That -- the science is not really adequate, first of all, to determine that there’s a level that’s unsafe. And, secondly, the science at this point is even sufficiently confused to say what particular aspect of electrical magnetic fields, whether it’s electric, whether it’s frequency, whether it’s magnetic, whether it’s intermittency, whether it’s a polarization, whether it’s angle with the earth’s magnetic field. All of these have been proposed as possible areas of concern. At the present time none of them has really panned out. So if, in fact, we wanted to regulate, we wouldn’t even know exactly what it is that we should regulate.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. With that, I think because we do have a written document -- written documents from Commonwealth -—in regards to the information that we had requested that they review for us, that is printed material that’s available, we’ll probably at this point in time listen to the Task Force comments.

Mr. Conant.

DR. CONANT: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We wish to address the topics --essentially three topics that have been raised by use of expert information. The -- I think we’ll do this in the order of EMF. And then the second topic would be the -- the topic of the engineering of this particular project. And then the third topic is one which we’ve not talked about explicitly here, but which was brought up in the CAI report, and that is property values.

And, to begin, we would like to present some testimony regarding EMF and the dangers of EMF. And we have two experts here today that are here both to present testimony and are available to answer questions. And I’d like to introduce the first of them.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Please do.

DR. CONANT: Doctor Magda Havas, from Trent University, in Canada. She will tell you she came to our country because she’s done a good deal of work for Canada’s National Research

Council.

DR. HAVAS: Good morning.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Good morning.

DR. HAVAS: Thank you very much for having me here.

I wasn’t told what the process would be, so I actually didn’t prepare --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: We’re rather informal, ma’am. We’re flexible so that we can adjust to the needs of the information that we’re looking for. So, in that vein, proceed.

DR. HAVAS: Okay. I do have written testimony that I understand that everyone has received, so that you had a chance to look at this.

Let me introduce myself in addition to some of the written testimony written testimony that I have here. I’m a professor in environmental resource studies at Trent University. And my area of expertise is in environmental toxicants, primarily chemical toxicants, and much more recently electrical magnetic fields. So I’m interested in a much broader sense of what the environmental contaminants are, rather than just electromagnetic fields.

My original research was in medical pollution. And I was interested in both environmental affects of this, as well as some of the health affects with respect to injection and things of that nature for medical.

I became interested in the electromagnetic fields about eight years ago. And it came quite by accident. I was aware of the controversy in this field. And I was actually hoping that someone would resolve the controversy and come up with a brilliant analysis of what was going on. And the more I read, I think the more confused I became. And it wasn’t being that I was particularly interested in getting into it in any substantive way.

And then something rather interesting happened. My husband visited his brother in Whales, who is an engineer. And he lives near a nuclear power plant. And one evening they were out walking the dog. And my brother-in-law pulled out a florescent tube from under his jacket and held it up under the power line. And the tube lit up. So you could actually get light from this fluorescent tube. And my husband came back and told me this. And I was intrigued.

We happened to live on farm in the country. We have a high-voltage transmission line one kilometer -- one mile away from where we live. It’s higher voltage than the lines we’re talking about here today. It’s 565 kilovolts. And, again, I was just wondering if the same thing would happen. I -- I was quite intrigued by this. So I unscrewed a florescent light from our kitchen and wandered down to the power line, held it up. And I was amazed that the light came on. And the light came on -- to the point of -- to the point of where I held the tube. So if I held the tube in the middle, you know, there was light at the top of it and then it passed -- the electricity passed through my body and the bottom part of the --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: What was the distance between you and the bottom of the power line?

DR. HAVAS: What was the distance? It was about -- I’m really bad at distances.’ It was about 30 feet, 35 feet.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay.

DR. HAVAS: So it was quite low.

It was a high-voltage power line so --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: You don’t know the voltage of the line, do you?

DR. HAVAS: 565.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Sorry about that.

DR. HAVAS: So I decided to look into this a little bit more carefully. And I talked to colleagues at the University. And I asked them in physics, you know, this is what happened. And do you know of any health affects associated with power lines exposure.

And the reaction I got was twofold. One is yes, this is quite common. It’s not restricted to power lines. If you open the hood of your car, you can get the alternator to do the same thing. And basically this happens when you have high electric field.

When I asked about the health affect I think the response I got was oh, there’s definitely no health affects. And when I asked the rationale for it -- because scientists very seldom just accept a statement. They want to know what the reasoning is. He said we don’t have any theoretical basis for having an affect at 60 -- the 60 -- cycles per second. And while I understand the relationship between the two, not having the evidence doesn’t necessarily mean -- not having a theoretical basis doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a connection, especially if you’re in the -- in the frame of mind not thinking there’s a problem and you’re simply not going to go looking for a potential reason. And I think this is the attitude that most physicists have. I think it’s generally healthy. I think they really believe that there are no harmful effects of electromagnetic fields.

At this stage I began to review the literature. And I began to review it in earnest. Up to that point I had read reviews and summary statements, just as a Doctor Valberg mentioned today.

And now I began to go a little bit more deeply. I really wanted to find out for myself, not based on any expert opinion, but my mine, whether or not there were health affects associated with electromagnetic fields. And I tried to read as broadly as I possibly could because the answer never comes from just one sector of science.

And so I started with the childhood epidemiological studies, the one that’s by Wertheimer that has been the -- the sort of spark, if you don’t mind, the kind of spark for this entire field. I read that very carefully. And I thought it was convincing. But one study alone is not enough. And when I became interested in -- in this it was in the early l990s. So since then we have actually accumulated many more studies.

And when I read the childhood epidemiological literature, I didn’t come up with a -- a -- didn’t come up with the conclusion that yes, electromagnetic fields are harmful. I actually was very confused at this particular stage. There were some studies that were showing a harmful affect, harmful association. And there were others that weren’t.

So I realized I would have to go to other literature, as well. So then I went to the occupational literature to find out, okay, if adults are exposed to high electromagnetic fields, are there any associations with their exposure and various health affects. And here, once again, there is some controversy. But the evidence is very, very power if you -- the same types of cancers that were documented in the original Wertheimer study, namely childhood leukemia, childhood lymphomas, nervous system --were the same ones -- in the studies.

So now you have a very different population, a very different exposure regime, yet the same cancers are showing up. And in addition to those three, breast cancer was another cancer that was found to have association with exposure in both men and women. And very often we think of breast cancer as being a female disease. But there is an increasing number of men now who are beginning to show the signs and having breast cancer, as well. And a number of them are --

Now, these two bits of evidence --epidemiological evidence are very powerful. And then I then began to look at some of the laboratory studies. And Professor Martin Blank will discuss those in detail, but my reading of them is that a number of them were actually beginning to show signs of what the mechanisms were that were involved.

I might add I also went to the Russian and Polish studies on electromagnetic fields. They have done a huge amount research in this area. And only a small fraction of their literature is translated in English. But they are documenting some of the -- they have documented some of the things that we’re just beginning to find. So they are a good 10 to 15 years ahead of the research here, which is really rather unpleasant for me to admit because we tend to think that we’re in —- in North America we’re actually way ahead. But I think in this particular field they’re way ahead of what we are actually doing.

There’s a number of mechanisms that have been implicated. And I think the evidence is very powerful. One of the mechanisms is that if you expose cells to electromagnetic fields they will reproduce much more rapidly. This is true for cancer cells. It’s also true for some forms of noncancerous bodies.

And let me just give you one example. We’ve used electromagnetic fields for several decades now to heal bone fractures. And this was very controversial at the time, but the evidence is overwhelming under certain situations of nonunion where it’s very difficult for a break in a bone -- at the ankle, for example, to heal properly, by exposing this particular area to electromagnetic field you can actually stimulate the rate at which those bone cancer cells will divide to have union.

When I was reading the literature on bone cancer union -- and this seems like it’s totally out of -- of line of what we’re actually looking at, the harmful affects, as opposed to beneficial affects. And I think what you have to look at is what is the underlying mechanism for both of these. And it’s -- the underlying mechanism for both of these is the stimuli that cells will reproduce more quickly. It doesn’t really matter if these are cancerous cells or noncancerous cells that we are looking at.

Also, when I was reading this literature I came across an article that said if your patient has cancer, do not use this technique on them because what it will do is it will make the cancer more aggressive. And I think that kind of evidence coming from a totally different field where they weren’t interested in the harmful affects of electromagnetic fields, to recognize there’s a link between exposure and cancer, I think, is very powerful.

So all of the evidence that was coming in that I was reading was basically showing there’s an affect, an -- an association with children. There’s association with occupational exposure. And now we’re going to find that we -- we are beginning to understand some of the mechanism involved. And under certain therapeutic conditions you should not expose patients to high electromagnetic fields.

All of this evidence, I think, is incredibly powerful. When it comes to the guidelines as to what -- what kind of levels are -- are potentially harmful, I think the evidence comes primarily from the epidemiological studies where the range of potentially harmful associations is between two and four milligauss. Now, this is a very low limit for electromagnetic field exposure. But in almost all of those studies the value is above two or in some cases three and in some cases four --you have an increased incidence of childhood leukemia.

Now, this is referred to as weak association. And weak doesn’t mean that the study wasn’t properly conducted. It simply means there was a very small increase in the probability or the risk associated with this. And the risk is in the order of two to four, as well. So children who are exposed to electromagnetic fields who have cancer already in their body -- the good news about electromagnetic fields at this frequency is that there’s no evidence that they initiate cancers in children who are healthy, who don’t have any cancerous cells in their body. If they are exposed to these fields, it shouldn’t initiate the cancers. So they shouldn’t get leukemia or brain tumors or any of these other things from electromagnetic fields.

However, the laboratory studies show that this promotes cancers. So many of the studies that have been done with mice and other lab organisms -- the way they conduct the studies is that they expose these animals to a chemical carcinogen so they induce the cancer. They then exposed one group of these -- these animals to electromagnetic fields. Another group isn’t exposed. So it’s sham exposed; it becomes a control. Then they look at the development of cancer. There’s cancer in both because they used cancer-causing chemical. But the rate at which these cancers, these tumors begin to divide is increased when you expose them to electromagnetic fields. So the evidence that there’s an increased rate of growth is very, very powerful.

For -- regarding safe levels, for adults, it seems that the level is probably higher than two. That it’s probably somewhere between two and 12 milligauss. And that’s based on breast cancer research where they took human breast cancer cells and exposed them to magnetic fields at 60 hertz to a different -- different intensities of the field. And they found that when it was a 12 or higher, that the rate of breast cancer cell -- the rate of division was much higher. They also found that the drug Tamoxifen, which is used to control breast cancers, actually was inhibiting the -- actually inhibiting. And if you begin to translate this into what this does mean for the woman or the man who has breast cancer, who is exposed to electromagnetic fields, I think one interpretation could very well be that if they are on the drug Tamoxifen it’s not going to be nearly as effective as if they weren’t exposed to electromagnetic fields.

So there’s a lot of evidence that’s coming in. That doesn’t mean that all studies have shown relationship. There’s enough that haven’t.

The guidelines that are used in Sweden are three milligauss for children. They were that children should not play -- playgrounds --schools should not have levels beyond three. So these are guidelines that are not enforceable. They are based on voluntary compliance. And I think that if we had to do something, if you come up with a recommendation as to what was safe or if you had to make decisions on what was safe, it would certainly not be in the hundreds of milligauss. It would be somewhere between two and 12 milligauss.

Now, I mentioned that I did work other than electromagnetic fields. And I’ve done work on drinking water quality. When it comes to drinking water quality, there are national standards that have been set. And they are based on protecting the most sensitive individual within a population. So when you have your water tested or municipalities have their water tested, there are certain limits for sodium, for chlorine, for calcium -- all sorts of different elements that are in there. And I’d just like to mention two of the elements that we have standards for and how the standards were set.

For sodium the drinking water standard in Canada -- and I assume it’s the same here -- is 20 milligrams per liter. And this is in order to protect people had who have heart disease, who are on sodium-restricted diets. They are very low levels. Most of us eat considerably higher amounts of calcium in the normal food we consume. But they are intended to protect a subsection -- a sensitive subsection of our population.

When it comes to nitrate, they are set in order to protect infants that are six months old. So if you have a level of nitrate that exceeds 10 milligrams per year, then children whose formula is made from this particular type of water can die of blue baby death because the nitrate that’s converted then combines with the hemoglobin so they are unable to consume oxygen.

So we do have the precedent setting of standards that are very much to protect the sensitive individuals in our population.

The last point I’d like to make is that I don’t think it’s only children who are sensitive. There was a study done in the early 1990s by a professor in Texas on electromagnetically sensitive individuals. And what he did is he exposed a hundred individuals who -- who thought they were electromagnetically sensitive. So this was not a natural, normal population. And he exposed them to electromagnetic fields at different frequencies.

And the study was done as a double blind, which means that the person who was sitting there ex -- being exposed didn’t know if the --you know, the switch was flicked or not. And the person’ who was documenting their response also didn’t know. So that there was no -- no way that they could introduce bias into the results.

And based on that study they found that there were a whole series of reactions. Of the hundred people only 16 turned out to be electromagnetically sensitive. But whenever they -- they were exposed to magnetic fields ranging from less than 60 hertz, all the way up to several thousand hertz they would react in a number of different ways. And this is all very well documented.

So I think there’s a subsection within our population of people who are extremely sensitive. And when they complain that they are feeling ill, if they are depressed, if they have headaches, although not all of these -- I’m not even trying to suggest that all of these are linked to electromagnetic fields. But people who go to work and find that they are ill by the time they get home and they feel better at home, and this repeats -- and I think something in that work environment has to be looked at. In some cases it could very well be the electromagnetic fields to which they can be exposed.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: In your research study -- what I’m trying to determine from you is you went through the childhood cancers to identify along with the -- those that might be associated with exposure to magnetic fields and then also occupational. So, in scanning the literature, what potential did you find -- I mean, what do children normally become -- I would say that you mentioned schools. Keep it away from schools. Okay. What -- but somewhere along the line -- I’m not saying that everybody is exposed to sufficient voltage enough so they can hold that florescent tube out here and it lights up when you get close enough to the light. But there’s -- what’s the normal that we see day to day or the literature showed that children would come in contact with? I would have to believe it would have to be electric transmission back lines close to homes. And the only reason for that is so that children --because they sleep there, they have a longer exposure than you and I would if we’re just driving past them or walking underneath them or something ‘like that.

Now, but -- but that’s one thing, the exposure. But, then again, what’s the intensity? It’s like what’s the degree of the pitch of the noise? Noise is a favorable. It might be pleasant. It might be harmful. Okay. So again we got to determine -- there has to be something. What -- what did you find? What did the literature show -- or didn’t it?

DR. HAVAS: Well, I think the literature is very fairly clear on this. It’s between two and four milligauss.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, the milligauss exposed means -- that’s laboratory talk. I mean --

DR. HAVAS: Oh, no, no.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: The doctor that does the work over in the laboratory with animals and —-

DR. HAVAS: No, this isn’t based on laboratory. This is based on epidemiological studies. It’s based on average fields.

Let me just give you a sense of how some of these readings are done. And this is where some of the problems arise.

I think Doctor Valberg mentioned that we don’t know all of the elements of exposure that are critical. And I agree with him entirely. We don’t know all of the levels of exposure that y are critical. We don’t know if transient spikes that come up every once in a while -- whether they are implicated in some way.

The epidemiological studies -- when they look for a difference, they have to pick some sort of endpoint, you know. They have -- they have all the exposure information that they might have collected. They have the results. And they have to say, okay, are we going to compare those that are above three whatever the units are or below, you know, or above five or above ten. And where you set this limit is --is very important based on the statistical results that you end up getting.

For the studies the -- this limit varies from about 1.5 up to about 4. Okay. There are very few studies that show that, if the magnetic field that is being measured is less than 1.5, that they are going to come up with an association. So there’s some magic -- there’s some magic level that’s between 2 and 4.

Now_,some of the studies that have been done have used spot measurements. This means that you take your meter, you go into a house and you -- you measure it in some room. Now, if the measurement is done at the front door, which is what some of the spot measurements did, that’s pretty irrelevant. It’s not -- you are not going to spend a heck of a lot of time at the -- the front door.

Studies that looked at different rooms in the house found that the bedroom is the most important environment, as you mentioned. And this is where children spend a large part of their time. So it’s the environment for which we have some of the best data for exposure.

When a child wakes up in the morning they’ve been exposed to eight or more hours of this particular environment. They then, you know, go to school. They have exposures at school that might vary depending on whether they are using computers. So their daily exposures can be incredibly complex.

In fact, these studies have actually found an association with just one-third of your exposure for the day -- I think is amazingly powerful evidence. I wouldn’t have expected that. I would have expected that the noise was so great that I wouldn’t be able to find this.

And so when you look at studies based on bedroom readings versus full house readings, it’s the bedroom reading that becomes critical.

These spot measures -- if we measure the magnetic fields coming from power lines or from any kind of -- of line, we find that they are not steady. They are not always the same. They vary. They vary on amounts of current being --being used. And so we end up in North America having two peaks; one in the morning, when everyone is getting up and turning on stoves and other various other things, and one in the evening, one from 6:00 to 9:00. Those are the peak levels. When a lot of these studies are done they don’t come in these peak levels. They come during the day, you know, that they have been hired to do the research. So they come and they arrive at 3:00 in the afternoon to measure the home. They measure it one time only. So there’s real problems with just doing a spot measurement for something that is constantly varying and that differs from location to location.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Are you then telling us it doesn’t make much difference when it’s, say, a 115 kV line or 230 or 345 or 560? It depends on the usage of the line then? In other words, I guess what has been referred by our experts as the megawatts of power that’s being carried on the line.

DR. HAVAS: That voltage will tell you what the electric field is. It won’t necessarily tell you what the magnetic field is. Yes. And if you go to lower voltages you sometimes have higher magnetic fields at the same amount of -- the current is going through. So there’s two components to the -- the --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Appreciate -- appreciate the presentation.

DR. HAVAS: Pardon?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: I appreciate your presentation.

DR. HAVAS: So there’s two things that are critical. One is the electric field and one is the magnetic field. We’ve been talking about electromagnetic fields as though it’s one thing. There isn’t -- it’s two very different fields involved.

The epidemiological studies with children are suggesting that it’s the magnetic field that’s important. And the reason for this is that the electric field does not penetrate into a home. So you might have a very high electric field outside that would light up your florescent tube, but the minute you walk into your home that -- that is actually being neutralized by the walls. Magnetic fields pass through buildings. If you have a computer on the other side of that particular wall, when it’s being used you’re going to be exposed to the magnetic field that it’s generating. You’re not going to be exposed to the electric field.

MR. TIFFANY: Is -- is it fair to say that electromagnetic fields are a function of the current and amperage and the electric fields are a function of the voltage?

DR. HAVAS: The electric field is a function of the voltage and the magnetic field —is a function of the current.

MR. TIFFANY: Of the current --

DR. HAVAS: Yeah.

MR. TIFFANY: -- running through the line.

DR. HAVAS: Yes.

MR. TIFFANY: So the lower voltage line might actually have a higher current.

DR. HAVAS: Right.

MS. GAYLORD: You’re also saying this isn’t just power line issues. This is -- you mentioned computers. Other electrical appliances in the home, perhaps. And other things that could be contributed to -- to these levels

DR. HAVAS: That’s right, that’s right. There are three primary sources in the home. One is the outdoor wiring that we’re talking about today. The other is the indoor wiring. And this can become very -- very significant source depending on the circumstances. And the third is how much you use appliances. So there are really three --three issues at stake. With respect to appliances you may have very intense fields. The electric microwave, for example, is the one that comes to mind. Or the blow dryer. These give you very high magnetic fields. The fields, however, are quite small in the sense that by the time you measure down at your feet, you --it’s -- it’s almost back -- it is back to background. So only parts of your body are being exposed. And I’m not suggesting that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But it’s limited exposure. And it’s based on your use. So you have a -- you have control over how much -- how many of these devices you -- you wish to use. And in many cases you can simply move away from them.

So the way to deal with some of the harmful affects is simply to move slightly away from your computer. And with respect to computers as much as six -- six inches will make a difference. 12 inches will make a difference.

When it comes to power lines, that 12 inches makes no difference because the field that’s generated is actually quite -- quite large. You also have no control over it.

When it comes to the source being internal wiring, there are one of two problems here. One is that in some older homes the wiring that was done was called knob and tube wiring. And this was used up to about 1930s, 1940s. And what that meant is that the -- the wires that are running through the house were actually split. So that the distance between them -- between, you know, the wiring carrying the electricity and the wire carrying the current -- it was —-it was pulled apart. It wasn’t very close together, the way it is today. And the further apart you pull these wires, the higher the magnetic field gets because if you get them nice and close they cancel each other out. Similarly, when you look at the lines outside, the farther away those wires are, the higher the magnetic fields generated. So it’s not entirely based only on current. It’s based on the configuration of those lines, how close they are together and the degree to which they are canceling. That’s why I’m going to -- to something like an underground system, where you can actually put the wires very close together. That putting them close together causes the cancellation of the field. And what you have to do in some of these older homes is rewire some of the rooms if you’re concerned about the magnetic fields that are generated.

There’s another way that they regenerate -- can have high fields in the home. And that is if your paneling isn’t properly wired. And I don’t mean according to specifications. This is up to specs. But sometimes your current --return current isn’t canceling the -- the current coming into the house. And so, once again, you don’t have this cancellation. So what could happen is that if you -- you ground things on your -- on your water pipes and you don’t have a properly balanced current, your --your -- your metal pipes in your house are actually going to have a magnetic field associated with them simply because they are --they are part of the wiring system. They become part of the wiring system in your home.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: It might be not be harmful because it’s not carrying the current.

DR. HAVAS: Pardon?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: I say, it might not be harmful because it’s not carrying current.

DR. HAVAS: Except there is a magnetic field associated with it. It is carrying some of the current, but not at a level that you can actually, you know --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Measure.

DR. HAVAS: -- by touching it be affected.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: But this --

DR. HAVAS: But you can -- you can measure the magnetic field that’s associated with -- with the pipes in the -- in your home if it’s improperly grounded. And in a room —- in the middle of a room you can have a magnetic field that’s about 10 milligauss if the wire --if there isn’t a properly balanced return current. So we’re not talking about level of return. We’re actually talking about levels that are higher than the levels that have been associated with childhood cancers.

MR. TIFFANY: The issue at hand here, of course, is the question about the transmission lines. And given, I believe, the physics that radiation falls off with the square of the distance, can you tell us a minimum distance from a power line beyond which you would consider the exposure not to be a problem?

DR. HAVAS: I wish I could. That’s not’ my area of expertise and so I -- I can volunteer some guesses, but --

MR. TIFFANY: But those -- that could be calculated, I believe, or determined from tables of what the EMF levels would be at a given distance from a power line.

I guess the other way to ask the same question is: Is there a level of EMF below which you would not have any concern about human health?

DR. HAVAS: I’d say two milligauss

MR. TIFFANY: Two milligauss.

DR. HAVAS: That’s right, that’s right.

MR. TIFFANY: So if the house is far enough way from the power line that the measure -- is less than two milligauss, you would not consider that a problem.

DR. HAVAS: Correct. Not from that power line.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: To rephrase your $64,000 question, is there a minimum distance that you would consider to be safe?

MR. TIFFANY: She wouldn’t answer that.

DR. HAVAS: Well --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, she may.

DR. HAVAS: Let me -- let me --I’ll go back to the epidemiology literature again. And the distance seems to be 50 meters. So that’s approximately 150 feet. If you’re within 150 feet, the risk of getting cancers increases. But this, I don’t think, is as precise as actually the actual measurements that have been made and -- you know, based on --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: But at the milligauss level, that 150 feet, may be less than what your ambient exposure is daily in the house, right?

DR. HAVAS: Well, correct, correct. So, you know, if you look, the epidemiological studies, when they found an association using distance, it was within a distance of 15 -- 50 meters, 150 feet.

MR. TIFFANY: Just to put this whole thing into context or attempt to do so, I think we all recognize the fact that the research on EMF and health is a moving target and it will never come, to closure. It will never be complete. It will never be possible to say with any degree of certainty that EMF is harmless. There’s always the nagging doubts, the questions, the new studies that come out.

The problem the three cities have, represented by the three of us, is that very soon we’re going to be facing a deadline in terms of time. Is that as soon as the steering committee process is completed, then the permit review process by the individual city councils will take place. And the very narrow focus of those CUP -- conditional use permit proceedings is to -- whether to approve the permit as requested, to approve it with conditions attached, as the name implies, or deny it.

So given that information, the -- the critical question that’s coming before the city council is in consideration of the current scientific knowledge of the affects of electromagnetic fields on human health, do you have an opinion on whether the city councils can develop a compelling case to deny a permit to double circuit the southeast metro line based on that criterion alone.

DR. HAVAS: Based on the health affects?

MR. TIFFANY: Yes.

DR. HAVAS: Most likely.

MR. TIFFANY: What’s that?

DR. HAVAS: Most definitely you can develop a case for that. Not only that. The reason I -- I agreed to come down here was not because I enjoy hearings. I actually don’t like this kind of environment. I don’t really appreciate it, I guess.

The reason I came down here is when Mr. Roger Conant contacted me, he told me what the values are, what the fields were that came from Xcel. And they were so incredibly high, I thought not only should you not go ahead and potentially increase the amount of energy that’s going to be distributed along those lines at some future date, you should actually do something about the lines as they now stand. The -- the levels that people are exposed to is abnormally high. And I would not be at all surprised if -- if you began to look at some of the cancers and other health affects -- and it’s not only cancer, you know. We’re focused on cancers, but it’s much broader than cancers. There’s reproductive problems. There are all sorts of other things. But if you just focus on cancer, I would suspect that you will begin to get cancer clusters with people who are exposed in their homes to fields that Xcel has actually calculated. So I think even the existing line —becomes the real problem.

MR. TIFFANY: Perhaps you could help us out then on that point. That if the request for a permit to double circuit the line is denied and that is upheld by judicial review, if it comes to that, then nothing happens. The double circuiting does not occur. The existing line remains intact. And the EMF radiation remains at -- at the same levels or actually increased levels as the line reaches its capacity. What then? How do we represent our property owners that are concerned about the health affects?

DR. HAVAS: I think you have to start beginning to look at those lines as they currently exist and find out how the fields can be reduced.

MR. TIFFANY: How what?

DR. HAVAS: I think you have to I’ look at the existing line, just what’s there right now, and determine -- you know, getting your electrical -- your engineers to come in to tell you what you can do to actually mitigate those fields, to minimize those fields.

MR. TIFFANY: To mitigate the fields.

DR. HAVAS: To -- to reduce the fields.

MR. TIFFANY: What’s that?

DR. HAVAS: To reduce the fields as they now stand.

MR. TIFFANY: How would they do that?

DR. HAVAS: Once again, I’m outside my area, but I can give you -- to you --sense of some of those things that you can do.

You can bring the wires closer together. This becomes a problem in overhead wires because there is a bit of a dip to them. And you don’t want them ever getting close enough that you could actually get a -- a -- crossover in the charge. But pulling them closer together.

Putting them into what’s called a delta formation, which is sort of a triangular formation,’ allows you minimum distance and allows maximum cancellation.

Changes in the phases of the fields of the -- the current that’s coming down the line. We’re talking about waves that look something like this ideally. And if you have two waves, you know, so there’s one on top of the other, they add up. So you can have peaks and valleys, like this. And by shifting them over slightly you can begin to get a cancellation. You can bury the line, which would eliminate the electric field. And it would significantly reduce the magnetic field closer to the homes. You have high fields immediately above where the underground wires were. I know this is very expensive, but this is another option. Rerouting it further away from families is another option. Some of them are very costly and some of them are less costly. I don’t know what’s involved in changing the phases, but I suspect that’s much less costly than some of the other options of putting it underground.

MR. TIFFANY: So do I understand you correctly then, that your advice to us is to deny the permit of the double circuit, the existing tine, and to explore ways to mitigate the EMF radiation that occurs, leave the existing line intact; is that correct?

DR. HAVAS: I wouldn’t necessarily leave the existing line intact. You’d have to bring in engineers to find out what ways -- what options you have to mitigating those fields and what are the options -- you might not have any options for leaving it intact and reducing the -±fields sufficiently to get them down to a value of under -- under two.

MR. TIFFANY: So if it’s not possible to reduce the EMG fields below the level that you consider safe, then we still have a problem for our property owners. What then?

DR. HAVAS: Well, you might want to move them.

MR. TIFFANY: Might want to what?

DR. HAVAS: Move them away from the homes. Distance makes a big difference. So just moving them away from the homes would help a lot. Rerouting the electricity along other --other grids, if you could do that. I -- I’m outside of my area, so, you know, forgive me.

MR. TIFFANY: I appreciate you’re —not a -- an electrical engineer. Neither am I. But we’re trying to confer all the what-ifs.

DR. HAVAS: Right.

MR. TIFFANY: If you’re given a scenario and say what then, what are the next consequences?

DR. HAVAS: I think you’d have to ask -- ask the -- the distributors what options are available to reduce the magnetic fields, if they -- they generate.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: See, geometric configuration of how you put lines on the poles is fine if the current that’s being carried and each circuit is equivalent, right.

DR. HAVAS: Exactly.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: But then you said it cancels out. But what happens --remember, these are redundant structures as the gentleman that preceded you here at -- before, the floorshow with the slides, you know. We have to have a redundancy because we never know when we’re going to be out on one side or the other. So that when one side is out, the other side may be carrying the full capacity. So then all of sudden where they’ve cancelled, now we’ve got -- this milligauss project jumps out of sight, right?

DR. HAVAS: That could.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Within a certain distance of the line. Okay. So, I mean, there’s so many variables here. And that’s, I —think, what Mayor Tiffany is referring to. What options do the city have -- cities have? Sure, I suppose the best would be to say we don’t want it in our city and take it somewhere else. But that’s just pushing it to your neighbor. And your neighbor is just as sensitive and should have the same concerns that we have. Okay. Because that’s what we’re really doing here, is looking at what’s in the interest of the public. We know that -- probably going to go on a soapbox here now. But we know that electricity is the essential service. We need it in our today’s modern world. We couldn’t live -- it’s almost equivalent to water. Okay.

But we got to do something. Okay. Because we need the system, we need the service. I’ll say not the system. We need the service. Okay. We’ve got to deal with it --with it. And that’s what we’re looking for. So I think tile only thing that you’re really coming -- I’m sort of gleaning from your testimony is saying yes, you have one suggestion. You say move further away. And that would be to expand the easement area. Is that right?

DR. HAVAS: That’s correct.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: In other words, the further you get away from this source, as you said, it’s inversely proportional to the square of the distance. The further you get away, the less the -- the affect. Or at least the -- the harmful affects from that source.

DR. HAVAS: That’s right.

MR. TIFFANY: So are you saying widening the easement -- that would mean removal of some of the homes?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, obviously that’s another problem. I suppose you could make the poles twice as high as they are. Then you get into the aesthetic affect and the diminution of property values, what have you, because the higher up you go, then you got other hazards coming in -- for wildlife, for birds, whatnot, all with the same token. It would be changing the environment, from an aesthetic standpoint, the property value. But I think there must some optimum. Right now I don’t think the State of Minnesota has a standard, just like there’s so many cases -- we don’t have standard, you know, like we do for the amount of sodium or nitrate in the water. We have 25-foot easements, 40-foot easements, 50-foot easements and what have you. What should, in the publics s interest, to be prudent on the safety side because we can’t disprove that it doesn’t cause -- there must be some optimum here that we should at least adhere to, you know.

Right now most of the right-of-way that they have -- and I think Pat -- it’s probably between 50 and 40 feet except for South St. Paul; is that correct?

MR. KLINE: Yes.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. But if they use the centerline -- so now we’re 25 feet away, okay. That means that you could have a house where the platted lot was under the power line. But, you know, assuming even a -- a side yard set back or variance, the house could be pretty much -- might say directly under the power line or pretty close to it. So, yes, there’s a vertical distance, a height distance in there. But again, I understand the greatest milligauss field is right at the center of the line; isn’t that correct.

DR. HAVAS: There’s -- it depends on the line configuration. Sometimes you have a dip. So you have two high fields on either side and then it drops off and then dips in the middle. But it depends on how it’s wired. But, yes, you can say that.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: So I -- I think it gets back to something that can be controlled and would probably be the width of the easement in order to say fine. And that certainly would protect residential homes. I’m not talking about the industrial occupational people.

DR. HAVAS: Right.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: I’m talking about the -- primarily the children who can’t --who can’t help themselves. Okay. And let’s say a family raising young children living close to the power lines being oblivious to the fact that they might be injuring themselves, okay, when they buy this house. This type of thing. That’s why I’m concerned. And that’s why I think we’re looking -- do you have an opinion as to what should this distance be?

DR. HAVAS: 50 meters.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, that’s 150 feet.

DR. HAVAS: I know, I know.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: We’d be taking out a lot of tax space from what -- specially when you’re running a line through a very highly intensified, developed area.

DR. HAVAS: I guess that’s why I wouldn’t base it entirely on distance. I would base it on the magnetic field level, as opposed to distance.

MR. TIFFANY: So the 150 feet --foot figure you come up with is based on the knowledge of what the magnetic fields would be at that distance.

DR. HAVAS: It’s based on -- based on a lot of different type levels of the fields. It -- when these studies are done the question is: Is there an association with distance. And what they found is yes, there is. The closer that you -- you come to these lines, the higher the risk. But the closer you come to tire lines, the higher the magnetic fields. So it’s not just a distance -- distance —thing. We can use distance as a surrogate, again, to say within -- within this level the field should be low. But it depends so much on -- on the voltage, on the current, on the configuration that to base it entirely on —distance, I think, may protect some people, but not others. So I think if you have some sort of combination of distance and magnetic field you could actually get closer than 150 meters, if you combine the two. If you don’t combine the two, then the literature is suggesting it’s 150 meters.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, the other variable -- that would be --

DR. HAVAS: Height.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: -- height of the line, right?

DR. HAVAS: Correct.

MR. TIFFANY: Getting back to the question about the -- what action the city council can take. The data presented to us at previous meetings has been if the present line has double circuited of the phase cancellation on the higher distance, that the EMF levels would fall immediately to half the present —values, over the next X number of years that might approach the present value, but would not exceed them. So if we were to deny the request to double circuit the line, where -- not able to not reduce the EMF levels at least in the short-term -- and I think your response earlier says well, okay. If the present line remains, then you should think about mitigation, different configuration and different ways to handle that.

Also the -- part of what we’re dealing with here is generic. We, as the three cities, can only deal with what’s involved in our cities. But after thinking -- take into consideration the generic aspects of what it would mean to view existing transmission lines as a health hazard in other areas. And data was submitted at the last meeting or the meeting before in which NSP or Xcel Energy identified, I think, close to 70 homes. It involved close to six other transmission lines that were -- many homes were even closer than the homes that are involved in -- in this project. So that if it made logic-al sense, was defensible in a judiciary review, if it came to that, to impose these conditions on the CUP process, then by the same logic would apply to other transmission lines from the metro area, as well. So I think you have to factor that into your helping us on dealing with the what-ifs, what then to represent our property owners.

DR. HAVAS: Right. I guess -- if I have to -- to offer you advice, which I’m somewhat loath to do because I’m a scientist and we’re not very good at offering advice. But if I were to offer you advice, my advice would be that you -- you should ensure that homes that are close to these power lines, whether it’s this one or any others, could not exceed the two milligauss limit. Distance is a secondary problem. That’s what I would base it on. And that’s true for existing lines or for future lines.

Now, I understand the limits for the magnetic field were -- I can’t remember what they were exactly.

Roger, what were -- what were the –

DR. CONANT: The CAI estimates suggested that homes immediately adjacent to the line were receiving between 30 -- 30 milligauss to 130 milligauss.

DR. HAVAS: Okay. If it’s 30 milligauss to 130 milligauss and if, indeed, -- this is correct, I would -- my preference would be to go out and measure it. But if this is correct, that’s going to reduce it by half, you say. That would still be, you know, 15 milligauss. So you’re still way above the limit that would be deemed safe based on the -- these studies that I’ve sighted earlier.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: You can reduce it down to that level by adjusting the current that’s being, you know, transmitted on the line. So once you get the approval and they are in, they made -- committed to measurements, from there on in it’s, well, you know, put the accelerator down as far as you want, you know, what the line will carry. We have no control. I mean, so it’s -- isn’t it really a false security?

DR. HAVAS: What is a false security?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Isn’t it a false security to tell the power line fine, we don’t care about the distance, we don’t care about the height, as long as we come to measure, that you don’t have more than two milligauss in the house --

DR. HAVAS: Okay. What --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: -- you’re okay.

DR. HAVAS: In my --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: But under what condition, you see. And how do you control the condition?

DR. HAVAS: Right. In my testimony the -- the -- the written document, I actually suggest that it should be less than two milligauss in the bedroom.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, okay. Be more specific. Fine.

DR. HAVAS: During peak.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: They measured in the bedroom.

DR. HAVAS: During peak power use. Okay.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Oh, during, okay.

DR. HAVAS: So now you’re saying, okay, what’s the highest that you’re going to generate from this particular line? And the highest shouldn’t go above two milligauss.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Then we have a double contingency or a double emergency, two transformers are out and --

DR. HAVAS: But it wouldn’t be continuous.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Really load that sucker up. And now all of a sudden -- what now? What happens?

DR. HAVAS: That wouldn’t be a contingency, you see. What we’re talking about is a fairly high continuous exposure.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. That’s a mitigating factor, that’s right. It’s not continuous, the length of time exposure. Okay.

DR. HAVAS: I think that’s important, the length of time of the exposure. That’s why the bedroom is such an important environment because of the length of time the children actually spend there.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: But when in doubt, the distance is still a very safe factor.

DR. HAVAS: Correct.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay.

DR. HAVAS: But you might not agree with the distance that I’ve suggested.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, it may not be economically feasible in all cases, but it might be an optimum that can be -- that you can focus in on. You might say an overall projective. Okay. Because anything you do --it’s like smoking, you know. Look at how many years it took us -- see, I’m an ex-smoker. I can expound on that now. But how many years it took us -- look at the paper this morning. All of a sudden we have a dramatic reduction, right? Because of the no smoking in public buildings and also the general public being educated on the affects of -- of cigarette smoke. Okay.

Any further questions? If not, we appreciate you coming.

MR. TIFFANY: Yes. Thank you very much.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: And spending your time with us and giving us -- sharing your thoughts with us.

DR. HAVAS: Thank you.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Thank you very much.

DR. CONANT: Thank you.

By way of -- by way of note, Mr. Mayor, the increased risks associated with childhood cancer, associated with higher degrees of --higher doses of EMF is approximately the same increase as the increase of risk associated with secondhand -- secondhand smoke to which you just referred. It is essentially the same.

And I’m -- we’ve -- we’ve been talking about the epidemiology. A question was raised by Doctor Valberg regarding the mechanics as to how EMF can cause cancer and the biology. And to address that subject we would like to introduce from the University Doctor Martin Blank.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Good morning, sir.

DR. BLANK: Good morning.

MR. TIFFANY: Good morning.

DR. BLANK: Thank you. I, too, feel a little uncomfortable standing here. I feel like I’m at the bar myself. May I go to the side and --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: You sure may. We do have this problem because the cable commission has, you know, made the decision to tape this for subsequent broadcasting. And the voice is tied in with the video. So you definitely have to synchronize. You would have to use a hand-held mic. We can try that.

VIDEO TECHNICIAN: It’s right here. There’s two little white buttons on the bottom that says on.

DR. BLANK: Well, anyway, good morning again. I’m -- I’ve been at Columbia University for many years, but I’ve traveled around, worked in multitudes of places and lot of different -- worn lots of different hats. And one -- one of the things that I think is --is a strength is my exposure to lots of different areas.

I sent you my -- my introduction, my written testimony, pointing out the various --the departments that I’ve worked in and the kinds of material that I’ve taught. And I think t the point that should come across is that I’ve really been into disciplinary. I’ve been exposed to lots of different disciplines. I’ve worked in companies. I’ve worked in a -- a company over in England, Unilever. They were interested in problems like how do you keep ice cream that they pump a lot of air into in the fall from -- how do you keep that ice cream at a certain -- at high volume so that when they sell in the summertime it hasn’t shrunk down from the container and people say you haven’t given me the full measure. It turned out that that problem, as a physical problem, was very similar to the problem of how you stabilize a lung or how the body stabilizes a lung. It’s -- the physics is very similar. It’s a matter of how you coat the air bubble and arrange it so that the forces are minimized, the pressure inside is -- is low. It keeps the air from diffusing out.

The reason I mention that is that science looks for associations wherever it can find them. You never know when the two problems are the same and that they are linked until you start to examine the pieces of the problem.

And here we have a problem with EMF that has been of concern to many people largely as a result of epidemiology. And the epidemiology that’s come through has been rather, you know --it started out strong. There have been many reinforcements. But then you get negative results. And people start saying well, we can’t be sure that this is so. And they say besides, we don’t have a mechanism. And people don’t know where to look for mechanisms. They say, well, the endpoint is cancer. Well, the fact of the matter is that cancer is something that we don’t understand. We know a lot about it. But if you all recall, the war on cancer in this country started under the Nixon administration. Remember Nixon? Quite a few years ago. And we’re still fighting the war. And the war hasn’t ended. We don’t know about cancer. And yet when we deal with the problem of EMF people expect us to come up with a definitive answer of making a link between an EMF signal and a —cancerous cell. But the fact of the matter is that we can make certain links. And when you understand the biology, the biology itself will point out that there is a logical chain of causation that you can kind of put step-by-step and put together and say that in the end we start with cells and then you end up with a process that could lead to cancer. And I think we re getting closer and closer to that point. And that’s really why I’m here.

I’m here to do a little teaching, more so than advocating. But my teaching is really to tell you that we can set a series of steps on the basis of the biology that we have learned that would make it reasonable for such weak signals as we know come from power lines to lead to a condition in which cells are changed, that they could go on to cancer.

Now, it’s -- so the emphasis is –

DR. CONANT: Doctor, could you turn that a little bit so that the mayors can also see it.

DR. BLANK: Oh. How is that? Well, basically I’m not going to write very much on it. But it’s --

We’re -- we’re -- we’re focusing on the biology. And often I’m sort of cute when I --when I present talks. And people ask me -- they say, well, you’ve had a lot of epidemiology studies and they’ve been reviewed by blue ribbon panels. And experts say this and experts say that. I say why bother asking experts. Let’s ask a cell. Cells have ways of answering questions. And they are not biased. They will tell you right away if something’s wrong. Cells have defense mechanisms. There’s something called a stress response. When cells are exposed to high temperature they will start making proteins that are characteristic of their response to stress. This was identified many years ago. And it’s a signature for a cell in distress. And the stress response is found throughout nature. And I say a cell. It’s found in single cell organisms. It’s found in humans.

And a number of years ago in the biology kingdom -- those of us who are older, went through biology, knew we learned about biology being divided into plants and animals. Well, the whole world has changed. They found that the -- there’s a whole new classification system. We found all kinds of different forms of life. There’s even a form of life they call -- they call archi-bacteria, archi-animals. There are tubeworms that live at 200 degrees Fahrenheit under the sea, near these thermal vents underground. They are -- they are organisms that live in acid exclusion solution. All kinds of form of biology.

But even in these forms of biology they’ve identified the stress response. So that the stress response is throughout nature. And -—and there’s even stress response in plants. The stress response is elicited by very weak electromagnetic fields.

So you ask a cell, are these cell -— are these fields harmful? And the cell answers, I’m making stress response proteins. They are telling us that they are making proteins as if they feel threatened by it. So there’s no doubt in my mind that the cell’s answered to the affirmative. These cells, when they make these proteins -- the proteins do the same things that they do in every other instance. We call this a 911 line. When we get into trouble, we get a —shooting, somebody slips and breaks a bone, there’s poisoning, you have to get somebody to the hospital, you dial 911. The cell has this 911 number. And when it’s in trouble, it starts to make stress proteins. And it makes stress proteins when this weak EMF signal is -- is present in the environment. That’s the answer the cell gives.

The way the stress protein is made is it’s made like every other kind of protein in the cell. It’s made from the DNA code that’s present in the nucleus of every cell. The DNA is in -- and you all have heard of the human gene project, where people have been decoding it, learning what all these three billion bases are. And they give you C, T, G and A, 0. And all from this kind of stuff that looks like nonsense -- the body can take this information that’s on a code and use that to generate different kinds of proteins. Well, the stress protein is coded in every genome.

And, by the way, there are -— there are about 20 different stress proteins that are found throughout nature. And the one that we’ve done most of the work with is a stress protein called HSP7O. It’s a 70,000 molecular weight protein. And we know we’ve learned a lot about it. One of the things we’ve learned about it is that it has a region like is common in all protein codes. It’s called a promotor. This is the part of the gene that tells the gene to turn on. And it controls it under what conditions it can turn on. And this promotor is a very important element. We’ve learned what particular bases in the promotor are essential for response to magnetic fields. We’ve gone so far as to take those pieces out of the promotor and put them into something else. And that something else can be turned on by a magnetic field. In other words, we can take the promotor out of a protein that responds to a magnetic field, put it into a construct -- that’s a piece of DNA that’s a reporter gene, at the end something that will be turned on like --specifically something that grows. And when we expose that to a magnetic field we get a response to the magnetic field. So we have a piece of DNA that responds to magnetic fields. And we know that it can be used to control the response of the magnetic fields. So our work —has led us in that direction. So we have not only that the response occurs, but that the DNA within that -- that’s present within the nucleus can be shown to respond to that DNA. And we’ve pulled out the piece of the DNA that actually does the responding. How it does it we don’t —know yet. But we’re working on that one, as well.

And in my testimony I’ve mentioned that we’ve seen commercial possibilities to this. And Columbia University has applied for a patent because with this knowledge you can attach this little piece of promotor that’s sensitive to magnetic fields -- you can attach it to anything and turn it on. And we’ve suggested, for example, if you turn it on to the insulin gene, you can have it inside somebody who is diabetic and have a sensor that will pick up the glucose level. And then if the glucose level falls at a certain point you can activate a current that will expose -- that will start this gene operating and make insulin on demands or as needed. So that we believe we have sufficient control over the process -- the molecular process to be able to see the commercial —possibilities. It hasn’t been done, but it’s been done at the level that we have it. So we believe we understand this process to this point.

Now, what is the threshold for this? Now, here we have been able to make measurements —under laboratory conditions of what is really the point -at which this stuff -- this process gets turned on. The -- we’ve done this with the stress response. We haven’t done an absolute threshold, but we have found -- in our papers we’ve published this in two different sets of cells that we can turn this on at eight milligauss. That’s not the lowest level. But that’s the level that we publish. We’ve done it at lower levels, but we haven’t checked and done all the controls. So it may very well be down even lower. But we have worked with other systems. We’ve done a lot of work with purified cell components like enzymes. We’ve looked with sodium potassium ATPA. That’s an enzyme that’s present in cell membranes that establishes ion radiance across cells, that enables cells to do their business. For example, a nerve cannot conduct unless it has high potassium inside and low sodium outside. This enzyme will achieve that. It will pump ions so that potassium decreases inside of the cell and sodium increases outside the cell. Well, the sodium potassium ATPA5 has a threshold between two and five milligauss.

We’ve also done studies on cytochrome oxidase. This is an essential enzyme present in mitochondria. Mitochondria are the factories of cells that produce ATP. ATP is the fuel that all cells use. It’s the cell -- it’s the fuel EPI sodium potassium ATPA uses to achieve its iron pumping. Well, the cytochrome oxidase has a threshold of two milligauss. That means that we can turn on these very standard, ubiquitous enzymes with a field that’s as low as two milligauss. So we have the ability to enter biological processes with as weak a signal as has been pointed out to be effective in these —epidemiological studies.

So that brings me now to the question of cancer. Cancer is associated with changes in the DNA. And obviously when you’ve got affects on the DNA of EM fields, then you see there is a linkage. Certainly there’s a linguistic linkage as in association of the words that you use in discussing both topics. But there could be a mechanism linking.

For example, there’s a recent study. It’s only one. And it hasn’t been replicated, but is reported, for example, in a cell where they are studying the stress response that when they take a stress response inhibitor and there are certain chemicals that - -- drugs that can be thrown in that will stop the cell from producing stress proteins. When that happens, you get damage to the DNA.

So here you have a system where you’ve got the stress response and the damage to DNA, which is associated with cancer, linked in an experiment.

You also have the experiments that when --referred to previously by my colleague, that were done initially by Liburdy, but have been repeated in three or four different labs now where they were able to show that the affect of ion fields on breast cells had a -- was a --that they were able to influence the process and to change the disinhibition or the deinhibition by having fields that were 12 milligauss. But they were ineffective at 2 milligauss. And this indicated that there was an affect between 2 and 12 milligauss in terms of the cancer. So that there are cancer linkages in that respect. There are cancer linkages in terms of proliferation studies that were also mentioned earlier. So that there are these kinds of linkages.

Is there proof of a link to cancer? The answer is no. But I started off by saying that we’re still in the war on cancer. The -- we don’t know how -- how -- what causes cancer. Furthermore, there is no one cancer. There are lots of different cancers. And each one may have a different mechanism. And the mechanism that’s associated with the EMF way may be quite different from that of the other way.

The experiment that was recently published in Environmental Health Sciences by Trasko, who has talked recently -- or up till very recently against any effectiveness of EMF inner cancer process -- he published a study with his group suggesting -- well, presenting data that showed that the process of differentiation can be stopped in a cell that -- and differentiation means that a cell becomes specialized and it stops its reproduction. And what happens is that when he exposed the cells to fields of 40 milligauss, 40 percent of the cells just went on reproducing without differentiating. So that you kept on proliferating without the chance of stopping at whatever cell it was supposed to arrive at. And, of course, that’s one of the hallmarks of promotion.

At 20 milligauss he got a 20 percent effectiveness. At 10 milligauss he got no change. So somewhere between 10 and 12 milligauss there was an affect that was very much like what a chemical promotor works. And he actually did experiments on the chemical promotor to show that the affect of EMF was like a chemical promotor.

So there are many tie-ins that one can point to between the effectiveness of EMF as something that can enter the cancer loop and possibly cause these diseases that we’re talking about.

So if -- if you’re going to tie this all together -- and, of course, this is -— as a practical end to this. We’re not here only to learn, but we’re to learn enough to be able to proceed. And does this give us enough information with which to proceed? And I think one has to be fair and one has to be safe.

And I think the formula that was worked out by the people who wrote this report -- and I was among the many scientists who were involved in working out the details of these studies. We met -- by the way, this was not a blue ribbon panel. This was a panel of scientists. We had three different symposia throughout -- over the period of a year in which we met and discussed. I was involved in the first symposium which was on cell and -- and molecular studies. Three of us worked on a final report there.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: This is MF --

DR. BLANK: The -- the -- I’m sorry. It’s the NIEHS report, which was a summary of the EMF studies done in the United States. And it was the recommendation to congress; it was a report that was sent by the head of the department of -- well, Department of Energy to -- to the --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: National Institute.

DR. BLANK: And it was sent to congress with the recommendation.

But I just would like to quote from this -- from their conclusion because I think it’s still the most reasonable one. And, mind you, it was put together with political language. But there’s no question about where -- this is in the detail of one of the conclusions. The NIEHS suggests that the power industry continue its current practice of citing power lines to reduce exposures and continue to explore ways to reduce the creation of magnetic fields around transmission and dis -- distribution lines without creating new hazards.

So I think that was a recommendation that was done after real due deliberation by a host of scientists fully aware of the political pressures that were going on at the time. And I think that it’s -- it’s a good reason -- it’s --it’s a good kind of policy to follow.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Professor, before we take a break maybe you could step down to our level, if you could. And you were present in the audience. You heard what Mayor Tiffany said the three cities are faced with. And you’ve vividly stated we’re here to be educated, to learn something this morning. But tell us from your own personal impression --you just read the recommendation there. What is the best thing that we could do at the present time?

DR. BLANK: Take a break.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. Well, I guess –

DR. BLANK: That’s -- that’s a rough one because, I mean, if I were mayor I’d have to answer that. But I’m not mayor. The thing is, the -- it’s really -— it’s a political question you’re asking. I gave you kind of a scientific presentation. And I don’t mean to be cute. I really say that you have to weigh all the -- all the factors. But there’s no doubt in my mind that there is -- there is an association.

I didn’t give -- I didn’t give the story of how -- you know, my road -- my road to Damascus. You know, I came into this business on the thinking that there was no affect of magnetic fields. I had done -- my research had been largely on electric -- electrical affect --field electric affects. And I said, well, I’m going to get in here and I’m going to straighten it out. We’ll see a few good papers. And we’ll have the answer. And the fact is that when you do the experiments and you see what happens, it -- you realize that these magnetic fields are very potent.

We now have -- I didn’t go into any real detail. But the -- the -- our theoretical approach has been that there are electrons that are moving in DNA. And this is work that has been done largely by a group out at Cal Tech. And they have been publishing paper after paper on this, showing that there are electrons and that they move and that the rate at which they move depends on which basis are present in this DNA code. And that this -- we have shown that we can affect the movements of electrons and that the fields do so when they are remarkably, you know, low fields. And one of the reasons the theoreticians have not been successful in finding a -- a theoretical basis is that they always try and figure out how these weak fields can affect the movement of charge. And they always work with ions. Ions are big, heavy things. An electron is very, very light. The charge to mass ratio in that is the lowest of all these stable particles. And -- I’m sorry. Is the highest of all the stable particles? And so we -- we have an ability to cause this movement.

We just -- we just published a paper on a nonbiological reaction with no membrane and no enzyme and no nothing where we can accelerate the reaction by just having a magnetic field affect that electron transfer. This is a little digression from what you asked -- or perhaps it’s a big digression.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: But our purpose is to make decisions, which is in the public’s interest.

DR. BLANK: Yeah. The -- the reason I tell you this is I’m sort of a convert, having started from one -- from one way of thinking. But I’ve let the facts sort of the tell me what the answer is. And I guess -- I guess that’s what my -- I’m supposed to do for you. It’s supposed to lead you to an answer. And when -- and the facts will tell you what --what the score is.

I think here I found that there are --there is a strong basis for health affects. And that you should try and get as low a field as possible. Given the fact that you’re dealing with a real world, you know, and you’ve gotten stuff that’s there already.

You -know, it’s like the -- the story with the Irish man who was asked by a tourist -- and he said how do I get from here to there. And he answered the tourist. He said well, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here.

MR. TIFFANY: Doctor Blank, you --you’ve provided some absolutely fascinating information about how electromagnetic fields may affect the electron transfer with themselves. And it provides a very interesting basis for understanding why EMF fields can have a beneficial biological affect, as in accelerating bone healing in nonunion fractures.

The evidence that EMF is harmful, as I understand your remarks, is a little less certain and still is a great big question mark we all have to answer.

So the bottom line, to get back to paraphrasing away what Mayor Mertensotto was asking you -- ask the same question of you that I asked of Doctor Havas.

In consideration of the current scientific knowledge of the affects of electromagnetic fields on human health, do you have an opinion on whether the city councils can develop a compelling case to deny a permit to double circuit the southeast metro line based on that criterion alone?

DR. BLANK: I would say a quick, definite yes. The -- the arguments about harmful and helpful are just two sides of the same coin. Anytime you’ve got a -- an ability to influence a biological process, you can do it for good or for bad. There’s -- you just are affecting it.

By the way, the work done on the bone healing was done at Columbia University. Andrew Bassett was in the orthopedic surgery department. And, as a matter of fact, I brought a book along with me that I helped put together about six years ago, which he -- he wrote a chapter on bioelectromagnetics and the service of medicine. And he was writing on the positive aspects of this. The negative aspects are there, too. And you have to guard against them.

There’s a big difference in the positive aspects and the negative aspects. The positive aspects seem to occur when something has gone wrong in a system. And you go in and the --they seem to work best when there’s a stress --it may be coupled with the stress response, being able to do something while the stress response is operating.

The harmful affects are most pronounced in young -- young organisms that are proliferating rapidly, growing rapidly. And they are more vulnerable to these slight forces that seem to be around. You really have to protect -- you have to really think in terms of the most vulnerable population, which is a point made earlier. I think that children are the ones that are -- the ones that have to be protected. And I think you have to choose standards that will encompass the -- you know, that level.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: We have one more question. Then we’re going to take a break.

Kathleen.

MS. GAYLORD: If you knew that moving from a single line to the double line significantly reduces the magnetic field exposure would your answer change?

DR. BLANK: Well, over time or you mean immediately?

MS. GAYLORD: Immediately.

DR. BLANK: One of the points --well, yeah. Well, one of the points that were made was that, you know, you’ve got to realize the long-term implications of whatever change you make. And while they -- it may drop it at -- at -- initially, you don’t know what the long-term affects of such a change would be.

I think the whole question ought to be looked at very carefully. That is the -- the recommendation that I read from the NIEHS was that you should look for ways to minimize exposure. And I think that the minimizing exposure doesn’t mean, you know, doing it just for one point in time, but over an extended period of time so it will have its greatest affect for the greatest population.

And, by the way, the magnetic fields do not follow the inverse square law, as one might expect. They’ve actually -- it’s much more complicated. And the -- a number of years ago the OTA, Office of Technology Assessment, which is no longer in existence, published a little booklet where they gave maps indicating the fall-off of fields from magnetic -- from transmission lines. And if I remember correctly, I think -- I don’t remember the strength of the field. I think it was 100,000 or 200,000 volts. But the -- it was about a kilometer before the -- the field dropped down to the zero level. And -- and if -- and if you looked at it, it wasn’t the kind of inverse square kind of fall. Okay. It was pretty constant over the -— a long period of time and then falling down and then at the -- at the end. If you can get ahold of that booklet in some form, it may be -- it may still be available.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. Thank you very kindly for sharing your time with us this morning.

With that we’re going to call a ten-minute recess. Thank you.

(Recess from 10:02 A.M. to 10:17 A.M.)

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Can we reconvene so that we can continue and not have to take a lunch break and return.

Okay. Mr. Conant, you asked to do a summary here for us.

DR. CONANT: Yes. Thank you. I just want wanted to summarize what our experts have said ‘by actually pointing to a new study.

The State of California is engaged in essentially the same process as we’re engaging as we stand here right now, examining the implication of EMF on -- on transmission lines when. And they conducted a seminar which has been published as the input data. And I just wanted to give you just two sentences from that seminar.

One referring to the relationship between EMF and childhood leukemia. They said -- they say here many people believe there are no doubt a support of association between residential magnetic field exposures and childhood leukemia. To the contrary. The data strongly and relatively consistently supports such an association, even though, as we’ve observed here, the estimated magnitude of the risk is moderate. This is based upon the third meta-study that I’m aware of that’s been done in the last six months. All three of the meta-studies have come up with exactly the same conclusion, that if you look at exposure --exposure levels greater than four milligauss, why, you do see a -- epidemiologically you see consistent and persistent patterns. These studies were conducted independently of each other.

I wanted to read one other study from this same report. I will make these reports –

MS. GAYLORD: Can I ask you a quick question?

DR. CONANT: Sure.

MS. GAYLORD: Is that -- is that the most likely cancer result from EMF. Childhood leukemia? Is that the --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: More predominant?

MS. GAYLORD: More predominant or --

DR. CONANT: That’s the one that’s been studied most because it was the one that was the issue that was raised in the Wertheimer studies way back in 1979, but -- so it’s the one that’s had the greatest amount of focus. It’s also the one where you have children in the same location for a long period of time and therefore their average exposures are high. And in addition to child -- childhood cells replicate frequently and therefore are particularly subject to -- to cancer. We’re not saying necessarily that it’s the only area in which there is such identified, but one where clearly the epidemiological research is the most advanced.

However, I want to give you another example here. One of our neighbors are the Knutsons. Ellie Knutson came down with ALS, Lou Gehrigs disease. Her bedroom is right adjacent to the power lines, elevated, with average exposure surely over 100 milligauss, which is in the -- the same exposures that utility workers might get, even more than might -- utility workers might get.

And the -- in the same -- in the same report to the California EMF project they say they are referring to research that’s been done on this sort of thing. They say the combined results from the two utility worker studies show a clear increase in ALS mortality. And based upon a combined competence interval in risk increase is unlikely to be due to chance. In short, this -- these studies -- again, this is a meta-analysis -- meta-analysis. These studies suggest that ALS is also a disease at high levels -- that the risk of which you -- you can get more -- more apt to get than you might be otherwise. And that’s particularly pertinent to us anyway, as individuals, because Ellie Knutson had what was characterized at the time as an exceedingly unusual case of ALS. And -- and at least now, based on what we know, perhaps we know one of the explanatory causes for that.

Finally, as Dr. Tiffany has been documenting, we’ve had in our neighborhood near the line an extraordinarily high incidence of breast cancer. Virtually every woman who lives near the line past, say, 35 or 40 in our neighborhood has obtained cancer, including my wife and Denny Svendsen, who are here tonight. And many others. So we certainly have what might be called a mini cluster of cancer in those homes adjacent to the line.

Thank you.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. With that we’ll call on Doctor Valberg to respond to the two experts that addressed us this morning.

DR. VALBERG: Yes. Thank you.

As you might imagine, this kind of debate can go at great lengths. I mean, this issue has been debated at great lengths and -- and in many fora where public health experts have gotten together and sifted through the literature. So we can’t really begin to do that today. However, I do want to respond to a few things. The first is that when you look at the potential human hazard from any kind of environmental exposure, whether it’s elements in water, air quality, EMF and so forth, you’re looking for evidence from three fundamental areas. One of them is epidemiology, which is the statistical associations that you see between populations and potential measures of exposure. The other is animal studies. And the final is sort of cellular or mechanistic studies of what’s going on at the cellular level. And it’s like a three-legged stool. So if you don’t have strong evidence in areas of -- or at least some evidence in three of those areas, your stool falls over for lack of stability. Now, let me look at each of those, in turn.

And in terms of the epidemiology, it is correct, that’s where you do see these associations, but I do want to emphasize that those associations with statistical associations between surrogates of exposure and disease outcome. So they are essentially, you know, mathematical correlations between those two: exposure and outcome variables. And when you have a epidemiology, such as in this area, where it has not only been weak, but inconsistent -- you know, some studies show results, some studies don’t -- you have to look to the two other areas for strong supporting evidence.

And, in fact, one thing that characterizes the epidemiology is that the initial study, the Wertheimer Leeper study, found a relative risk of this childhood leukemia, which was larger than any subsequent study. So this is, in a sense, a time trend that’s opposite of what you would normally expect when people focus in on a problem.

The Wertheimer Leeper study in 1979 was a hypothesis generating study. They said well, you know, let’s just correlate the location of where the leukemia cases are in Denver, Colorado with the kinds of power lines -- or actually in that case that power distribution lines that were close to them. And they did, in fact, find an association between what was then called wire codes and these leukemia cases.

Now, that, of course, stimulated a lot of subsequent people to look at it. And since that time you would think that as you’d get better control of confounding variables, you get larger populations, you’d get better measures of the exposure variable. That this epidemiology would have, in tact, pulled out the signal and the relative risks in subsequent, more well designed studies would have gotten greater. And you would have really focused on what was -- what was happening. And that turned out not to be the case.

And in the -- the -- one of the recent studies that it was -- performed by the National Cancer Institute in the United States, the so-called Linet study, you know, again, did not find an association. When, in fact, they’ve had access to leukemia cases that was probably larger than -- more than anywhere available in the Wertheimer Leeper study.

The other study that was done in Great Britain, in which Sir Richard Doll participated, where they had very large number of cases --again, you know, they found no association with regard to -childhood leukemia. And my recollection is that in that study they, in fact, took out a sub segment of the study where they specifically asked a question of are any of these leukemia cases associated with pylons which are, in fact, the -- you know, the high-voltage transmission towers in England. And they saw, again, no association. So they tried to look at that question in particular.

But anyway, that aside, what about these other lines of evidence? I mean, the -- the United States Congress funded this RAPID program. And they are -- the National Toxicology Program, in fact, took, you know, large numbers of laboratory animals and exposed them to a whole variety of EMF conditions ranging up to 20,000 milligauss to try to get some sort of carcinogenic response. And these were lifetime studies actually extended over generations of laboratory animals. And, you know, again couldn’t find any support for that carcinogenic hypothesis.

I think that earlier we heard the statement about laboratory studies show that the EMF can promote cancers. Again, a very large study was done on leukemia in mice, where mice were given leukemic cells so that they would, in fact, develop leukemia ultimately. And they were exposed to electromagnetic fields versus not. And that large study, which would have checked the hypothesis that EMF can promote the growth of leukemic cells, did not show that to be the case. So the -- the animal studies are not supportive of the epidemiology.

And, again, you know, Doctor Blank mentioned a lot of biophysical studies which are very interesting. We would like to know how EMF can, in fact, interact with biological tissues. But it’s important to remember that at the cellular and molecular level your body is an absolute forest of electrical activity. That is to say, you have not only major activity, such as the electrocardiogram, electrocephalogram electromyelogram. You’ve got magnetic components of that, too. But, you know, within the cell membrane there are immense electric fields. The very fact that there are molecules smashing into each other at the cell level generate immense electric fields.

So you have to ask yourself, how can this cell detect these kinds of weak signals in the face of a lot of electric and magnetic chaos that occurs at the -- at the cell level.

I think many of those studies people have tried to replicate and have not been able to come up with a -- a replicable standard where you can say to a graduate student, you know, take this cell and take this exposure, go to the laboratory. Every time you’ll see this particular outcome. And then, you know, let’s tease that apart and find out what the actual physical mechanisms are. We’re not there. I mean, that has not been shown to be the case.

And so I think we’re left with the -- you know, we can’t say this definitively, but we’re left with the very real possibility that the epidemiological associations are due to some sort of selection bias or unknown confounder because you are looking at very weak and inconsistent associations.

I guess I would probably return to my earlier statement that there are a lot of public health groups that have looked at it. I think —the American Cancer Society is another one that I didn’t mention earlier, where if you look at the American Cancer Society guidelines of how you and I can improve our chances or reduce our chances of getting cancer, improve our health --how can we improve our health, they have a variety of suggestions having to do with lifestyle, diet, exercise and so forth. But when it comes to exposure to electromagnetic fields, they have a statement. They say they don’t believe that that is a causative factor in cancer. And here’s an agency that has been around during this long period of time when the war on cancer has been going on. And they --you would think that they would say, well, you know, we think you ought to improve your reduce your risk of cancer by staying away from appliances or -- or watching out for these kinds of situations where there may be a power line close by. But they have chosen not to do that.

In fact, if you look at the National Center for Health Statistics and you look at how cancer rates have changed over time, a very broad-brush look is informative on how much EMF may be playing a part in our cancer rates. Over the period of time that we have used electricity more and more -- and, you know, the question is the exposure in many circumstances has increased in the case of the -- the particular situation —of knob and tube wiring. Maybe it hasn’t increased. But all of our houses now have more and more electricity pumped into them over time. And the National -- National Center for Health Statistics doesn’t show an increasing trend in these types of cancers that we’ve been discussing here. So I take a fair amount of comfort from the public health point of view, that that broad-brush view doesn’t -- doesn’t suggest a problem.

It did suggest a problem in the case of lung cancer. Lung cancer was the cancer that was relatively rare until cigarette smoking became more prevalent. Then in a period of time that was approximately 15 to 20 years after the rise of the prevalence of cigarette smoking we saw in national health statistics -- we saw a rise in the prevalence of lung cancer.

So there are signals in that kind of data that do tell us something about exposure that is widespread in the population and that if it is causing problems, it gives us some hint as to what the magnitude is.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Yeah, but the mere fact that we generally, in -- in our daily activity have constant exposure you might say to milligauss type of -- of -- you might say affect, okay. But power lines, when they are put in -- they are like this one here that’s being talked about, being rebuilt. Has been in since 1920 something. So let’s take a look at it’s probably 70, 75 years. Okay. Anything that we daily have around the house, like the TV or the way the houses are wired -- what I’m talking about, once we determine this is an effect, we can make a change. And it isn’t that costly and it can be done rather rapidly. But you don’t put power lines in every day. Okay. So that’s a big factor. That’s a difference.

The other thing, I think, to summarize what you’re really telling us, statistically the proof isn’t there. And granted -- but yet all the studies that have been done, nothing has shown that there isn’t a connection or that there may not be a connection or there isn’t. Guess I see more positive that there is a connection.

DR. VALBERG: No. I -- I guess I would say that if you look at the statements that are made and in the NIEHS report -- I mean, they funded a very vast program to try to determine if there was a reproducible animal study, a reproducible biological affect that could lead to cancer. And that evidence did come back negative. So I think that it’s not correct to say that all the evidence out there is suggestive. There’s nothing that seems to mandate the -- a view in the opposite direction.

The laboratory and animal and cellular evidence does, in fact, suggest in the other direction, that this is, in fact, a influence that is too weak to cause changes in the normal biological operating of the cells. And I think that’s where, you know -- that’s where one of the flaws is, in assuming that this is the same type of agent that we deal with in terms of air quality or water quality.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. Let me go one step further then. Are you then suggesting to us that the influence of the magnetic field from transmission lines is not really reality? It’s being over emphasized? It should be disregarded? Is that what you’re saying?

DR. VALBERG: I think that the people should continue to look at it. As I said, all of these public health organizations that have looked at it, one of their statements often is, you know, more research is needed and so forth. But that’s true of everything that --that we expose ourselves to in society. I mean, whether we’re dealing with contaminants in the water or the quality of the exhaust coming from our car and so on. There’s a vast amount of research going on in all of these areas. And we try to developed standards that protect the public health.

EMF is the just one of those areas. Research is ongoing. People encourage -- anyone that comes up with a plausible mechanism is encouraged to get funding from the -- from the National Institute.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: We realize everything in life is an ongoing process. Okay. Even like Doctor Blank said, the -- the biological cell studies here suggest, you know, the -- the magnetic influence might be good. It —might be bad. Depends on what direction your re going or -- or who -- of the cell that has to respond to the type of cell.

But I think that, getting back to our practical level here, what we have to decide, that’s what we’re trying to have you help us make a recommendation.

And I think Mayor Tiffany posed a question to the other two experts that were here this morning. And I would request that you do the same with Doctor Valberg.

MR. TIFFANY: Right. I think the remarks have made your response to this obvious, but for the sake of the records, since this is a public hearing, I’ll repeat the same question

In consideration of the current scientific knowledge of the affects of electromagnetic fields on human health, do you have an opinion on whether the city councils can develop a compelling case -- and by that I mean one that would sustain judicial review, if it came to that -- a case to deny a permit to double circuit the southeast metro line based on this criterion alone?

DR. VALBERG: Well, I -- my answer to that was I think it will be very hard to develop a -compelling case. In other words, I --I feel that permitting this double circuit, in fact, goes directly to the quotation that Doctor Blank made, where he said the NIEHS reviewed all of this, but one of their summary statements was that the utilities ought to continue siting lines in ways that help reduce magnetic fields. And so here you have an opportunity where a line is existing. The double circuiting for any current, whether it’s present-day current or future current or whatever -- for any current that’s in that line, putting that reverse phase on the line will reduce the magnetic fields. So I think that in a way we are in a situation here where there are no state or national standards that apply. There’s no compelling evidence of a health affect. We do have an opportunity to apply precautionary principles and say well, if we’re going to do anything to this line, let’s do something to it that reduces its magnetic field, which is what -- in fact, what a reverse phase double circuiting will do.

So I guess on that criterion I would say that to reduce the field it is actually a better thing to approve the -- the double circuiting option.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Is that the only mitigation measure that you would recommend?

DR. VALBERG: On the knowledge of the science that’s available now I would say that if we have time and energy and money to spend on improving our health, I don’t see the EMF mitigation is high on that scale.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: This is not a health study. This is a study to determine a power line as is suggested be put in. Probably be there for the next 75 to 100 years. They are very expensive, time consuming, costly to put in. Certainly it’s an essential service that we need in modern day society. We’ve got to live with it. Okay. But we want to do, as I think -- as is being suggested and is suggested by that NIH study, to do something prudent, you know, because you can’t rule it out. And just in case you’re wrong, you better err on the side -- that protects you or protects society rather than to be foolish and say well, we disregarded it, so we’ve got to subrogate the consequences. Okay. That’s what I’m looking at.

MR. TIFFANY: Getting back to Mayor Mertensotto’s question about the correlation between the actual presence of power lines and the human health problems. You quoted the British study in which I think they found that there was -- was not a good correlation between proximity to power lines and -— and human health problems, particularly childhood leukemia. And I recall in that same report the -- rather startled to find that in the children with the highest levels of exposure, that 80 percent of them didn’t live anywhere near power lines. Is that correct?

DR. VALBERG: That’s correct.

MR. TIFFANY: Well, what do you make of all that?

DR. VALBERG: Well, I think that one of the issues is what is actually causing the signal in the -- in these kinds of studies. In other words, as was laid out to some extent in the recent meta-analysis by Anders Ahlbom and -- his colleagues -- is that you have several possible options. One is, you know, what’s the strength of statistics because all of these studies with correlations between measures of EMF and -- and leukemia are really based on the total number of people. I mean, they don’t really take into account any other sources of error. The larger number of people you have in each exposure category, the narrower you can make your error bands. And so in these studies that have tried to group together separate epidemiology studies they do get some improvement in the statistics by just having larger numbers of people. However, they are grouping together studies that are heterogeneous in design to begin with. And any kinds of flaws in, you know, selection of controls or confounding or so forth would still be pulled in with that.

So I -- I think that what I make of it in terms of all of these studies, I don’t think they are telling us a whole lot about what the etiology of leukemia is. I think we don’t understand cancer. There is a war on cancers. And we’d like to spend a lot more money to figure out, you know, are there ways that you can avoid cancer, what can you do to improve your chances if you do get cancer. But I think from -- I take it from the American Cancer Society’s statements that they somehow have a feeling that this may be a red herring, that people are getting -- they are getting concerned about us. They are getting is anxious. Being anxious has a public health affect in itself. But that the kind of things we’re pursuing with EMF may, in fact, not give us very much bang for the buck in terms of actual improvement of health. And I think Anders Ahlbom, who wrote the original Swedish study that looked at children close to power line -- he -- one of the statements he made in his paper was that even if his association turned out to be causal, the actual impact on leukemia statistics in Sweden would be very small, if I recollect -- if I recollect correctly —- if I recollect correctly. He said it might be an additional two cases per year if the -- if the association were --

MR. TIFFANY: Of childhood leukemia.

DR. VALBERG: Yes, childhood leukemia, which is a rare disease.

MR. TIFFANY: You’re talking about acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

DR. VALBERG: Pardon?

MR. TIFFANY: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

DR. VALBERG: ALL, yes.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: How about this business of using a milligauss criteria for determining, you might say, distance as to the location of residential structures to the power line? Do you think that’s bogus or does it have value?

DR. VALBERG: Well, the -- if you want to follow the NIEHS suggestion of reducing exposure, then I do believe what you should focus on is the level of exposure and how does that compare to other exposures and what can you do to reduce that exposure. I think looking at the distances is of lesser relevance. If -- in terms of the studies that are looking at the leukemia it’s not clear, you know, what the actual metric might be that would be best associated with it because we don’t know if there’s a causal basis. But, you know, in terms of being prudent, I would suggest your focusing on the actual fields and less on distances from the power line.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: See, you mentioned about putting the double circuit --one side will cancel out the other. That’s fine, you know, if they are both used in a balanced condition. And the way NSP or Xcel represented this morning -- we’re really looking at is redundancy. We’ve got power outages or not power outages. Let’s say failures every day in the system that the general public doesn’t even know about. That’s why we have a redundant system. We just switch over automatically. Nobody knows that this failure took place. And they repair it. But -- unless you can control that. But once the line is there and you have the need for the power, you know, you can -- you can use both sides. This type of thing. And unless they are used in a balanced condition, you do increase the magnetic affects or, I mean, the milligauss affect of the people that are in close proximity. And I think that has to be a concern, how do -- we don’t control the power company. But we got to make a decision based --which is in the best interest of the public, our constituents. And that’s what we’re looking for. I mean, we’re looking for to find out where do we go? And you said it’s a red herring. Well, that’s questionable, you know, based on the light of the studies and the people that are willing to stake their reputation on there is a causation. Yes, can’t disprove it. So you see the dilemma that we’re in.

DR. VALBERG: I see the dilemma you’re in. And I -- I would just comment on the balanced circuit configuration that, you know, for the power company itself. It’s to their advantage to use both circuits in a balanced situation because the -- the actual current --the actual power losses in the line depend on the square of the -- square of the current. And so, in fact, if they can balance the current over the two lines, they are getting net, net lower electrical resistance between the source and the --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Higher efficiency.

DR. VALBERG: Yeah. And so they -- they would normally want to run it that way. But if an emergency occurs and they have to use only one line, then that’s the kind of emergency you can have in any location.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. Any further questions? Frank? Anything?

MR. TIFFANY: No. Thank you very much.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Thank you very kindly.

DR. CONANT: Mr. -- Mr. Mayor.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Yes.

DR. CONANT: I wish to make an observation that we did -- we did not have an opportunity to review Doctor Valberg’s presentation because as of 6:00 the day before yesterday we were told there was going to be no written presentation. And then we got it. And we have not had an adequate time to look at it. Furthermore, our experts did not have an opportunity to comment upon Mr. Valberg’s presentation because he didn’t make one before they spoke, as he should have, according to the agenda. But, rather, he made his presentation after they spoke, where we have a relatively inefficient and -- and difficult time to respond. So --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Are you asking for the opportunity to --

DR. CONANT: Doctor Valberg essentially put himself in the position where --where by presenting his information late and by manipulating affairs that he presents last so that we don’t have an adequate time to really respond to the points he makes, which is too bad because I believe that they are -- that there are substantial numbers of inaccuracies or misleading statements that he has made in his presentation that do -- do require response.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Are you asking for the opportunity to submit written comments subsequent to the meeting we’re holding here today?

DR. CONANT: We will take advantage of that opportunity. Thank you very much.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: If you were to do that, how soon could you get that in? Because we can’t keep on going on this. This has been going on since June of 1999. The cities, I would anticipate, would have to start doing something and getting this thing wrapped up within the next two or three months.

DR. CONANT: We can get our comments to you within two weeks.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Within two weeks.

DR. CONANT: Yes. In the meantime, though, I would like to make a couple of points. Of course my colleagues will. I will note that he misquoted the results of the NIEHS conclusion. He used the words helped reduce, that the power company should help reduce, when the actual words were minimize. That the power company should minimize the EMF exposures.

He referred to the -- the -- the Linton --Linet study, as he called it. And that study he was referring to is the 1996-’97 study conducted by Martha Linet for the NRC. And, in fact, one of our colleagues has commented extensively on that study and believes it’s been incorrectly interpreted.

He referred to the U -- to the study, which he said was conducted by Richard Dahl. Actually the study was led by Nicholas Day. That was the UKCCS study that was published in the -- back in mid 1999. What he did not tell you is that both Nicholas Day and Martha Linet participated in the British journal study which reviewed the meta-study to which he referred that appeared in September in the first issue of the British Journal of Cancer in September. They are two. And that’s -- and both Martha Linet and Nicholas Day participated in those studies where they found a statistically significant relationship between EMF and childhood leukemia at amounts exceeding four milligauss they characterized that -- that as unlikely to do -- due to chance. And they also said that it was unlikely the confounding or -- or selection bias were factors there. In this same study that I referred to before, the report to the California EMF study, they -- they address the issue of selection of confounding factors and decide -- and determined that if they existed, that they would tend to reduce the ability to find the relation between EMF and cancer. In other words, the relationships that we found are almost surely existing in spite of these alleged confounding selection factors.

There’s a number of other technical things that you brought up which I believe to be incorrect, but perhaps my colleagues -- would you, Doctor Blank -- would you like to comment on.

DR. BLANK: Yes, I would. On -- since I presented mainly on the cellular molecular studies, I’d like to address that aspect of this component.

He pointed out that -- that there was a lot of electrical noise in the body. And that’s certainly true. When you take advantage of that, we can read the EEC, we can read the EKG outside. That’s certainly going on all the time. But the fact of the matter is that electrical noise stops at the cell membrane effectively. And when you’re talking about a magnetic field getting through the DNA and the nucleus, that gets through independent of the noise that the -- the electrical noise that’s outside. The electromagnetics affect of the heart or of the brain activity is minimal in comparison to even a two milligauss signal that’s being -- that’s coming to the -- to the cell nucleus.

And regarding the cell nucleus, if I can just take a few minutes and point out, there are some very well-known affects that are probably due to the same kinds of things that are happening to a cell nucleus as we’re dealing with magnetic fields interacting with cell nuclei.

We all know that you can go to a gym and work out and develop certain muscles. You --and you can have a good trainer he’ll tell you which kind of exercises to do to develop particular muscles. We have two basic kinds of muscles called voluntary muscles. They are the fast muscle and a slow muscle. The slow muscles are the ones that bear strong weight. But anyway, they have different physiological properties. The slow muscles are stimulated in a slow fashion and the fast muscles have very rapid stimulation.

People have done experiments where they have interchanged the nerves that stimulate fast and slow muscles. So now you have a slow muscle that is stimulated by a fast nerve. So it’s getting fast stimulation. When that happens, that muscle starts to produce proteins that are characteristic of fast muscle. Suddenly you’ve got a cell in which the nucleus has been making only one kind of protein, suddenly making a different kind of protein. Those nuclei are the nuclei that are very close to the cell membrane. A muscle cell has its contractual apparatus taking up the bulk of the cell and nuclei are pushed to the -- the periphery. So when a cell carries an impulse -- that when you stimulate it, the currents that go to carry that impulse along the cell membrane pass near the nucleus. And the nucleus carries -- gets those currents and they pass near the DNA. I think that that’s what’s happening. That the DNA is being stimulated by these electric currents. They have -- they respond to the frequency of the stimulation. When you do a fast stimulation, the nucleus suddenly, which hadn’t been making these proteins, start to make new proteins. You have a DNA that responds to a frequency code. And that is something that comes through in the face of the heart pumping, in the face of the all brain activity, spinal cord activity. And that is something that’s been documented.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: So you’re saying the pacemaker changes the heart muscle?

DR. BLANK: No. That’s a very -- that’s a very minor one. The fact of the matter is the pacemaker works a different part of the -- of the muscle.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: It’s electrical stimulus

DR. BLANK: It’s a very weak signal that depolarizes a particular section of the heart muscle so that that heart will depolarize and carry the depolarization through the rest of the heart muscle and coordinate the -- the pumping.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: But part of your analogy would be your bacteria mutating or changing to its world environment against antibiotics; isn’t that right? Or the use of --

DR. BLANK: The bacterial thing -- I’m not familiar with it. But my guess is it’s also working through the nucleus and the DNA because it somehow is getting that kind of --that ability to make the right kinds of chemicals. And that can only come with the -- with the DNA. But the DNA is something that is -- that is turned on.

We have found, for example, that in a response -- I mentioned, in my presentation earlier, that there are two enzymes that we have worked with that respond to magnetic fields. The enzymes respond with different frequency optimum. One responds with a maximum at 60 hertz. One responds with a maximum of 800 hertz. These correlate with their normal functioning. In other words, the one enzyme that responds at 60 hertz has an optimal functioning at that frequency. In other words, when it’s working in the body, it’s working at 60 hertz. It’s as if the field is sort of doing the kind of -- a dance with the enzyme. The enzyme takes a reactant in and product goes out, you know; do-si-do. And the same thing with --the faster one does it much faster. And you do that with the -- and the field comes in and reacts. That’s with the magnetic field. And I think the same thing is happening in these -- in these stimulation of the muscle, where you’ve got the -- these fields coming in, these electric fields, but the effect is that it’s the same thing causing the DNA to be stimulated at a particular rate. And that -- that causes activation of particular ranges, particular places in the --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. This is a very interesting subject.

DR. BLANK: Yeah.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: I’m sure it could go on for hours, but --

DR. BLANK: Anyway, my point is this --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Let me do this. As I told Doctor Conant, we’ll accept written comments as a follow-up to this gathering or meeting here today, okay, as part of our information-gathering process. And we’ll do it -- so if you can get it back within -- anyone can do that within the next two weeks. Okay. Just send it respectively. My copies can be sent here to city hall. And same way for Mayor Tiffany, to his city hall. And same way with Kathleen Gaylord, submitted to her city hall in South St. Paul. Okay.

DR. BLANK: Is it all right if I do that through Roger Conant?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: You certainly may. As I told you, we operate very informally. The essence is to share public -_information in the interest of the public. Okay.

Now we ye got to get off. This is the first –

DR. CONANT: Let just -- Doctor Havas just say a word or two, please.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. I guess, in all fairness, you should be able to respond.

DR. HAVAS: Thank you.

Does this work?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Yes, it does. And we’d appreciate if you’d use that because it ties in with the cable system.

DR. HAVAS: Okay. I think whenever you have expert opinions c6me and address you at a hearing --

VIDEO TECHNICIAN: Would you use the microphone, please?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: You’ll have to use the portable mic because as soon as you get away from -- there you go. Thank you.

VIDEO TECHNICIAN: There’s two switches.

DR. HAVAS: I think when you invite expert witnesses to come and present information to you it’s very important that they present the information not to -- to state their case, but they present it as honestly and as openly as possible. And that they don’t rely only on information that -- that supports their case. Now, what we’ve just heard -- and I’ll address the epidemiological question -- is that there was a study done by Linet in 1997 that contradicted the Wertheimer results.

I wrote a review that came out December 1999 where I reviewed the work that was done for the National Research Council document. And I reviewed the work that was done for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences that Doctor Blank worked on.

And based on the information from those reports, as well as some other studies -- could someone help me by holding this. Roger, would you just hold it like this. And is there a way of the --

VIDEO TECHNICIAN: Yes, there is.

DR. HAVAS: Okay. What your re looking at here --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Maybe could you just hold it up. Let her conduct the monitor, please. Okay. And obviously the flatter you can hold that surface, the clearer it will show.

VIDEO TECHNICIAN: Got it.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay.

DR. HAVAS: Thank you. What you’re looking at here is a table that I produced based on all of the available childhood epidemiological studies that I was familiar with. And we have a number of studies. The first one here is by Wertheimer.

You can’t see this, can you?

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Yes. Okay.

DR. HAVAS: Okay. The first one is by Wertheimer and Leeper. So we’ve got a series of five -- four of them -- one, two, three, four, five of them that use bar codes for their results. And I’d just like to draw your attention to the results here. Okay. The larger the bar here, the higher the odds ratio, which is the ratio of expected cases -- sorry --observed cases over expected cases. And in the Wertheimer and Leeper study the odds ratio goes —up to about three. And this is for decreased exposure. So this is for something that’s called high current configuration. And the value that they measured was 2.5 milligauss. This is for a lower current configuration. And the value there was .5 milligauss. So you can see that there’s a -- if the value is above 1, it means there’s an increased risk of this cancer developing.

The next study -- that was done was by Fulton. And you can see here that the odds ratio is very close to 1, which basically shows there’s no relationship. If you look at their data you find that none of the results -- none of -- even the highest exposure didn’t exceed the 2 milligauss that we’ve been talking about. So based on -- on the milligauss data this is exactly what you could anticipate.

We have two other studies that are showing an increase. And let me bring your attention to the Linet study. Here we have two out of five studies, the Linet one and the Fulton one, that are not showing relationship. Our previous expert witness focused entirely on this one. So you’ve got one -- you’ve got two out of five studies that don’t show relationship. One of them you wouldn’t anticipate a relationship --this one -- because the field wasn’t high enough. So the question is why focus on one that shows the exact point you want to make. Why not present all of the data and then really have a good look at what those -- those data imply.

The other point I’d like to make is that there’s no evidence of promotion. And I think the comment was there’s no evidence of promotion for leukemia. So this is based on leukemia.

And I apologize, but this is what I have available. These are data that come from laboratory studies with animals -- in rats in this particular case, and mice. And it’s looking at breast cancer in these animals. And when -- when you look at the data, it’s actually all over the place. And the results from the document that I reviewed showed that there was no consistent relationship.

Now, every study is done differently. The exposures are different. Everything is different. So what I did is I simply took the data and began to rank it according to how much the total magnetic field was that they were exposed to. So this was just a simple sorting of the information. And then I’ve coded it to give specific information -- just need it down here. This is the ranking for incidents. Something that falls on this side shows that it’s harmful. If it falls on this side, it shows that it’s beneficial. And so you have with a -- a decreasing magnetic field now, totally contrary to what we might expect. But if you look at all of these, the blocks are showing a harmful affect and things to the right of the line are showing a beneficial affect. And what this is showing is that whether we’re dealing with incidence rates —-and this is for promoting cancer. Okay. Incidence rates, the number of tumors, size and latency, you have predominance with adverse effects at the fields that were listed here. So we have listed here --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: What was the range of the mag -- magnetic field?

DR. HAVAS: Okay. Now, these fields are a lot higher than what we’re dealing with. These fields -- I’ll just go through here. Well, it’s one milligauss up to about a thousand milligauss. So these are -- huge range. Interestingly, as you go higher this is totally contrary to what anyone would anticipate. If you begin to go up to 5,000 milligauss it’s showing a beneficial affect.

Now, the mechanism for this is really quite intriguing. So the question arises: Are these data valid? First of all, is this an appropriate way to do this? If it is appropriate, then this becomes a -- very interesting from a scientific perspective.

Now, we’ve been talking about dose response relationships. And that’s one of the criteria for whether or not there is a -- thank you -- a harmful magnetic field. And there is evidence for dose response relationships; the higher your exposure, the more likelihood you are of -- of -- of developing cancer.

But energy is quite different than chemicals. And we’re using the chemical for dose response. And one of the things we’re finding, when it comes to any form of energy, is that you have windows of affect. Just as Doctor Blank mentioned, the -- the affect appears to occur at 60 hertz or 600 hertz. That’s called a frequency window, we have frequency windows. We have intensity windows. —So if the intensity is low, it’s no affect. If the intensity one is higher than a certain level, there’s also no affect.

So we’re -- we’re beginning to recognize that perhaps the model that we’re using, the chemical model, might not be totally appropriate for electromagnetic fields.

And there is evidence of window affect. So there’s a frequency affect which we’re not concerned about here because we’re just dealing with just 60-hertz frequency. There’s an intensity affect. There’s also a time affect. Time of exposure seems to be critical.

So that’s -- that’s really all I want to say. [Written comments were submitted subsequently]

MR. MERTENSOTTO: As far as frequency is concerned, there’s no control over that. It’s universal throughout the country, isn’t it?

DR. HAVAS: Yes, but if you look at the entire electromagnetic spectrum you begin to deal with higher strengths, as well. Cell phones and computers, for example, have frequencies other than 60 hertz associated with.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. If you want to, you might -- because we did have a dissemination on these graphs that she just showed us. If you want to submit those to us and -- maybe part of our information gathering record, you may do so.

Okay. With that we’re now at 11:00. I think the reporter wants to change tapes and relax a little bit.

(Discussion was held off the record.)

MR. MERTENSOTTO: I think what we’re going to do now is we’re going to close off on the medical affects and we’re going to go into the options that were recommended by Commonwealth. Not so much a -- system-wide changes, I think, as we are talking about different ways of accomplishing the redundancy. Isn’t that the C, D and E options? Is that what you’re going to respond to?

DR. CONANT: We’re going to comment on the CAI report. We -- we have had a consultant review the CAI report. We have had a consultant review of the CAI report. I think we should report on that.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: All right. Let’s start with that right now.

DR. CONANT: We -- we’ve had a consultant review the CAI report. And the associates and I -- I’ve asked Mr. Dave Herridge, part of our group, to summarize to you the findings of our consultants -- the focus of the report has been submitted already to this committee in a timely fashion.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay. That’s what we would expect, a summary rather than don’t read the whole report because you can submit the report to us. Just summarize it for public interest.

MR. HERRIDGE: Yes, exactly. As you know, the report is in your packet and –

MR. TIFFANY: This is the one by David Schoengold.

MR. HERRIDGE: Yes, David Schoengold, at MSP Energy Associates. He did look at the complete CAI report and -- and in the sense of a peer review just offered a few comments. He didn’t --

VIDEO TECHNICIAN: Could this individual identify himself, please?

MS. GAYLORD: Identify yourself.

MR. HERRIDGE: My name is David Herridge. And, actually, I’m a resident of Mendota Heights. And it’s just by the fact that I haven an engineering degree that I’m recruited to -- to summarize this report for you today because David Schoengold could not be here. His -- his task as present -- as given to the -- by the power line -- the -- the neighborhood power line committee was -- was to look at that report and just make some comments on it.

Just to give you a little background on --on him briefly, he was a cofounder of MSB Energy Associates in ‘88. He’s had a long history of dealing with many complaints in many states on power line issues prior to starting his own consulting firm. He has 16 years of experience in the Wisconsin Public Service Commission involving forecasting, planning and modeling power lines. He also has a B.A. degree in physics.

He has critiqued the report in the sense of a peer review on six issues. And we’re just going to briefly go over each of these.

First, he looked at the need for the line. Second, he made some comments on the analytical methods to evaluate the alternatives. He did make some comments on the —alternative routes. Number four, he had some design comments on just the choices of the towers and the conductors that were used, some brief comments on the EMF considerations and then a few miscellaneous ones.

So to move through those, the first was the need for the line. He had a -- a pretty probing question on -- on the use of the double contingency for planning. The Mid-Continent Area Power Pool, to which Xcel belongs, uses a standard of a single contingency plan. He was a little confused as to why a double contingency plan was being used for the plan. There was really no justification in the report completed by CAI as to why it was escalated up to this level contingency standard. It’s not clear if that is -- doesn’t appear to be a policy requirement of a state or local authority. It’s not clear how universally Xcel applies that double contingency standard throughout.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: I understand that MAPP -- it’s Mid-Continental Power Pool.

MR. HERRIDGE: Yes.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: That applies to the entire state of Minnesota; is that correct?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, yes.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay.

MR. KLINE: Plus it is going well beyond that.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: But, I mean --

MR. HERRIDGE: It’s a regional --I think it extends beyond the state of Minnesota, upper Midwest.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: But it applies to the state of Minnesota, though.

MR. HERRIDGE: Yes.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Okay, continue on.

MR. HERRIDGE: So the use of -- of choosing to escalate the requirements to the double contingency standard is not clear in the CAI report as to why that was done.

He made that comment without -- without having done initial analysis, he made the comment that possibly in the single contingency planning standard this project might not be needed at all.

We saw some additional data this morning that would suggest that NSP or Xcel has -- has done some of that analysis, but it wasn’t included in the CAI report.

So I think the next issue on the need for the line was simply the load forecast. The analysis we saw today -- many of the analyses in the report -- it depends on the forecasted load -- is to -- to determine urgency for this upgrade. The MAPP -- or I’m sorry. Xcel presented originally a 2000 forecast of about 357 milliamps. It’s a number that talks about how much energy is going to be moving through the line, I guess, in simple terms. Around the same time MAPP presented a forecast for 2004 that was 283 milliamps expected from people --forecast different numbers. However, for the CAI analysis the load forecast for 2004 was up to 44 percent over the MAPP number, to 409 milliamps. So I’m sorry. Mega-volt amps.

You know, the -- the load on the line speaks directly to the urgency of this project. It’s perceived as urgent. All these double contingency things are going to start happening in the next few years because they are using the numbers that predict the load is going to be very high in the next couple years. There’s different ‘numbers that can be used. And though it’s not clear how CAI arrived at their estimate, but the direction they got to – to raise the estimate 44 percent up over what the regional power planning through MAPP suggested.

The next question on the need for the line as prepared by NSP is having to do with the competitive consideration for the deregulation of this industry. To read this portion directly for you, the Xcel report said that providing the delivery system that is independent of the generation supply location is important because of the dynamic energy sourcing market and the vertical restructuring occurring in this - -industry.

That is summarized by David Schoengold at MSB -- he said that possibly the electrical reasons for the upgrade are less important than the competitive ones. That simply they are trying to prepare for what’s happening in their industry. And the ability to move electricity back and forth across the metro area might mandate this more than the possible outages, especially depending upon what standard of contingency you want to apply.

And ‘in a -- in his -- his comments go on. These are excerpts from his report, which you have. But his comments go on to say if transmission is being built as a private good, rather than a public good, we do not see why the public should be forced to accept the placement of those facilities on their property.

Changing scope a little bit. He moved on to the analytical methods to evaluate these alternatives. He made the brief comments that -- that it was difficult to -- from the CAI report to really understand the long-term impact of these upgrades. You know, as far as servicing the whole southeast metro area, that he said it tended to focus on a small problem in one single year. And that was probably quite possibly due to the -- the scope of what they were told to do. So I -- I don’t think it’s --I mean, they were directed to keep the scope very narrow.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: Well, they were not asked to redesign the project.

MR. HERRIDGE: Exactly.

MR. MERTENSOTTO: They were asked to review Xcel’s project design and then determine ~and advise us if there were any alternatives to what they were suggesting.

MR. HERRIDGE: Yep. And I think -- and think I David Schoengold recognizes that in saying the scope was kept narrow. It’s difficult for him and from his perspective in a peer review of reading the report to really determine if the upgrade really meets the long-term needs of the Southeast Metro area. There were alternatives that were proposed. And some of them were excluded for reasons like, you know -- one of the alternatives later talked about upgrading the line running north and south it as goes back past Visitation. That was excluded because of the cosmetic affects of that line.

And his basic comment is saying, you know, are we sure they are not going to come back in even a couple years and need that upgrade anyway. You know, the line running over -- over the middle school, you know -- is that just three or four or five years away from needing upgrading? What were the long-term affects? This -- this upgrade that they have proposed is one piece of it. And they certainly have an understanding beyond this one piece within Xcel. None of that is evidence in --

MR. MERTENSOTTO: You’re talking about the Friendly Hills, Minnesota --

MR. HERRIDGE: Yes, yes. In other words, are we just a few years away from needing that upgraded, too? And those upgrades are just out there in our future, wouldn’t it be better to look at the big picture. And -- and he didn’t -- David Schoengold, as -- as an expert reviewer of that report, is basically saying none of that is presented in there. He can’t judge whether that long-term look is happening or not within -- within Xcel. We know, again, that’s not necessarily CAI’s fault. They were given a very narrow scope that should be the approach they would take.