Dirty Electricity

La Crosse Tribune, Dec 10, 2006 by Rindfleisch, Terry

The Mindoro Elementary principal and teacher said she for three years while doctors struggled to pinpoint the cause.

"When I was diagnosed with MS, I thought at least I had an explanation for my symptoms," Olstad said.

By fall 2002, she thought she wouldn't be able to teach anymore. "I was hanging on for my dear life, and I was so desperate," she said.

Then Bob Hardie, Melrose-Mindoro School Board president, called in Dave Stetzer of Stetzer Electric in Blair, Wis.

Stetzer, known for testing farms for stray voltage, had been taking home readings as well for dirty electricity. Also referred to as electrical pollution, it is caused when currents of a higher frequency than what the wires can carry create electric fields Stetzer contends can harm humans.

Dirty electricity can be produced by fluorescent lights, computers and other electronics, Stetzer said.

He found it in wires the elementary school, leading the school board in November 2002 to approve installing 100 of his high-frequency filters.

Staff were not told about the filters. But when they were in place, Olstad said, her health immediately improved. Within a few months, her MS symptoms went away.

"After the filters were put in, I was back in the world living," she said. "I haven't seen a doctor in four years for any medical problems."

Despite a growing number of similar stories, not everyone is as convinced as Olstad that dirty electricity exists.

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and Xcel Energy maintain no credible scientific evidence has been raised that suggests the electrical systen in Wisconsin is unsafe or causes any health problems in humans.

But the PSC does recognize stray voltage - small amounts of electricity that leak from power lines or farm wiring, sometimes affecting livestock.

The debate

"Dirty electricity has been a homegrown kind of movement," said Mark Cook, PSC senior manager. "The science community has not put its arms around this either, and it's hard to draft rules or guidelines, or to fix something, when we don't know what we're dealing with."

Cook said the PSC receives about a half-dozen dirty electricity complaints a year. Most problems have an electrical solution, he said. "We try to stick to the fundamentals of electricity, and usually there is an answer to the question of too much current," Cook said.

The PSC has one of the most comprehensive, programs in the country for stray voltage, he said, one that has helped reduce dairy livestock exposure by 75 percent.

While he contends the problem hasn't been defined, others were willing to explain what they considered to be dirty electricity.

Magda Havas, professor of environmental and resources studies at Trent University in Ontario, Canada, said dirty electricity is an electrical signal that deviates from a normal 60 hertz (cycles per second) sine wave.

"Dirty electricity is a ubiquitous pollutant that has been known to damage sensitive electronic equipment," Havas said. "Its effects on human health are just emerging."

Stetzer said dirty electricity refers to higher frequency electric currents than the power line frequencies, forming electrical fields that can cause currents to flow in humans.

"For some people with a hypersensitivity to electricity, it's like being in a microwave on low power," Stetzer said.

Modern technology, such as computers and other electronics, tends to produce these higher frequencies that are not filtered out.

"We're basically using 21st-century technology on 19th-century distribution lines," he said.

The 1972 oil embargo forced the U.S. to become more energy efficient, he said. Equipment is now being designed to operate using short pulses of current instead of continuous current.

"Most electrical loads were linear, operating on normal utility-supplied 60 hertz sine waves, but then with modern technology we had nonlinear loads," Stetzer said. "'The neutral wire is now overloaded with modern technology."

The groundswell

The only thing that had changed at Mindoro Elementary School in the past 10 to 15 years was the amount of technology and electronics, said Melrose-Mindoro Superintendent Ron Perry.

So the district bought into Stetzer's dirty electricity argument to the tune of $17,000.

What happened next amazed Char Sbraggia, the district's nurse for more than 15 years.

Many of the school's 37 asthmatic students no longer needed nebulizer treatments to improve breathing. No asthmatics needed emergency treatment, she said, and all felt better and had more energy.

Students diagnosed with migraines had less trouble and teachers who complained of fatigue felt better, Sbraggia said. Absences and illnesses dropped.

"The big difference was in Angela," Sbraggia said. "She was one sick woman who suddenly was back to her healthy self."

The district put filters in all three of its buildings.

"The results were immediate," Perry said. "People felt less fatigued and quit getting headaches."

Perry said many people are skeptical when he talks about dirty electricity and filters.