Coalition to Oppose High-Tension Wires

Residents in Fountain Valley and North Tustin have joined forces to fight what they believe is a danger in their neighborhoods--electromagnetic fields generated by electrical equipment.

In Fountain Valley, parents are worried about children attending schools near high-tension wires. In North Tustin, an unincorporated area, residents are fighting Southern California Edison’s plan to build a substation in a residential neighborhood.

Pointing to studies suggesting a possible link between electromagnetic fields and some cancers, activists in both cities plan to gather facts about electromagnetic fields--an increasingly controversial topic--and support each other in their respective fights.

“We’ve joined ranks,” said Gary HousHolder, who has held two community meetings at his North Tustin home behind the substation site. “We’re going to support their call to go to any of their hearings or meetings when something comes up where there’s a support group needed and vice versa.”

HousHolder and others plan to attend tonight’s Fountain Valley School District board meeting, where the issue is again on the agenda.

Supt. Ruben Ingram will present the board with information he has gathered on the topic, including an excerpt from a recent article in The New Yorker magazine that mentions the electromagnetic readings at Fountain Valley schools.

Board members are also scheduled to discuss pending legal action in closed session, according to attorneys for the district and the parents group. A lawsuit filed by parents originally centered on the closure of Fountain Valley Elementary School, but the focus has shifted to environmental conditions at other schools, particularly Roch Courreges Elementary School.

Attorney Allen Brandt, who is representing the Fountain Valley parent group, said at a board meeting two weeks ago that if the school district does not perform independent tests of electromagnetic fields at all 12 of its schools by the end of the month, he will pursue the existing lawsuit and file others.

Edison officials have offered to take electromagnetic readings at all of the schools in the district, but the 50 or so parents active in the group say that is not enough. So far, tests by parents, school officials and Edison representatives have found widely divergent levels of electromagnetic intensity.

While some research links long-term exposure to the fields with a increased risk of leukemia and brain tumors, power company officials and some scientists say no proof exists that electromagnetic fields pose a health threat.

“Thirty years ago, you heard that there was no study that directly linked smoking to lung cancer,” said Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, whose district includes Fountain Valley and North Tustin. “That is not the case today. It depends on what stage you’re at in gathering your information and data.”

Stanton said he favors taking independent readings at Fountain Valley schools and has asked that readings be included in an environmental impact report of the North Tustin substation.

“This is a new field that we have to get into,” Stanton said. “When we do environmental health tests, we don’t go running out there with gauss meters (the instruments used to measure electromagnetic fields). We take air, water and soil samples.”