10/03/2026
DRIFTLESS - In an enlightening and terrifying presentation on Thursday, September 17, Theodora Scarato from Environmental Health Sciences, made clear that the United States has no regulations for electromagnetic fields (EMF) from power lines.
The group ‘No 765 Line, Inc,’ will host a public edu-cation event on Sunday, October 25, from 1 to 3 p.m., at the North Crawford School District Performing Arts Center. The topic will be ‘Nature on the Line,’ and will feature three speakers on environmental and geo-logical implications of the proposed 765 kV transmission line.
Prior to Scarato’s remarks last Thursday, rural Seneca singer/songwriter Larry Long, performed his song, ‘Want Nothing to Do with Line 765.’ Long plans to use the song in an upcoming video opposing the line, and will host a recording at Leo and Leona’s in Bangor on Octo-ber 7, starting at 5 p.m.
“Larry was called the ‘Farmer's Troubadour’ on the American Agriculture Movement's tractorcade to Washington D.C. in 1979. They were fighting for a living wage for farmers and against the big transmission lines that were going to come through Minnesota at that time,” CAM 765 attor-ney Erik Olsen said in his introduction of the musi-cian. “And partly as a result of their work, Minnesota now has a wonderful piece of legislation called the ‘Buy the Farm Law,’ which mandates that any time that a big transmission company goes through a family farm, if they break it, they have to offer to buy it.”
Following his perfor-mance, Scarato began with, “communities deserve safe-ty, and there needs to be strong regulations to protect people from all of the issues that power lines bring, but especially from the electro-magnetic fields. We don't have that, and we need that now.”
Scarato told the citizens assembled in the North Crawford School District’s Performing Arts Center she’d gotten involved in this work because there was a power line near her home, and she wanted to know, if it was safe.
“It was a basic question, and I delved into this rabbit hole and have been working in the policy angle ever since, with a focus on pub-lic health protection for my kids and my family,” Scar-ato explained. “Because what I learned was that there are hundreds of studies that have found effects, and yet there are no regulations on high voltage power line EMF. They really fail to protect us.”
Scarato emphasized that there are no federal safety standards for EMF, the elec-tric and magnetic fields off power lines. She showed an image of people, holding incandescent light bulbs, standing under a power line. When the bulbs are touched to the ground, they light up from the EMFs circulating around them coming off the line.
“That is from the energy, the electromagnetic energy that comes off the lines into the air, and then into the tube. It also creates currents in our bodies, and that is where scientists are con-cerned,” Scarato stated.
Safety thresholds
Scarato explained that the power industry alleges that exposures to EMF below 9,100 milligaus are safe. Milligaus is the unit of measurement used by scien-tists and safety experts to measure extremely low fre-quency electromagnetic fields from power lines and home appliances.
However, that number of 9,100 milligaus is based on a short-term exposure that would produce an acute effect. The industry freely admits that this is not a safety threshold for long term, chronic exposure. She said that when industry says it meets all regulations, those are for nerve stimula-tion in the body from short-term exposure, not long-term, low-level exposure that you would get if you're very close to a high-voltage power line.
“The World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer had a meeting in 2002, where they convened scientists to look at all of the science and consider to what degree it showed that there was cancer risk, and what did the scientific evidence show? At that time, they determined that it was a possible human carcinogen based on the consistent findings of childhood leu-kemia in people who lived very close to the lines,” Scarato shared. “The science has continued to show childhood leukemia linked to living near high-powered transmission lines.”
Scarato explained that in multiple studies from around the world, the level of EMF exposure associated with childhood leukemia is 3-4 milligaus – not 9,100.
“That's why many countries like the Netherlands has the four milligaus level as their policy for homes. They don't allow new builds, if it's going to be over that. They also bought up homes that were under-neath lines or near lines where the level would ex-ceed four milligaus” Scarato told the group. “Other countries that have adopted pro-tective, regulatory levels include Belgium, Israel, Sweden, and more.”
Scarato said that the gov-ernments in these countries will go in and measure schools and measure com-munities and make sure that the level is lower than that level associated with child-hood leukemia. She said that Sweden aims for four milligaus near homes, and levels higher than that trig-ger an investigation. If the level is high, then the power company needs to come in and say, “Why? Can we make it lower? How can we do that?” And they hold them accountable on that issue.
In the question-and-answer period following Scarato’s remarks, one au-dience member asked if burying the lines helped to mitigate risk, and if so, by how much?
“Undergrounding is the best mitigation for electro-magnetic fields because the lines are more together, and it can mitigate the magnetic field, and it also deals with the electric fields. So the best practice mitigation would be undergrounding the lines,” Scarato replied. “These high voltage power lines shouldn't be near schools and homes, and that's why undergrounding is the best thing to do be-cause that actually mitigates it even more. When the lines are close together, they cancel each other out, and the EMFs and the magnetic fields can get canceled to a degree, so it can be less exposure. It doesn't go as high or as far.”
Studies cited
Scarato shared infor-mation from Joseph Bow-man, who used to be the expert at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). She said that years ago, all the agencies in the federal government had a working group. They would gather, and look at the research. They were all also doing research in their respective agencies, but Bowman was the lead on precautionary strategies for reducing worker exposures to extremely low electromagnetic frequencies as a possible carcinogen.
“In 2016, he issued his recommendations to reduce worker exposure below what the industry said was safe at 9,100. There's another limit for 2,000. That's what industry says is safe for magnetic fields. However, they never issued these recommendations,” Scarato said. “He worked hard on this issue. Unfortunately, he's passed away. He pub-lished research. This is a paper recommending reduc-ing exposure, saying that it could have economic bene-fits because of the decreased disability time that would happen for workers who got sick.”
She explained that the U.S. had no federal safety limits.
“We have no federal safe-ty limits, because what hap-
pened was the EPA was completely defunded on this issue. We don't have any official limits in this country as to what's safe, based on a full science-based re-view, there's no research ongoing right now. The interagency work group's defunct, and that's where we are,” Scarato explained.
She said that back in the 90s, the EPA was develop-
ing safety limits, and coming out with an opinion – does it cause cancer or not? She said the report never saw the light of day.
“They had originally said that it was a probable car-
cinogen, and it actually got redrafted and rewritten. And the higher ups said that it couldn't say that, and then it got shelved, and that's the state of affairs,” Scarato shared. “They released it under Freedom of Infor-mation Act (FOIA), so you can actually see a later version, but not that first version. But there's reporting on it because that was leaked. So, we have no federal safety limits and no pre-market safety testing.”
Another researcher Scarato cited is Dr. David Carpenter. He works with the International Commission for the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields. He has published a paper in Environmental Research.
“It's a very important paper because he looked at all the science on childhood leukemia and power lines, and actually other cancers, and found that if you take what is industry funded, and then look at what is government or independent funded, that you see a pat-tern, which is that the industry funded studies more often do not show an effect, whereas the independent studies do more often show an effect,” Scarato explained. “He summarizes why there should be protective setbacks for high voltage transmission lines based on the science that we have now. There is more than enough research to say we know enough to know that we should mitigate risk. It's just common sense - espe-cially for children. He says in the paper on industry funding, when one allows for the bias reflected in source of funding, the evidence that magnetic fields increase the risk of cancer is neither inconsistent nor inconclusive.”
Scarato made clear that adults are also at risk, not just children, as there is strong evidence for in-creased risk of brain and breast cancer. There’s also several studies on Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.
“There was an 18-year study of over 3.5 million people linking the levels of electromagnetic fields from high-voltage power lines to increased risk of Alzheimer's,” Scarato detailed. “And associations were much lower than that 9,100 number that the industry uses as their limit. They were found at the 1-3 milligaus level.”
Another researcher Scarato cited is Dr. Dikm Lee with Kaiser Permanente. He did a study where he had pregnant women wear a monitor around their abdomen, and then measured their levels of EMF on a typical day of air exposure from short-term exposure, not long-term. He followed them throughout their pregnancy, and he followed the children, and he found increased risk of miscarriage. He then replicated the study with a larger group. He also found increased obesity and asthma in the children. In another study with men, he found damage to s***m.
Another researcher is Henry Lai, formerly at the University of Washington and editor in chief of ‘Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine.’ Scarato said that about every six months, he compiles how many studies have been published on the topic of EMF levels and health. Dr. Joel Moskowitz at UC-Berkeley has a science blog that will share the information. The information shared showed that:
• 319 out of 353 studies since 1990, 84% of the studies on genetic impacts found effects
• 363 of the 424 studies published since 1990 on neurological effects, 92% showed effects
• 364 of the 397 studies since 2007, 78% of the studies on reproduction and development found effects.
“There needs to be protective regulations in place, and we don't have that yet. We're rolling out these massive high voltage power lines that are unstudied for effects,” Scarato emphasized. “The EMF scientist appeal was issued in 2015. It's now been signed by 240 scientists from 40 countries, all whom have published in the peer-reviewed literature, and they are calling for urgent action to protect the public.”
Wildlife impacts
Scarato told the group she had co-published a paper with Dr. Henry Lai and several other experts about the impacts on fauna and flora of EMFs. She said there are no safety standards developed by anyone – not industry or governments – to protect our wildlife or our animals.
She explained that farmers are concerned about stray voltage. She described stray voltage as the electromagnetic current from, for example, a high voltage power line, entering metal objects in its vicinity. From there, the current goes into the ground and can travel significant distances. In a dairy barn in proximity to a line, there can be an electrical issue resulting in behavior changes in the cows. The animals become upset and don’t make as much milk.
“Farmers are very cognizant of this issue and trying to fix it. It can really have a huge impact, and it has to do with how electricity can affect the body, even at low levels, and especially for mammals,” Scarato shared. “This is a 2013 review that that concluded after looking at the research that the actionable level should be lowered 140 times lower than the standard, and our bodies are electrical. The way our brain, our cells communicate in our bodies has to do with electricity. It's life. This is true for all mammals.”
Scarato said that in their paper, they looked at birds, bees, trees, and honey, but especially honeybees. One particular study called ‘Electromagnetic Fields Disrupt the Pollination Ser-vice by Honeybees.’ This was published in 2023. She said they studied bees that were near and far from power lines, energized and not energized.
“They found changes to the honey bees in increased physiological stress, altered expression of genes, reduced visitation to the flowers, impaired pollination behavior. They didn't pollinate in the same way, and that changed how they for-aged, and it also altered the plant communities because they weren't acting like they normally did, and there were actually different plants that grew because of that, and changes to the way the plants were,” Scarato detailed. “The authors of the study concluded that their study provides strong evidence of detrimental effects of EMFs on honeybees visitation and plant reproduction, and may contribute to explaining, at least in part, the global pollination crisis that risks the adequate production of many crops.”
She said that corona dis-charge from high voltage power lines is also an issue for wildlife that can see the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum of light. She said it makes these power lines emit hissing and crackling noise, and creates UV. This causes animals to avoid power lines. She cited a PBS article, ‘Power Lines look like Terrifying Bursts of Light’ to animals, written by Dr. Nicholas Tyler. He alleges that the result is habitat fragmentation, which he says is the principal global threat to biodiversity.
“An article published in 2018 looked at 815 studies and found that most showed negative effects. There's impacts to animals, plants, and ecological communi-
ties,” Scarato explained. “It's not just the digging, but the impacts can last into the operation phase. There's changes in species abundance, bird collisions and electrocutions, habitat loss and fragmentation, and altered predator-prey relation-ships.”
She said that research on the impacts of EMF on birds has found impacts to behavior, reproduction, growth and development, hormonal regulation, immune function, oxidative stress, and impacts to physiology and metabolism.
Last, she detailed that with high voltage power lines comes an increased risk of fire.
“California firefighters are concerned about this. Some of the most destructive fires in California have been caused by the power line - lack of maintenance and faults,” Scarato said. “Communities deserve safety, and there needs to be strong regulations to protect people from all of the issues that power lines bring, but especially from the electromagnetic fields. We don't have that, and we need that now.”
