"Will You Feel Safe?" A Mother in Gaithersburg Writes the WSSC

August 15, 2020

Dear Commissioners,

As a ratepayer and stakeholder of the proposed Advanced Meter Infrastructure project, I am incited by the partial picture painted by the AMI project team in their latest presentation. It is incomplete, biased and makes a sham of WSSCWater’s mission statement.

1.    Public Input.Not onepublic comment from dozens of ratepayers opposing the project is represented in the August 19, 2020 AMI Project Update. Many traveled great distances and took time off from work and family to invest in this process. Yet there is no mention — not even on the Lessons Learned slide — of the educated testimony about the possible health¹effects and data privacy²infringements AMI presents. 

This failure makes a farce of the emails I receive stating, “Public Input Welcome.” In fact, it is not.

This action nullifies the sincerity of your Mission Statement,³which promises: 

• “…employees who act ethically, are accountable, and conduct ourselves with integrity and transparency.” These attributes are falsified by the lack of incorporating public comments.

• “We achieve the highest level of quality, safety, productivity, and cost-effectiveness, demonstrating world class service to everyone.” Safety and cost-effectiveness (see below) will notbe upheld with a shift to AMI. You should also strike “everyone.” Thousands of your customers oppose AMI.

2.    Costs.As a ratepayer, I insist on seeing a cost comparison: replacing handheld meter reading devices and training staff VS. scrapping everything and building a new platform (AMI). This calculation is conspicuously absent in the narrative. As per the Dominion case in Virginia,⁴we know that smart meters are not cost effective and exploit the “captive” ratepayer.

Then there are the environmental costs. A conversion to smart meters produces an avoidable waste steam of junked, yet operational, analog meters. This will necessitate the removal of your “Environmental Stewardship” claim in the Mission Statement: “We continuously enhance and protect natural resources and the environment for the health of future generations.”

3.    Job loss. As you know, the state of Maryland and the global workforce struggle with sudden, unexpected unemployment due to pandemic-related layoffs. The AMI project will dismiss WSSC workers in droves. This is more than unfortunate. It sends a message to the people of Maryland that WSSC values automation over job protection and creation.

I now realize that the hours I have spent researching and writing this testimony is time wasted. You are not listening. At least I know I tried, and that I spoke up for thousands of residents and over 1,800 employees, including those out of the road this very day who are supporting their families, while you work safely from the comfort of your homes. Will you feel as safe there with a smart meter pulsing all day long just outside your, or your child’s bedroom window? Listen to yourself, if not me.

- A Mother in Gaithersburg  

¹ https://www.sej.org/publications/tipsheet/many-are-claiming-health-problems-caused-smart-meters

²“Are Smart Meters A Waste of Money?” KCET.ORG, December, 2012— “Data to be collected by the smart meters, including intimate personal details of citizens' lives, is not necessary to the basic purpose of the smart grid -- supply/demand balancing, demand response (DR), dynamic pricing, renewable integration, or local generation and storage -- as promoters of the meters, and uninformed parties, routinely claim. Instead, the meter data is serving to create an extraneous market for consumer data mining and advertising (i.e., "big data" analytics). Even those critical of smart meter deployments often seem to uncritically accept the myth that the meters somehow help manage electricity supply and demand.”
“In April 2013 the first reports were issued: the most striking fact to emerge, was that the San Diego Gas & Electric company had disclosed, pursuant to legal process, the records of 4,062 customers. It's not clear, from the report, who asked for and received those records, and why. Aside from governmental monitoring, energy data harvesting, or hacking by third parties could also be possible,” https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2014/06/01/smart-meters-friends-or-foes-between-economic-benefits-and-privacy-concerns/#1ea2c79563a6

³https://www.wsscwater.com/about-us/overview.html

 

⁴https://www.nbc12.com/2020/05/04/regulators-refuse-reconsider-denial-dominions-smart-meter-plan/