Smart water meter installed in Waiuku without consent
This morning www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz received an email from a concerned resident of Huia Street in Waiuku to say that on Monday (February 29, 2016) she found a card in her letter box informing her that a smart water meter had been installed for her home as part of a trial.
This home owner did not consent to the installation of this device which is designed to produce microwave radiation to send data about water use. In fact just the previous Friday she had received notification from the company that her “water meter did not need to be replaced.”
According to Watercare’s website the smart water meters that it is installing will transmit only once per day; however this information cannot be independently verified at this stage as the company did not state the make and model of the meter on its website. (The type of smart water meter trialed in Tairua transmits every eight seconds.)
The type of radiation produced by smart water meters (and smart electricity meters) has been classified as possible carcinogen (class 2B) by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.
In addition smart water meter also have the potential to be used as a surveillance device. (See this link for details: https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/government-and-electricity-industry-positions/how-smart-water-meters-invade-privacy/ )
More information about the situation in Waiuku will be posted on this website (in the smart water meters section) soon as it is available.
If you are in Waiuku (or live anywhere in the Auckland region as a whole, since if the Waiuku trial is considered to be successful, the smart water meters may be rolled out to other parts of the area administered by Auckland Council) and wish to refuse to have a smart water meter installed at your home, there is a template letter you may like to consider adapting for your own use at this link:
More information about smart waters meters may be found at the archive on this site:
https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/category/smart-water-meters-2/
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NB: If you would like to keep up to date with the smart meter issue in NZ, please sign up to the free email list at www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz Thank you
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