patrick.net

Just because there is no credible evidence doesn't mean its "very safe." No study I've ever read proved EMFs are 100% safe.

At the same time, there has never been a study that shows a dose-response relationship between EMF and any medical problem. When reporting its research, even the EPA said it would not use the "carcinogen" label until it could demonstrate how EMFs caused cancer and exactly how much EMF is harmful. But to re-iterate, they did not say it was "safe" either.

It then boils down to one's personal tolerance and perception given the information available.

No danger from EMF ... huge danger from small aircraft ...

I can find just as many "credible" source that say that there were increased cases of leukemia when near high levels of EMF for an extended period. I would be a little concerned if you had kids under the age of 5. Your bigger concern would be any noise/sparks coming from it.

There is just enough evidence that I wouldn't buy a place within 100m of high tension power lines.

Took 30 seconds to find this with google...
http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/HealthResearchJournals.aspx?ChunkID=94085

Thanks everyone. This is helpfl information

I once went out on a "trouble call" and as I was finishing up, the customer complained about all their paper clips moving on their desk. Long story short, approx. 18" away, on the other side of the wall was a 250KVA 480/277 transformer. Now that's too close for 8 hrs/day. The gauss field gets exponentially weaker the farther one gets from the source. Power lines - no problem. Electric blankets ... don't know. Close transformers for extended periods ... not good.

I have powerlines at the end of my back yard .....about 60 feet away from our house..
Infact when I was in india powerlines are in every street- those are not underground.

@cloud13 there are distribution lines and then there are transmission lines. The levels of EMF are quite different between them and the fields weaken with the inverse square of the distance. So, a distribution line at 60 feet is not the same as a 768KV transmission line at 60 feet.

Pretty much everyone lives near the low voltage distribution lines. How do you think the electricity gets into your house...?

I would also be concerned about any electromagnetic interference from high tension lines. Or is it just regular power lines to the house?

Y'all are missing the point. Safety isn't necessarily the issue. The issue is when it comes time to sell the property. Scientific or not, a significant number of potential buyers are turned off by power lines.

I agree that there are no health concerns with power lines; I just think that a gigantic wave of power lines blasting through the neighborhood is a huge eyesore. I don't want to walk out into my backyard and see only power lines, with no trees growing near it because they were all cut down when the lines went up.

Several of the posters have brought up some important parameters of radiation, namely "frequency" and "non-ionizing". There is also the issue of heating (or "Joule heating") from radiation.

These parameter are two sides of the same coin: For an electromagnetic field to be ionizing, the frequency has to be very high, in the higher end of the ultraviolet light frequency range (above visible light).

Ionizing means "able to knock electrons away from atoms or molecules". i.e. turning atoms into ions. That's how real damage to cell DNA can happen.

As for frequency, power lines carry 60Hz currents. They are nowhere near a 100nm far UV light, which is 3*10^15 Hz (3 000 000 000 000 000 000 Hz).

Wrt. to heating, power lines are no good at heating a nearby bucket of water, even if placed directly on top of it, because the frequency of the radiated electromagnetic field is much too low.

Power lines are even less able to ionize molecules than they are to heat molecules.

Now, if we cannot even think of a basic mechanism for the 60Hz field to affect molecules in our body, and we know already that cancer by radiation is indeed due to the mechanism of ionization, where does that leave us?

I think it means that it is extremely unlikely that 60Hz power causes anything at all. The strong California sun, on the other hand, contains lots of UV and is quite dangerous to your health, starting with skin cancer.

So I'm looking at the Redfin link and I don't see any power lines. Are you talking about the distribution lines that bring power into your house? Those are EVERYWHERE in the Bay Area. I have them running behind my house. This is not cause for concern.

However, High-tension transmission lines like this:

I wouldn't want to live underneath. The dog park we go to is underneath them and you can hear them crackling and buzzing all the time