Are electrical substations dangerous for pets?

Question

There is a possibility that a power company will be building a substation across the road from our house. You always hear the joke "did you live under power lines as a kid?" I was wondering what if any effect that kind of voltage could have on pets. Obviously from a distance, I know its dangerous if they get inside the fence. :-)

Answer 1

The myth of heath risks associated with transmission line EMF has been widely discredited.

See page 10 of the link below. (Text has been cut and pasted here)

The idea that power lines may be linked to cancer is one of TWENTY OF THE GREATEST BLUNDERS IN SCIENCE IN THE LAST TWENTY YEARS. So says Judith Newman in the October issue of Discover magazine, which is published by the Disney Co. "Currents That Don’t Kill" is #9 on the list, which also includes Chernobyl, cold fusion and the Iridium project. Newman states that the Clinton administration "estimates that American taxpayers have paid $25 billion to determine that power lines don’t do anything more deadly than deliver power". She explains that, "After several enormous epidemiological studies in Canada, Britain and the United States, the danger was completely discounted". Her source is Dr. Robert Park, the physicist-lobbyist, whom she quotes as saying that power frequency fields can’t be associated with cancer because they can’t break chemical bonds and, more generally, that the whole business is "preposterous".

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IEEE Spectrum turns to another physicist, Dr. Richard Coren, to quell any fears about the safety of power line EMFs. In the July issue, Dr. Robert Ashley expressed his concern that electric fields might present a health risk (see MWN, J/A00). In the September issue, Coren of Drexel University in Philadephia responds that Ashley is all wrong and that there is really nothing to worry about. After giving the reader an introduction to epidemiological research, Coren states: "Today, there is a more definitive consensus [than six years ago] that the statistics, combined with the lack of a credible mechanism, yield no indication of an effect on humans of very low-frequency [EMFs] from power lines. This has been stated unequivocally by several authoritative sources," such as the provincial government of British Columbia, Canada.

Answer 2

A residential substation is not dangerous to live near. The voltages are relatively low. Its nowhere near the voltages of the power lines. The harmful effects of power lines are debatable and the evidence of any problems is patchy.

Answer 3

I have worked around it for 55 year and have no bad effects. I was inside the fence most of the time.