Subject: Bridlewood is closed.....(Woodley)
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 093331 -0600 (CST)
From: "Roy L. Beavers"
To: emfguru
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Hi everybody:
It is with sincere regret that I forward the following....
Richard's hard work, dedication and VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION will be
sorely missed.....!!!
As he asks, we will carry on.... We will persevere.....
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
roy@emfguru.com
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
NEW!!! Website... http://emfguru.com
...................People are more important than profits.................
The Bridlewood Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) Information Service Has Been
Closed
The site as it was when it closed has been [1]mirrored at the Swedish
FEB site. A [2]zip file of the complete site as it was when it closed
is available at Wave-Guide. The Bridlewood Bibliography on
Electromagnetic Fields and Health is now being maintained by Pamela
Schreiner. A link to the new location will be posted here when it is
available. If you are interested in electromagnetic fields and health
you may also want to visit these sites.
* EMF guru website (home of EMF-L)
* The EMR Network
* Wave-Guide
You might also wish to join the EMR-EMF mailing list.
Final Words
When I first got involved in this struggle in the Bridlewood community
in Kanata (just outside Ottawa, Ontario) it was by attending a meeting
at a school in a neighbouring community. Our community did not have a
community centre, or even a school then. But there were plans for a
new school - beside existing 230 kV power lines that were proposed to
be upgraded to 500kV. That route had been chosen even though the
community and city council had opposed it. After the official task
force that the city established was disbanded a news article in the
Ottawa Citizen about the health effects of electromagnetic fields
raised new interest and led to the formation of an activist residents
group - The Bridlewood Residents Hydro Line Committee (BRHLC).
I became involved and my role soon evolved into the job of drafting
information handouts for the community. Information on electromagnetic
fields was not easily accessible at that time - there was not a lot in
the press then and the Internet was unknown. Much of our information
was gathered by a few registered nurses on the committee at the
medical library at the University of Ottawa - going through scientific
journals.
We were also fortunate to have some electrical engineers on our
committee that were able to work with Ontario Hydro technical
officials to gather information for us and evaluate the technical
information provided by Ontario Hydro.
We waged a long struggle to attempt to get the decision overturned:
first attempting to get a Joint Board of the Ontario Energy Board and
Ontario Municipal Board to reverse the ruling; then attempting to get
the Ontario Cabinet to overturn the ruling; and finally in the courts,
where Ontario Hydros financial resources finally overwhelmed us.
We did however have many victories. We mobilized our community and had
hundreds picketing a visit of the Premier to Ottawa. We blockaded
Ontario Hydro construction vehicles and were threatened with arrest,
as the Energy Minister was rising in the Legislature to order Ontario
Hydro to cease construction until Cabinet had considered our appeal.
But in the end the lines went up and most members of the community and
the committee went on to other things.
The greatest victory that we can claim is that of raising awareness of
the EMF issue, not only in our community but nationally and
internationally. Our struggle was featured on national news programs
of both Canadian television networks - CBCs The Journal and CTVs W5.
Our legacy was the information we had gathered and I did not want to
see that lost. When the National Capital Freenet was formed it
provided a community network and text access to the Internet. It also
provided a place for community groups to put their information on the
Internet. I became one of the first information providers on the
freenet, in the name of the BRHLC. Most of the information I had put
together for the committee was put on the freenet in a text format.
Later, as the freenet made HTML-based web sites available to
information providers, I converted the information to web format as
the Bridlewood Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) Information Service and
dropped the reference to the BRHLC. The web site grew from there, with
new features and information added and links to other sites and
resources included.
The site has done its job. It provided public information on EMFs when
very little was available. It has now been joined by many other sites
that provide information to the public. With the archival arrangements
that have been made the information on the site will live on, and I
would like to thank Wave-Guide and FEB for providing the archiving of
the site.
I would like to express a great deal of gratitude to Pamela Schreiner
for agreeing to take over the Bridlewood Bibliography on
Electromagnetic Fields and Health and continuing to update it. I
believe the bibliography to be perhaps the most important resource
that was provided by the Bridlewood web site.
I would also like to thank Wolfgang Scherer for taking over the
administration of the EMR-EMF mailing list. Although the list is still
in its infancy, I believe it is very important the EMF community has a
means of communication that belongs to it collectively and that is
open and unfiltered.
But much is left to be done and I leave that to others, many who have
been fighting this battle as long as I have, but more importantly, I
hope, to a new generation of activists. Although the Bridlewood web
site, and others, have raised public awareness, what we lack are real
"hard" resources for activists - Internet access to the text of
scientific papers and studies; EMF related decisions by public bodies,
municipal by-laws and moratoriums; standards that are being adopted;
court rulings; contact lists of experts and lawyers, etc. Those of you
continuing the struggle need to work co-operatively to provide those
kinds of resources.
This struggle has been very rewarding for me. Not only have I learned
much about the subject of EMFs, but I have also learned a lot about
the Internet and HTML. But time takes its toll and it was starting to
become a chore, and with that the quality of the site would be sure to
have diminished.
It is time for me to bow out of this struggle - to get on with my life
and to expand on my other interests. It will give me a chance to
return to an old hobby of photography, but now in this new age,
digital photography. Instead of posting information on EMFs on the
Internet you will now find me posting photographs.
I leave you all with best wishes in the continuing struggle.
February 29, 2000
Richard W. Woodley
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com