What’s fair? I have two boys whose ages are ten and seven. I allow my older boy to do things that my younger son can not do. I also give, or as the older son might say, “demand” more responsibilities from him than his younger sibling. Fairness will be debated for years. I believe it should be. I also feel that when an expert sees a problem that problem should be presented. It is that interior moral debate that has stimulated this article.

Utility easements are a necessity to all people. They allow us to maintain a modern society without the creation of individual, communal, or statewide sources of energy. Needless to say, Washington, DC and New York City will never have a major nuclear power plant and Suburban, USA will by no means see a large hydro-electric reservoir in their back yard. The cost or security makes it prohibitive. Most of us are fortunately the recipients of energy that is created elsewhere, and are blessed to not have monstrous towers that deliver this energy within view of our house. We benefit from the overhead wires that flow along our yards or under our streets to merge into our landscape, almost without notice.

So, is it fair that others have to sacrifice their landscape for our energy? Is it fair for the owner of a power easement to benefit from the sale of that easement, while his neighbors have to look at these monstrous towers? As a REALTOR® I can say that real estate values decline and days on market increase when a supertower is near the subject property. - In a informal poll conducted on VARBuzz by the Virginia Association of REALTORS® most said that amount was between 20% - 40%. Debates on health and the responsibility of parents to protect their children from harmful effects of EMF, electromagnetic force, can be strongly debated during the presentation of these properties. For those that believe there is no harm with these towers, or can assuredly state - to their satisfaction - that EMFs have no effect to ones health; I can only state that the problem lies with what one thinks a property is worth, not on the harm EMFs can or can not produce. My experience is in real estate, not science or medicine.

What is fair? We need to maintain this dialogue because our society allows utility companies to have access through eminent domain. As a democracy we should not grant permanent control of these easements. I believe these easements should be a loan, not a right. By allowing total domination we reduce our ability to voice our concerns. We need to realize that America is not the country of 125-years ago when transmission lines and rail tracks traveled for miles on open sparsely populated land. This America has become compacted with communities that were built before the tern EMF was popularized. It is fair to say that science and the way we live will change greatly in the next 125-years. For the sake of fairness, we need to have business models in place that allow our descendants to make appropriate legislation for their lives.

Filed under: Buyer, Education, Seller on September 19th, 2009