Toronto 300 Front Street West | 156.05m | 49s | Tridel | Wallman Architects

There are some studies that suggest a slightly increased risk of certain types of cancer from prolonged exposure to nearby hydro transmission lines / substations. However, just as many studies find no significant effect.

The problem is that every study done (that I am aware of) had surveyed too few people for anything approaching statistical certainty. They would look at (for example) 50,000 people who had spent at least 25 years within 100m of a hydro transmission line, and would find twice as many instances of a particular type of cancer, 4 cases instead of the expected 2 cases. This could obviously be due to random variation, and in fact, given the existence of hundreds of different types of cancer, it is absolutely expected for a certain number of types of cancer to show up more often than the expected number of cases, simply due to random variation.

The most important cancer rate, which HAS been determined with sufficiently large numbers of cases to indicate high confidence in the result, is the total cancer rate. And that is precisely the same as the rate for people who do not live near hydro transmission lines -- the two rates are identical within expected random variation.

The one possible statistically significant exception is a particular type of childhood leukemia, which may be about 60% more likely among those living near hydro transmission lines, but this is a rare type of cancer and the total increased risk is still very very small. I would guess that the increased risk of being killed crossing the street due to living downtown would be considerably greater than the increased risk of contracting this type of cancer.

I personally would have no qualms about living at 300 Front -- at least not due to any (unlikely) increased cancer risk.
 
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The drone noise this substation emits is irritating enough.
 
I think that if something has any hint of a risk, there is a risk. You don't really know if something is harmful to you till perhaps 5, 10 or 15 years down the road. By the time you find out, it is too late. There are saying prolonged cellphone use can give you brain cancer. The same number of studies indicate that it isn't true. So are you going to take a risk for not using a wired (not Bluetooth) hands-free?
 
TOBoy said:
I think that if something has any hint of a risk, there is a risk. You don't really know if something is harmful to you till perhaps 5, 10 or 15 years down the road. By the time you find out, it is too late. There are saying prolonged cellphone use can give you brain cancer. The same number of studies indicate that it isn't true. So are you going to take a risk for not using a wired (not Bluetooth) hands-free?
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A hint of a risk is not a risk. A risk is a measurable potential for something to happen. A hint of a risk is a fearful mind looking at random data and seeing what it wants to see (ie something to fear).

If cellphones caused brain cancer, we wouldn't have to wait 5, 10, 15 years. There would be many "canary in the coal mine" cases - people who developed brain tumours due to excessive cellphone use in a short period of time. This would show as a spike in brain cancer rates. So far, this has not been observed. So, as of now, it appears that cellphones do not cause brain cancer. It should probably be noted, as well, that people have been using cellphones for at least ten years.

The situation is even more clear cut for hydro lines. Hydro substations and power lines have existed for decades. If there was any issue with them, we would see broad corridors of brain cancer around them. This has also not been observed.

It should probably be noted that while you sit at your computer, there are thousands of unseen energy waves passing through you: radio waves, microwave transmissions, cosmic rays, etc, etc. Keeping your cellphone away from your head is not stopping all of the transmissions from all the other cellphones around you from passing through your brain. And, really, if you are that concerned, putting your cellphone transmitter near your groin is just going to move the cancer to another, perhaps equally valuable place.
 
I tend to agree with Parkdalian. I read the articles on power stations and lines, and it just didnt add up to anything tangible. The fear of getting cancer from living near power lines seems likely to have stemmed from an urban myth or child's fantasy, an old wives tale, etc... 300 Front is not the only building nearby, CBC headquarters is next door among others. If power stations posed even a slight chance of spreading cancer I'm sure it would be illegal to build them near large populations. Asbestos was banned long ago because it was proven to cause cancer sporadically, mainly to those who had large exposures over long periods of time. People work for the hydro companies and in power stations and even in nuclear power plants safely.

It may be that we consider power stations and lines a threat to our health because they are often built away from residential areas. Though this more likely attributable to their simple ugliness than anything more serious. And I agree that the power station behind 300 Front is ugly, but don't confuse that with unhealthiness.
 
urbandreamer said:
A good friend of mine recently died from brain cancer: Time from diagnosis to death: 2 months. She was always using her cellphone. I would stay the hell away from that substation, just as I stay the the hell away from cell phones.
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I know someone who died of brain cancer recently, and he wasn't using a cellphone all of the time. Who wins?

Currently, the brain cancer rate is about 0.01% of the population, and it hasn't moved much over the last ten years. I'd worry more about dying in a car crash - your chance of dying that way is much greater.

ETA: That being said: sorry to hear for your loss.
 
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It's pretty clear that there is no correlation between short term (high intensity) cell phone usage and any form of disease (at least something that manifests it self quickly) if there were, there would be millions of cases.

Having said that, this to me is the sort of thing that 20-40 years from now we'll either 1) laugh about all these myths regarding power lines / cell phones / anything which generates EM waves ... or 2) very similar to cigarettes, we'll laugh / cry about how stupid so many of us were in the past.
 
If you don't want to live near this substation.... Don't buy a condo near one. Problem solved

You'll get cancer if you stay in the sun too long... people still tan.

You'll get cancer if you smoke... people still smoke.

You'll get clogged arteries if you always eat fatty, gease-filled foods... people STILL eat foods that are not good for their bodies.

At least in this case.. You get a nice condo in a prime downtown location.
 
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