High voltage power lines trap cancer-causing pollutants in their electric fields, according to a new study, potentially raising health risks for people who live beneath them.
Scientists have long wondered whether electrical fields can gather air pollution, concentrating it in a small area. It was theorized that toxins like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other compounds might gather under power lines in this way.
Researchers have now shown for the first time that this phenomenon is real. Scientists took samples from pine needles at several sites directly beneath a 400 kilovolt power line in southern Sweden, and at distances up to several miles away. Trees growing directly beneath the lines had about double the amount of PCBs on their needles.