How Much EMF Will You Be Subjected To ?
Anyone still pretending they don’t know how much EMF this 765 kV Valley Link monument to industrial progress is going to pour over their house? Wonder no more. We made a map. Because nothing says “personal perspective” quite like watching a color gradient crawl across your kitchen. Click the map below and enter your address at the top.
The numbers are not subtle. At the edge of the 200-foot right of way, the field is an eye-watering 204 mG (milligauss). It does not politely stop there. It tapers all the way to 1 mG at a majestic 1,900 feet from the centerline. For those keeping score at home, typical rural background is about 0.1 mG. So yes: the “you’ll barely notice it” zone is measured in football fields, not backyard fences.
Valley Link has been admirably consistent. Safe anywhere outside the right of way, they say. Health effects from 24/7/365 exposure? “Rumors.” Charming words for a body of research other countries have treated as something other than campfire gossip. The Netherlands, for example, does not allow new transmission lines to soak places where people actually live their lives in more than 4 mG. Our calculations put that 4 mG contour almost 900 feet from the centerline of a loaded 765 kV line. Apparently the Dutch have not received the rumor memo.
Constant EMF exposure has been studied. It has been associated with higher rates of several diseases people generally prefer not to collect. The details are in this report from Environmental Health Sciences: (https://ehsciences.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Power-Line-EMF-Health-and-Safety-.pdf).
A few highlights:
Multiple studies report increased childhood leukemia risk at 4 mG and above. That is roughly 900 feet from the Valley Link centerline. Bring the kids. It is fine. Maybe.
An 18-year nationwide Swiss study found elevated dementia and Alzheimer’s mortality beginning around 0.5 mG, with stronger associations in the 1–3 mG range. We did not even put 0.5 mG on the map. Our calculations send that contour out to about 2,700 feet from the centerline. A rumor with a very long tail.
Human reproductive effects show up around 2 mG. Another rumor with a decimal point.
Increased breast cancer risks
Andrew Marino provided this handy graphic to summarize his findings in his 1984 paper entitled Health Aspects of Environmental Electromagnetism.
An excerpt from his paper which helps to explain this graphic. "The remaining five studies used field intensities which exist at the indicated distances from a typical 765 kV line. Lott, of North Texas State University, found altered EEGs in rats after 90 minutes’ exposure. Wever, of the Max Planck Institute, found that weak electric fields altered human circadian rhythms after several weeks. Noval, of Temple University, found that 30 days’ exposure to an electric field equivalent to that at 2,000 feet from the line produced stunted growth in rats. There are many other similar reports of biological effects."
How did we get the numbers for the map ? Not from Valley Link, whose official estimates have been non-existent. Those figures should eventually appear in the SCC filing. Until then, we used what Texas utilities actually submitted a few months ago to their Public Utility Commission for the 765 kV lines they are threading across that state: two studies showing field levels inside and outside the right of way. Read the full studies here:
From the edge of the ROW — 100 feet from centerline — a simple power-law fit takes the field down to 1 mG at 1,900 feet. Terrain, conductor height, sag, and loading will nudge the numbers. They will not turn 204 mG into a whisper. Power-law extrapolation is a first-cut distance estimate from published 765 kV data, not a survey of anyone’s backyard.
Read the studies yourselves. Or don’t. Just don’t pretend the only map that matters is the one that stops at the edge of the right of way.
The final route selected will end up bathing approximately 55,000 acres of private property in central Virginia with 24x365 EMF.
Side note: We only created the map for the routes revealed in May, frankly a map with ALL of the routes we know about would have been so messy as to be almost unusable.
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