Peter Anthony Cowan is the independent Substack author whose theory links magnetic fields from a Santa Clara substation to the rate of soft-tissue injuries at the San Francisco 49ers. He now corrects his own January piece: the substation behind the practice facility was not expanded for Levi's Stadium, and the replacement station the city had planned beside it was built a mile south instead.
He argues the exposure question survives the correction, drawing on filings from the City of Santa Clara, its municipal utility Silicon Valley Power, and the State of California. The utility's system peak was flat from 1990 to 2004 and has risen roughly 87 percent since, and a 60 kV transmission line with a 12 kV underbuild went up on new steel poles behind the practice facility during the stadium build-out. Cowan leans on the single field model Silicon Valley Power has published, prepared for a separate 115 kV line on Lafayette Street, which puts a comparable configuration at up to 103 milligauss beneath the poles and 41 milligauss sixty feet away at peak load. No field measurements have been published for the corridor behind the practice facility.
Quotes
"That appears to be wrong. The city planned a new substation beside NRS to replace Tasman along with the stadium construction, but they never built it. They built the Mission substation a mile south instead."
"Whether or not anything changed inside the substation fence, the current through the site increased. The magnetic fields increased with it, and a new line beside an existing substation doesn’t just add to the field, it multiplies it."
"103 milligauss is the largest number in the report, and it comes from putting a new transmission line next to an old one."
"The configuration SVP modeled on Lafayette Street at 103 mG is the configuration behind the practice facilities."
"It is the right number for an electrician working on a power line and the wrong number for a child sleeping in their bedroom."
Location
📍 Santa Clara, California, United States
