Environmental,health, and safety risks of the power lines nearby the human settlements

Advances in technology have not always been in favor of human beings and can lead to the emergence of “emerging contaminants” in human dwellings. These contaminants have taken a new form that is colorless, tasteless, and odorless and invisibly pollute the environment. Due to being intangible, their control and measurement are more difficult than the other types of pollutants. This study is an attempt to identify and assess the risks induced by high-voltage power lines crossing a residential area in southern Iran. To this end, the process of power transmission and the equipment used was initially identified. Afterward, the failure modes of the equipment resulting in the occurrence of risk were detected. In order to measure the strength of the magnetic field, the 3D EMF TESTER was used. The identified risks were scored based on the Environmental failure mode and effects analysis (EFMEA) parameters and a risk priority number (RPN) was assigned to each risk. In the final step, SPSS version 16 software was applied to calculate the risk level and identify the top priority risks. The highest RPN values obtained were related to the health risks so that all identified risks in this group were subjected to an emergency situation. The highest RPN was 360 assigned to “cable (no privacy)” and “power transmission line (non-compliance with privacy standards)”, while the lowest RPN was 60 subjected to disconnect switch (disconnector). Since majority of the identified risks has a high RPN, some mitigating measures were proposed to reduce the risk intensities as much as possible.