OJAI : Family Moves Over Radar Test Concerns

Operational tests being conducted by the builders of the radar station on Sulphur Mountain have prompted a nearby landowner to pack up his family and move.

Kenny Fuller, whose home is within several hundred feet of the antenna, said he has been living in a motor home for nearly a week because he is afraid of the low-level radiation emitted from the tower.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said Thursday. “We’re living by the day right now. I’ve got kids. I just can’t take that kind of chance.”

The radar tower, which will track storms and wind conditions for the government, is scheduled to be turned on before the end of the month, said Jerry McDuffie, who runs the Oxnard office of the National Weather Service.

But Unisys, the information services firm that is building 165 of the Doppler radar systems across the country, has been testing the Sulphur Mountain tower east of Ojai for several days.

“We have to make sure it’s operational before we sign it over to the weather service,” said Unisys spokeswoman Pat Schoppmeyer. “It will be several more weeks before that radar is turned over to the government.”

A group of residents last week lost a suit filed against the federal government after a judge refused to order the government to perform more studies on the tower’s effects.

McDuffie said Thursday that he has invited some residents to a demonstration next week to prove that the system is safe.

“We’ll take readings with the radar on and then with the radar off to show people that there’s no problem up there,” McDuffie said. “It’s about as above-board as we can make it.”

Fuller, however, said nothing could convince him that the high-pitched noises he hears coming from the tower are safe. “I don’t know what they’re testing, but it sure blows my eardrums,” he said.