Neighbors Protest for Removal of Radar Tower

In the shadow of the giant radar tower they have dubbed “the Black Orb,” about 70 angry Ojai Valley residents protested the station’s operation Wednesday and demanded its removal.

The rally came only hours after private researchers hired by the National Weather Service conducted a series of tests that they said initially show that energy emissions from the Sulphur Mountain tower are minimal.

The tests were conducted specifically to ease residents’ fears of exposure to radiation, weather service officials said. Homeowners were invited to observe the tests but refused.

“We asked the residents if we could test from their homes and they said no,” said Lori Arquelles, director of public relations for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Wednesday’s protest is the latest in a series of battles, including a recent lawsuit filed by homeowners, that have raged over the 98-foot-tall radar tower, which will track storms and wind conditions for the government.

Arquelles said the tower is fully operational, although its data will not be used by the weather service until the station is commissioned by the federal government, which is “down the road a couple of months.”

The tower is one of 165 new Doppler radar systems the government is constructing across the country. The Ojai Valley tower will replace a 50-year-old system on a federal building in Los Angeles.

At Wednesday’s rally, homeowners who live near the tower said they simply don’t trust the weather service or its tests.

“We don’t want them on our property,” said Virginia Loy, an upper valley resident. “You don’t come to people after shoving something down their throats and say, ‘Here, learn about it.’ ”

The protest was staged on property owned by nearby resident Kenny Fuller. “If their word is no good coming in, why should we trust their test?” Fuller asked. “How good is their word if we can’t believe a damn thing they say?”

However, some local residents believe homeowners are overreacting.

“I’m not as scared as most people are. From what I’ve read, it is not that harmful,” said Chris Harter, who lives near the radar tower. Harter said residents were acting “ostrich-like” by refusing to observe the testing. “It sounds kind of stupid, like they don’t want to know.”

Weather service officials said residents could have benefited from being present.

“I’m not sure they’ve received the true facts about this radar,” said weather service meteorologist Todd Morris. Pointing to a computer monitor and other equipment, Morris said, “I think anybody who would have come out here would have seen the numbers are low.”

Weather service officials based their early findings that emissions from the tower were low on preliminary figures, but said they need to evaluate the data before releasing their final conclusions on Friday.

Robert Martin, one of the two researchers from the Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute conducting the tests, said they will be collecting data from about half a dozen locations near the tower, from as close as 2,000 feet and as far away as Santa Paula.

Officials have said the radiation emitted by the tower is equal to the amount released by three microwave ovens. But residents were not comforted by that analogy.

“Is that inside the oven or outside?” said upper valley resident Richard Scribner, a professor of preventive medicine at USC. “We want to know where the studies are that show that chronic exposure to high energy pulses of microwave radiation are safe. There aren’t any. You can’t expect to jack up the power and not expect something to happen.”

The residents, who have formed two activist groups to fight the radar tower’s operation, lost a lawsuit filed last month against the federal government requesting additional environmental studies. Residents said they intend to appeal the decision and are meeting with attorneys Friday.

The activists have already won the support of local and state politicians, including U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.