U.S. Officials Say Hilltop Weather Tower Will Stay : Ojai: They field questions on the facility at Sen. Boxer’s request, but angry residents get no satisfaction.

Federal officials have ruled out moving a radiation-emitting weather tower from its mountaintop perch near Ojai, despite complaints from hundreds of residents worried about long-term health effects who gathered Monday night at a town-hall meeting.

Deputy Commerce Secretary David J. Barram, who visited the 98-foot radar antenna Monday afternoon, said the government has no plans to relocate the weather-tracking station to an area less populated than the Sulphur Mountain neighborhood outside Ojai.

“That’s not what we’re here to do,” Barram said at a news conference called hours before Monday’s meeting at Matilija Junior High School. “We don’t have any plans to move it.”

Instead, Barram came to Ventura County only at the request of Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer to answer residents’ questions about the tower. Boxer visited the site earlier this year and promised to work to relocate the weather station.

The U.S. Department of Commerce oversees the National Weather Service, which is building more than 160 of the radar towers across the country as part of its decade-long upgrading of national weather-tracking equipment.

Barram said Monday, however, that it never has been the government’s intention to move the tower, as Ojai area residents have requested. The system is “10 times safer than a microwave oven” and emits 10,000 times less radiation than federal safety regulations allow, he said.

“A lot of analysis is done to find the right place,” Barram said at the news conference. “Most people around the country are pretty pleased” with the performance of the NEXRAD or next-generation radar towers.

But residents attending the Monday night meeting were less than pleased.

*

Many residents complained that the low-level radiation emitted by the tower may eventually cause cancer, birth defects or other illnesses after years of exposure.

At Monday’s meeting, organized by Citizens Against Radiation Exposure, the walls of the school auditorium were decorated with dozens of posters, flyers and children’s drawings opposing the tower. Opponents sold “Move the Tower” T-shirts and caps outside, while inside residents presented videos and gave speeches.

“I’m going to fight until it’s gone because I’m not going to raise my daughter with radiation shooting her daily,” said Dwier Brown, an actor who lives in the area.

Brown’s wife, Kim Maxwell-Brown, cited what she said were past examples of risks to the public that the government deemed acceptable, including nuclear testing in the Nevada desert in the 1950s.

“Where will you be in 20 years?” she asked Barram, clutching her 13-month-old, Lily. “I’ll be here possibly dealing with a child that has cancer or leukemia. This time, why not do something before it’s too late?”

Opponents of the tower, who have mobilized much of the Ojai community against the weather station since it was erected late last year, went through an hours-long presentation at Matilija Junior High School designed to convince Barram that it should be moved.

Some tower opponents spoke about new information from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials, who said last month that not enough tests have been done on the system to conclude that it is safe.

Others complained Monday that the weather service built the system over a holiday weekend without telling neighbors.

“All of their own documents state that they will obtain conditional-use permits and notify the residents” before building the radar tower, said Dale G. Givner, an Oxnard attorney who lives in the area.

“They didn’t do any of that,” said Givner, who lost a federal suit brought by residents against the government earlier this year. “All they’ve done is lie and cheat to obtain their goals.”

Givner said he plans to appeal the decision by the end of July.

Boxer is not the only official in Washington to object to the tower.

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) appeared on national television earlier this year arguing that the National Weather Service failed to guarantee that the system is safe.

*

Responding to a specific request by Gallegly, the EPA said it could not sanction the radar system.

“The current knowledge of biological and health effects . . . does not allow us to make a definitive statement” about its safety to the public, the EPA wrote Gallegly on May 13.

Despite Barram’s announcement Monday that he would not approve moving the tower, opponents remain convinced that the fight is not over.

“It’s going to move,” said David Hedman, one of two co-plaintiffs in the unsuccessful federal lawsuit. “If it takes us a year or five years, it’s just a matter of time.”