Radar Tower Will Stay, Official Writes

Despite complaints by local residents, the radar tower atop Sulphur Mountain in the Upper Ojai will not be moved by the National Weather Service, U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown said in a letter to the city of Ojai.

The Commerce Department manages the weather service, which erected the tower in November, 1993, to help predict weather. But residents have complained bitterly of possible health problems and a lack of notification by the weather service before the radar was installed.

In the letter to Ojai, which has joined the fight to remove the 100-foot tower, Brown wrote that the “NWS plans to leave the radar tower on Sulphur Mountain.”

He reiterated his belief that the tower poses no health danger and that the residents were well notified before the tower was erected.

The tower’s “electromagnetic energy emissions are magnitudes lower than levels that could conceivably cause harm,” Brown wrote. He also contradicted residents’ claims that the Sulphur Mountain tower was the only one built in a residential location.

“Please note there are many residential locations throughout the United States where our [radar towers] are located,” wrote Brown, who then listed four cities.

But local residents said they weren’t giving up the fight.

“We are still going to win this battle,” said Gail Garber, a member of Ventura County Citizens Against Radiation Exposure. The group is lobbying Congress to pass a bill to remove the tower.

“We don’t expect them to change their minds and move it,” Garber said. “We expect to force them to move it through an act of Congress.”