Questions Raised About Navy Proposal : Environment: Coastal panel cannot back expanded radar-test center until more information is supplied, official says.

State coastal authorities on Monday said they cannot support plans for an expanded radar-test center at Port Hueneme because the Navy has provided insufficient information about the risks to human health and the environment.

Community groups allege that plans to expand a surface warfare engineering unit next to seaside homes at popular Silver Strand Beach could threaten people and marine life with harmful microwave radiation. But the Navy says those concerns are unfounded and submitted documents to the California Coastal Commission to prove its point.

However, a staff member working at the commission, which reviews development proposed close to the ocean, said the documents do not provide enough information about the facility.

Furthermore, the information is difficult to interpret because the Navy has never fully disclosed potential effects the larger naval warfare unit might have on wildlife and people working on civilian ships at the nearby Port of Hueneme, said Mark Delaplaine, federal consistency supervisor for the commission.

He said he will recommend that the commission determine that the project conflicts with the California Coastal Act and ask that the Navy withdraw its application until unresolved questions are answered. The commission is to consider the matter at its next monthly meeting Sept. 14 in Eureka.

At issue is a complex radar-testing unit the Navy seeks to build, called “visual test capability.” It would become the Navy’s main center on the West Coast for creating realistic training simulations of warfare by electronically linking military command centers with fleets of ships and aircraft far at sea. Among the technology it will employ are new optical sensors, satellite transceivers, lasers and microwave beams.

The center would augment the surface warfare engineering unit, which consists of 14 buildings--including one designed to look like the stern of a modern cruiser--in use since the 1970s.

Virtually all of the computer software for combat systems used on Navy ships is tested at the center before installation. The Navy is preparing an environmental assessment, due next month, before it proceeds with the expansion this fall.

Although the Navy could proceed without the Coastal Commission’s approval, state officials are hopeful the Navy will wait until an expert panel, now being assembled, has completed a review of the environmental effects of the project. The commission is expected at its September meeting to appoint at least five specialists who, working with the federal office of Ocean and Coastal Resources Management, will study the warfare engineering unit.

“The issue here is the lack of an environmental review of the consequences of this operation,” said Lee Quaintance of the Beacon Foundation, a coastal-protection group. “Once they get their teeth into this, it should go a very long way to answering the open questions.”