Static Over Radar Unit

For nearly five years, critics of the Navy’s radar test facility at Port Hueneme have waged a campaign for assurance that its powerful arrays of electronic hardware are not imperiling residents of a nearby neighborhood.

Recent rounds of this dispute properly have been fought before the California Coastal Commission, the body created by California voters to oversee the environmental impacts of activities in the coastal zone.

Last month the commission unanimously rejected the Navy’s proposal to expand the lab, known as the Surface Warfare Engineering Facility or SWEF, which is used to test and evaluate weapons and radar systems.

In response to earlier Coastal Commission orders, a mediation panel of independent scientists had examined the facility and issued individual appraisals. Although no consensus opinion was offered, the experts generally agreed that the facility poses no inherent risk to people or wildlife if operated within tight restrictions. Four of the five experts recommended precautions that could further ensure safety. One of those was for a study of public radiation exposure that would include an expert not affiliated with the Department of Defense.

The Coastal Commission did not ask the Navy to adopt all of the panel’s suggestions but it did insist on this one; the Navy agreed to some of the other recommendations but balked at the exposure study by a nonmilitary outsider.

And there it sits. When the Coastal Commission convenes again Tuesday in Santa Rosa, there will be one more opportunity to negotiate a resolution. We encourage both sides to make another good-faith effort to resolve this impasse and bring this matter to an end. Under the Coastal Zone Management Act, the next move would be mediation by the Department of Commerce and the Secretary of the Navy.

The facility was built in 1985. Residents of nearby Silver Strand Beach began questioning the Navy about the building in 1996. While fighting a Navy proposal that would have allowed jets to fly at high speeds and low altitudes to test radar equipment, residents said they began to realize how little they knew about the radar building. Their skepticism grew when Navy officials said they couldn’t locate the original documentation. The Beacon Foundation suspects no environmental studies were ever done.

Beacon members say they are concerned that warship radar and high-energy radio waves beamed during tests of weapons systems could cause burns, cataracts or brain damage. They oppose the expansion, which would include installing new lasers, microwave beams and satellite transceivers.

In a letter to the Coastal Commission, Capt. J.W. Phillips, commander of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, said the Navy has bent over backward to ease public concerns, adding that “We do not believe that certain members of the public would be satisfied with any measure that the Navy takes to better public relations.”

The decision rests where California voters put it: in the hands of the Coastal Commission. A letter-writing campaign has sprung up in an attempt to pressure the commission to back off. Although we agree with the Navy’s many supporters that the facility does important work and has been much investigated already, we endorse the commissioners’ authority to require a more rigorous examination if that is what it takes to allay public concern.