Cape Cod Residents Casting a Wary Eye on Air Force Radar Station

SAGAMORE, Mass. —  It restlessly searches 3,000 miles of earth and ocean, using thousands of antennae firing within milliseconds of each other as “eyes,” all looking for one thing: enemy missiles.

For 22 years, the 10-story PAVE PAWS early warning radar station has scanned the Atlantic Ocean from its perch on Cape Cod’s Flatrock Hill, just beyond the Sagamore Bridge. Air Force officials say it’s vital to national security and a possible key to a future national missile defense system.

But while PAVE PAWS has been protecting the East Coast, some Cape residents worry that its powerful beams have been hurting them, possibly leading to high rates of cancer.

The Air Force counters that proof of its safety is overwhelming.

Now plans for a multimillion-dollar computer upgrade have sparked new health studies by the Air Force and local health boards, and have PAVE PAWS squarely back in the public eye.

PAVE PAWS opponents have been energized by the opinions of an Air Force doctor who has defied his colleagues--and some say the weight of evidence--to argue that the PAVE PAWS beam is potentially dangerous. He says Cape residents are unwittingly the test subjects of the station’s health effects.

“I think it’s been an unintentional experiment, but an experiment nonetheless,” said Dr. Richard Albanese, a medical research officer and mathematician at the Air Force Research Lab at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio.

Albanese has not been gently received by colleagues. One Yale University scientist referred to him as a “crackpot.” Albanese’s theory also miffs Air Force scientists, who say the radar is harmless and suggestions to the contrary fuel irrational fears.

“The anxiety and fear generated is probably the worst effect I’m aware of,” said Col. Leo Cropper, site commander of the Air Force lab’s Detachment 5 at Brooks. “There’s no evidence, no reason to be scared.”

The station gets its name from the Air Force program for electronics and surveillance systems, called PAVE, and the acronym for Phased Array Warning System. The Air Force also operates a PAVE PAWS station in Yuba City, Calif., and is converting a station near Anderson, Alaska, to PAVE PAWS. Both are in remote areas.

Concerns about PAVE PAWS radioactive beams have echoed on the Cape at various times since the station opened in 1978.

The fears are fed by the Cape’s elevated cancer rates. For instance, nine of the Cape’s 15 towns have breast cancer incidence at least 15% higher than the rest of the state, according to the Silent Spring Institute, which tracks women’s health issues.

Sharon Judge, a resident of nearby Sandwich, doesn’t flatly blame PAVE PAWS for the Cape’s health problems. But after three years researching the station on her own, the 37-year-old mother of three--and founder of the Cape Cod Citizens to Move PAVE PAWS--says PAVE PAWS cannot be ruled out as a source of trouble.

“We don’t even know what we’ve got out there,” she said.

The PAVE PAWS radar beam creates a “ceiling” three degrees above the horizon and moves upward to an 85-degree angle and outward to a 240-degree sweep, allowing it to also track various objects in space. PAVE PAWS detects an enemy missile once it pierces the beam’s ceiling.

PAVE PAWS transmits a phased array radar signal. About 3,600 antennae on its two faces intermittently pulse at high frequencies, forming “wave fronts” that merge into two beams that continuously shoot out over the Atlantic. The Cape is exposed to “side lobes” that emit from the main beams.

Albanese became involved in the dispute in May after he noticed a state Department of Public Health report on the station excluded papers he had written detailing his medical concerns.

Albanese, who emphasizes that he speaks as a private citizen, argues there’s been no testing of the effects of the phased array signal on living tissue, and that any claims of safety are based on extrapolations from research into other forms of radiation. That’s not safe when public health is at issue, he said.

The Air Force says the PAVE PAWS signal falls 10,000 times below the safety standard for radio frequency emissions, which are based on how much energy the body absorbs. That makes it less dangerous than a cell phone, the Air Force says.

But Albanese theorizes that the intensity of overlapping pulses from phased array signals could damage the molecular structure of human cells, leading to birth defects and some forms of cancer, and cites research by other scientists who present that as a possibility.

“I can’t assert that definitive harm has been done in the community,” he said. “On the other hand, I can’t say in good faith that no one is being harmed.”

U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Silent Spring have called for better studies at PAVE PAWS.

Albanese said the military’s focus on its mission has often led it to overlook public health concerns, and cited the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam as one example. PAVE PAWS is another, he said.

“I think it’s something of a systemic problem that we have to face and resolve,” he said.

The suggestion angers Maj. Barbara Sacra, chief of public affairs at PAVE PAWS.

“Above anything else, we are here to protect Americans,” she said.

Air Force officials say they follow a safety standard set by the independent Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. And they dismiss theories by Albanese, who they note is not a radar or public health expert, and who works primarily as a mathematician.

There’s simply no way for the voltage from the beams to be transmitted to people, according to Dr. Johnathan Kiel, a biomechanics expert at the Air Force labs.

The Air Force also insists that numerous short-term and long-term studies on similar radar beams have failed to find evidence of negative health effects. It’s safe to apply those studies to PAVE PAWS because the phased array radar is essentially the same as the tested radar, said Dr. Richard Miller, chief of the Air Force labs Bioeffects Division.

The Air Force said all public concerns, including Albanese’s, would be addressed in its new Environmental Impact Study, which was prompted by questions about the impending multimillion-dollar computer upgrade. The study is scheduled for completion early next year.

Boards of health in five Cape towns will also conduct an epidemiological study, funded by the Air Force. The study will include a radar expert and an epidemiologist as well as local, state and federal officials.

Sandwich board of health chairman Richard Loring is hopeful the study can bring resolution to the issue, though he added, “Either you’re going to believe [the report], or you’re not.”

Judge, of the Move PAVE PAWS group, doubts the Air Force studies will fill the holes she sees in the testing, or give Albanese’s views fair consideration. She said PAVE PAWS should be moved to an unpopulated area before it becomes entrenched on the Cape as a cog in a missile defense system.

She’s not leaving, despite her concerns about the station’s health effects.

“My husband and I thought long and hard about it,” Judge said. “We decided to dig our heels in. PAVE PAWS should move. We shouldn’t have to move.”