24/08/2004

Israel - Army Radio antenna emits dangerous amounts of radiation

By David Ratner, Haaretz Correspondent

Army Radio's relay station in Haifa, located in the heart of the upscale
residential neighborhood Ramat Almogi on the Carmel, emits electromagnetic
radiation at up to 400 percent above the Environment Ministry standard,
according to a report issued by the Union of Bay Watch Towns for
Environmental Defense on Monday.

The Haifa-based environmental organization completed its analysis of
emergency tests it had conducted at the site and the chairman, Prof. Dan
Zilberstein, and director-general Zvi Forer termed the anomalies "severe
environmental pollution."

Electromagnetic radiation exceeding the allowable standard was measured,
among other locations, at the Einstein Street elementary school near the
military antenna compound; at a nearby community center; and in several
residential apartments.

Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav dispatched a letter Tuesday to Defense Minister Shaul
Mofaz demanding that the radio relay station be shut down immediately and
moved elsewhere.

Yahav reminded Mofaz that during Yitzhak Mordechai's tenure as defense
minister, he promised to relocate the station but nothing was ever done
about it.

The site where the Army Radio relay station is housed dates back to the
British Mandate period, when the Carmel was sparsely populated.

The 1960s saw a building boom in the area, which included the elementary
school on Einstein Street, whose houses abut the fence around the relay
station. In the 1990s, the site was surrounded by the townhouses that went
up in the Ramat Almogi neighborhood.

From the early '90s, neighborhood residents fought against the radio
broadcasts and succeeded in halting the broadcasts of the powerful AM
antenna at the site.

Additional antennas located there belong to bodies affiliated with the
Defense Ministry. Both then defense minister Mordechai and deputy minister
Ephraim Sneh made promises in the past to relocate the site.

The catalyst for the recent emission testing was an increase in the
electromagnetic disturbances of which neighborhood residents had complained.

Residents said that Army Radio was coming through the intercoms of
neighborhood apartment buildings, through home telephones, and through the
speakers on switched-off computers.

The remote-control central locking mechanism on some cars had stopped
working, and even the Union of Towns' monitoring station on Einstein Street
ceased operating due to powerful electromagnetic interference.

The Union of Towns appealed to the Environment Ministry to run an
electromagnetic monitoring operation on site. According to Zilberstein and
Forer, an Environment Ministry team came, but found no anomalous radiation
measurements.

The Union of Towns Monday pointed an accusing finger at the Environment
Ministry over its handling of the matter.

The Union decided to hire the services of an external firm and approached
Dr. Ehud Neeman, who formerly headed the radiation division at the
Environment Ministry, and he carried out emission measurements on site.

The findings indicated severe aberrations from the norm. The standard
established by the Environment Ministry for electromagnetic radiation from
radio waves (RF) is 20 microwatts per square centimeter - a far stricter
standard than is common throughout the world.

Dr. Neeman's tests found electromagnetic radiation 2.8 times in excess at
the Einstein Street school and four times the allowable standard in a
residential apartment on Yakinton Street.

The monitoring data indicates that the source of the radiation is an FM
antenna belonging to Army Radio. The Union of Towns transferred the findings
to the ministries of health, education, and defense and to the commander of
Army Radio.

"I think that somebody in the army decided one day to flip a switch and
bombard the area with radiation," said Moshe Evenstein of Yakinton Street,
who was the first to complain about the coverage of antennas that was
interfering with the operation of his car alarm. "It's insufferable."

An Army Radio spokesperson said that "the survey of radiation measurements
performed by the Union of Towns has not yet been submitted to the IDF for
comment. We will receive the survey, study it and examine the ramifications
it raises. The IDF is sensitive to the environmental health risks."

Dr. Stelian Gelberg of the Environment Ministry commented that a binding
standard has not yet been adopted in Israel but merely recommendations for
minimizing exposure to electromagnetic radiation. "Our recommendations refer
to long-term exposure and they await a bill proposal by the environment
minister. Opposition by the Ministry of National Infrastructure has delayed
the bill proposal for over a year now," Dr. Gelberg said. "In any event, the
findings by the Union of Towns are similar to our own findings," he added.

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