Pave PAWS Findings Draw Few Comments

     Only two members of the public spoke Tuesday at a hearing held to allow comment on a draft supplemental environmental impact statement that was prepared regarding the continuing operation of the Pave PAWS early warning radar operation in South Sagamore.
     The draft statement is a supplement to environmental assessments made in 1976, prior to the construction of the radar system, and in 2002, when the Air Force planned to replace outdated computer components and update software. It instituted a program to allow the radar to continue operating, extending the facility’s service life.
     The supplemental impact statement was prepared to assess any possible environmental effects of implementing that program.
     In particular, the statement was designed to address concerns regarding the potential health effects of the radar’s operation, due to the higher than expected number of cancers on Cape Cod.
     The just-released draft concludes that there is “currently no credible evidence for adverse health effects associated with the operation of the Pave PAWS radar.”
     Wayne G. Sellin of Centerville stood during Tuesday’s hearing to praise the standards for fact-finding and the analysis used in arriving at the draft’s conclusion.
     Mr. Sellin, an engineer and submarine expert, was part of the Pave PAWS public health steering group that was formed in response to a call for an independent look at the system’s possible health effects.
     Those attending this week’s hearing heard that the report on Pave PAWS operations focused on three issues: looking at both the average and peak radar exposures that the community in the vicinity of the system might experience, considering plausible heath outcomes from the radar exposure, and characterizing any special features of the Pave PAWS waveform.
     The low-level radio frequency energy that is transmitted in waves by the array at Pave PAWS is the same as the type one is exposed to by cellular and cordless phones, communications systems and navigation equipment, such as that used on ships.
     A fact sheet published by the Air Force Space Command states that the standards and thresholds for exposure to that type of energy are well understood and tested and that no long-term health effects have been found from low-level exposure to that energy, and that research continues to be performed throughout the world.
     Mr. Sellin commented Tuesday that the research that was done in conjunction with Pave PAWS will have some application for scientists looking at the effects of cellphone use.
     The second speaker, Dennis resident Bernard J. Young, a professional engineer, raised questions regarding the methodology of Broadcast Signal Labs, the firm that worked with the Massachusetts Department of Health in 2006 to take measurements of Pave PAWS emissions at 31 sites across Cape Cod.
     The study in which BSL played a part was undertaken in response to concerns over the incidence of rare cancers, such as Ewing’s sarcoma, on the Cape. Those study results, released in December, found it unlikely that there was any correlation between the Ewing family of tumors and Pave PAWS, noting that some of the cancer sufferers diagnosed during the years examined by the study had lived on Cape Cod for a year or less.
     The study referenced in the draft statement looked at leukemia, brain cancer, lung and breast cancer, low birth weight and defects, auto-immune disease, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases for any links to radio frequency energy.
     One of the concerns Mr. Young brought to the hearing was a worry about “clipping,” a term that describes what happens when a signal reaches the maximum capacity of the equipment measuring it and simply stops recording peaks that go above that capacity. He said he thought the data provided by BSL were clipped, and did not show the peaks of the energy transmitted by Pave PAWS.
     Mr. Young said he would submit his comments and concerns in writing, to be evaluated and addressed in the final report.
     After the meeting, Mr. Sellin said that even if some of the peaks were clipped, it would not change his, or the report’s conclusion.
     Power density measurements taken at selected sites on Cape Cod showed levels at a magnitude of 2.8 million times below the standard at Falmouth High School and 127,273 times below standard on Davisville Road. Levels are at a magnitude of 700,000 times below standard at the Mashpee Senior Center, and 1,163 times below standard on Williston Road, where Bourne’s Ella F. Hoxie Elementary School is located.
     The highest levels were still at a magnitude of 8 times below the standard for human exposure. Those levels were found at the Shawme-Crowell State Forest in Sandwich, the highest, closest point to the array.
     The National Research Council, the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health were among those participating in the supplemental assessment.
     Pave PAWS stands for an Air Force program named “Pave” and for the acronym of Phased-Array Warning System, a system operated on Cape Cod by the 6th Space Warning Squadron, part of the 21st Space Wing at Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
     Pave PAWS is the only land-based East Coast radar site in the United States tasked with providing early warning of ballistic missile attacks and foreign space launches. 
     Its phased array incorporates about 3,600 small, active antennas, coordinated by two computers, one online all times.
     The computers feed direct antenna units so that the system can detect and track many objects simultaneously.
     The array is “listening” 82 percent of the time and is only transmitting during the remaining 18 percent.
     The Space Wing’s secondary mission is to track Earth-orbiting objects, including tracking and cataloging more than 13,000 manmade objects in space.
     Aside from Air Station Cape Cod, the Space Wing operates Cheyenne Mountain Air Station in Colorado; Thule Air Base, Greenland; Clear Air Force Station, Alaska,; and Cavalier AFS, North Dakota, providing missile warning and space control to commanders and combat forces worldwide.
     Pave PAWS was constructed on Flatrock Hill in Sagamore, the second highest point on the Cape, beginning in 1976, and became operational in 1980.
     It was sited on the Upper Cape because its highest, easternmost location provides “an optimal location for missile warning and space surveillance over eastern North America.”
     The system’s main building is shaped like a pyramid, having a triangular base and two array faces, each containing about 1,800 active antenna elements, tilted back 20 degrees from the vertical.
     Its radar beams go out about 3,000 nautical miles in a 240-degree sweep that reaches from Canada to the coast of Europe to South America.
     At its extreme range, the system can detect an object the size of a small automobile.
     Some 125 personnel, including active duty US and Canadian Air Force troops, Department of Defense civilians, and employees of BAE Systems, a defense contractor, work at the site.
     The members of the squadron on Cape Cod typically perform 2,600 satellite tracks totaling about 9,100 observations daily. The tracking information is electronically transmitted to the Joint Space Operations Cell at Vandenberg AFB, California, where a space catalog is maintained, playing a role in space collision avoidance.
     Cape Cod Air Force Station sits on about 100.5 acres leased from the state, 87 of which are used for the site, with the rest used for access roads and utility lines. The facility’s lease runs until 2026.
     The final supplemental environmental impact statement will be used to evaluate the program that will extend the system’s life by updating equipment. That program will not change any beam patterns or parameters of the radar’s operation.
     Written comments on the draft, available on the Peterson AFB website, will be received until August 4 and should be submitted to Ms. Lynne Neuman, HQ AFSPC/A4/7PP, 150 Vandenberg Street, Suite 1105, Peterson AFB, Colorado, 80914-2370.