Border Patrol Puts Radar Plan for Grosse Pointe Farms Tower on Hold after Objections

GROSSE POINTE FARMS, Mich. (WJBK) - A tower was installed in June on the grounds of the Grosse Pointe Club. The U.S. Border Patrol installed the tower with cameras to monitor Lake Saint Clair and help spot illegal aliens trying to enter the U.S. and prevent other criminal activities.

"They are there to fight cross border illicit activity," said Gregory Lambert with U.S. Border Patrol Special Operations. "Terrorists, contraband and narcotics, money laundering, the whole gambit of things that you see that cross the border illegally those are there to fight."

The tower is part of an integrated surveillance system the Border Patrol is erecting along the entire U.S.-Canadian border.

At a Grosse Pointe Farms city council meeting in June, the Border Patrol was asked if there were other plans for the tower beyond the cameras.

"I answered honestly. I said, 'One of our strategic goals was to put a radar on that tower site," Lambert told FOX 2's Bill Gallagher.

The mayor was the only city council member to oppose the tower.

"The height didn't bother me, the idea of a camera and an antenna, but then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, during the meeting came up the fact about a nine foot radar," said Grosse Pointe Farms Mayor Jim Farquar, Junior. "It'd be open ray, which means it goes all the way around."

"The tower itself is okay there, but I'm just concerned about the radar," he added.

Skip Greiner lives about 600 feet from the tower.

"From my work that I've done in the past, I'm concerned with the radiation, the microwave radiation from a radar," he said.

Greiner has an electrical engineering degree from MIT and he taught radar in the U.S. Army and knows the danger from radar microwaves.

"We used to tell the guys literally don't get in front of this thing. There's a very good possibility of sterilization," Greiner explained.

He said radar can interfere with health monitors, cells phones and internet service. After Greiner and others raised objections, the Border Patrol is now putting a pause on the radar plan.

"We no longer are looking at that for the time being. Not to say down the line we might look at it again, but for right now because of the public reaction, we're just going to stick with the tower with the cameras on it," said Lambert.