Emergency management officials say the 66-year-old communications restrictions are jeopardizing the safety of residents who live in the zone.
By Tre Spencer for Mountain State Spotlight
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Inside West Virginia’s quiet zone, 66-year-old federal restrictions on radio communications strictly limit internet access and service from cell towers to clear the way for a space observatory and a spy listening station.
Now, emergency responders are pushing back as the restrictions inhibit their ability to save lives.
The campaign has been spearheaded by emergency management officials in both Pendleton and Pocahontas counties as they deal with the strictest limits around the Green Bank Observatory and NSA’s Sugar Grove listening station.
Pendleton County Emergency Services Coordinator Rick Gillespie said if police officers or firefighters get caught in dangerous situations, they need to be able to radio for help.
“We live in an age where everyone relies on a wireless connection; it’s becoming a way of life,” he said. “But when it comes to the world of emergency services and public safety, it’s a lifeline.”
Emergency services rely on radio contact but are inhibited by strict restrictions on signal strength in the mountainous region.
Gillespie has been trying to work with officials who oversee the quiet zone, including the U.S. National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the National Security Administration.
He said he hopes there’s a way to get everyone at the table and develop a compromise soon, instead of trying to communicate through email chains.
Chris De Pree, deputy spectrum manager for the NRAO, said he has spoken with Gillespie and other officials about the safety concerns. He said the agency is working on a compromise that keeps people safe while continuing the astronomical research.
“We’ve been working really hard to find ways to adjust and cooperate with every county that has come to us,” he said. “We don’t think this is the end of the story.”
He said the NSF has funded two studies on the feasibility of the restrictions. One is an ongoing public safety study focused on the impacts in Pocahontas and Pendleton counties. The other is focused on the broader impacts of the radio restrictions and is set to be finished in the next two years.
In 1958, federal officials designated the National Radio Quiet Zone, a 13,000 square-mile region in West Virginia and Virginia where radio transmissions are restricted to limit interference with large research telescopes and spy listening tools.
Astronomers at the Green Bank Observatory in Pocahontas County are researching faint signals from space but can pick up radio interference from signals on Earth. Signals in space can be millions or billions of times weaker and more sensitive to interference from man-made objects like satellites.
The quiet zone exists to protect the Sugar Grove Station in Pendleton County where federal officials also intercept satellite communications, but little is known publicly about the facility.
Maura McLaughlin, a professor of physics and astronomy at WVU, works closely with officials in Green Bank to observe pulsars, fast-moving remnants of stars that emit large bursts of radio waves.
She said the restrictions are in place so that the data collected is accurate, and there is already little room for astronomy devices in the national frequency allocation.
The allocation designates which radio frequency entities like broadcast stations, satellites and radio telescopes can use.
“If we lost the radio quiet zone, that would make it much more difficult to do our work,” she said. “We could still do it but there would be these really noisy signals in the way, which would be really frustrating.”
The closer to the observatory or the station, the tighter the restrictions on residents for items like wi-fi routers, cell phones or Bluetooth devices.
In Pocahontas County, Emergency Management Director Michael O’Brien said emergency responders are grappling with how to do their jobs as the restrictions make it very difficult.
“How do we keep folks safe?” he said. “I don’t believe life and safety should take a backseat to a science project.”
County officials in the quiet zone have recently passed resolutions criticizing the restrictions, saying they have made it difficult for 911 services to communicate.
In October, nine counties in West Virginia and another in Virginia passed resolutions expressing support for changing the restrictions on communications in the quiet zone. Hampshire County did not pass a resolution but issued a letter of support for the changes.
In a resolution, passed by the Pocahontas County Commission, officials cited “dangerous challenges” faced by the radio restrictions imposed on the quiet zone and threats posed on public safety.
The restrictions imposed by federal officials hoping to limit radio signal interference have made everything from wi-fi signals to kitchen microwaves nuisances rather than necessities.
Despite the severe restrictions impacting the strength of internet providers, residents like Scott Guyette have found ways to get around the limitations. Guyette uses Starlink.
Living in the quiet zone, the residential version was unavailable until October of this year, but he, and others, found a workaround by using the roaming version – designed to be used by people who travel.
“Living in the quiet zone is definitely a challenge,” he said. “People here have found ways to adapt in a way that doesn’t always require connectivity.”
Starlink was available across the state after a beta testing and waitlist phase last year but was still unavailable for many in the quiet zone until recently.
In October, a new agreement between Starlink and the National Science Foundation allowed the satellite internet provider to begin offering residential service to 99.5% of households and businesses in the quiet zone but the remaining 0.5% were left without the option including those, who had previously been using the roaming version.
The new service is a part of a one-year assessment period and officials will monitor how the service interacts with radio research and any disruptions to service.
Guyette said he was paying $165 a month, but now with the agreement, he pays $75 less.
“Where we live, there’s no opportunity to get fiber, DSL or any form of internet,” he said. “But when Starlink came out, it solved all these problems for us.”
Emergency management officials said the deal disrupted Starlink’s service for those who relied on the roaming version leaving the remaining 0.5% of residents in the dark. These are those who live closest to the observatory and listening station.
Gillespie, the Pendleton County EMS director, said the county has also halted a plan to install Starlink mobile routers in emergency vehicles as a result.
“We were looking at equipping ambulances with Starlink, but now with the new problems that have cropped up, we’ve put that on hold,” he said. “We need to find out if the service is reliable.”
