Santa Fe has become ground zero for a movement questioning the safety of electromagnetic fields from the growing array of wireless-communication devices.

While people around the world have become increasingly dependent on mobile phones and wireless Internet links, some local residents concerned about health and environmental impacts of radio-frequency radiation have been speaking out at public meetings here for years.

They lost a battle to keep Wi-Fi out of Santa Fe city libraries. But they have succeeded, so far, in blocking a new telecommunications ordinance that could lead to a citywide wireless system.

A little more than two years ago, a half-dozen people opposed to the expansion of Wi-Fi into Santa Fe's public libraries gathered to discuss strategy at Body, a combination spa, cafe and boutique that has no Wi-Fi and asks customers to turn off their cell phones.

Arthur Firstenberg, Bill Bruno, Gabrielle Wagner, Carolyn DeChaine, Noel Kaufmann and Caroline Walker began by demonstrating different electronic devices that can detect the presence of various wireless signals.

They cited studies linking "electromagnetic pollution" to fatigue, stress, insomnia, attention deficit disorder, learning problems, sexual dysfunction, hearing loss, immune deficiencies, cell damage, cancer, heart disease and more.

They pointed out dozens of cases where governments — mostly in Europe — have set new limits on human exposure to electromagnetic or radio-frequency radiation. And they speculated that exposure to this radiation creates in some people an irrational aggression against themselves.

"Some people, they think you're crazy," added Firstenberg. "They don't want to talk about it and they even become angry and aggressive. You can't have a peaceful conversation about it with some people."

Firstenberg made national headlines earlier this year when he filed a lawsuit seeking $530,000 from his neighbor, Raphaela Monribot, for refusing to turn off her iPhone, Wi-Fi and other electronic devices "to spare me the pain of EMS (electromagnetic sensitivity)."

The complaint was voted "Most Ridiculous Lawsuit of the Month" in an online poll for the Web site "Faces of Lawsuit Abuse" for the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. Previous winners included a convicted killer's bid to get electrolysis as part of a state-funded sex change.

Monribot, whose house is 25 feet from Firstenberg's, has responded to the initial complaint by stating that she is only one of many in the west-side neighborhood with wireless devices. Her response accuses Firstenberg of "the complete absence of any competent evidence showing the adverse health effects of electromagnetic fields."

Firstenberg, who said he was first diagnosed with extreme sensitivity both to chemicals and electromagnetic fields three decades ago, has responded by filing in court the affidavits of several people identified as experts in the field. State District Judge Sarah Singleton has yet to set a hearing in the case.

Of the local wireless foes, no one has more impressive credentials than Bruno, who earned a doctorate in physics from the University of California at Berkeley (1991) after majoring in mathematics and physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He works as a theoretical biologist and biophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Bruno sometimes wears a silver-coating nylon veil to protect his brain from wireless signals. He has arranged for the city hall's Wi-Fi system to be shut off when attends City Council meetings. At the Feb. 10 council meeting, Bruno dropped his usual technical jargon to pass around a copy of a GQ magazine story, comparing a cell phone with a package of Marlboro cigarettes.

Later in the meeting, when a lawyer representing NewPath Networks in its bid to install a distributed antenna system told the council "our intention is to be a good neighbor," Bruno unloaded. "Get out of my neighborhood," he screamed from the audience along with several curses, causing the councilors to seek police protection. Bruno later apologized for his outburst in a letter to the editor of The New Mexican.

The local anti-wireless movement rallied around the film Full Signal, which premiered in December at the Santa Fe Film Festival. Palestinian/American filmmaker Talai Jabari's documentary explores how Jews, Christians and Muslims united in opposition to cell-phone antennas in one Israeli town.

In the last two years, the local anti-wireless movement has grown to more than 50 people. These include Katie Singer, a local writer who helped organize a special showing of Full Signal and a talk by Jabari at Santa Fe's Main Library; John McPhee, an employee at the state Department of Health who has been attending council meetings for the last year' and south-side neighborhood activist Sharon O'Neil Wirtz, who told the council on Feb. 10, "It feels like we're letting big business in the name of profits run roughshod over our health."

But the movement's most valuable ally so far might turn out to be Sallie Bingham, a Kentucky newspaper heiress turned playwright, poet and philanthropist since moving to Santa Fe 20 years ago.

Last year, Bingham and Francis Donald objected to a radio transmitter and antenna that the city erected in front of their home on Camino del Monte Sol to monitor pressure in city waterlines. After complaints from numerous east-side residents about aesthetics, noise and possible health effects, the city removed the equipment from 18 sites.

At the Feb. 10 meeting, lawyer Randall Bell spoke on behalf of Bingham, calling for stronger city regulations on wireless systems and a moratorium on such systems, which have been enacted in three California municipalities.

In a subsequent letter to councilors, Bell argued that the federally required 90-day period in which the city must respond to an application for a telecommunications franchise does not begin until the city passes a telecommunications ordinance. Before that, he asserted, city officials need to look into the possible effects and "certainly should give pause to those who so easily and snidely dismiss health concerns."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.