Fight Airplane Noise!
Dear Neighbor,
Recently, our neighborhood has been subject to an excessive amount of plane noise at all hours of the day and night as well as on the weekends. Even while trying to celebrate and honor the life of Father Eugene Donnelly a couple of weekends ago in East Elmhurst, I found myself having to compete with and wait for the planes to pass before we could continue the street co-naming ceremony.
In 2012, without notifying the public, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began testing a program called Next-Gen, a system that uses global-positioning technology to precisely track planes and allow air-traffic control to safely reduce the distance between them, allowing for more frequent landings and takeoffs. The FAA quietly completed an environmental review of its tests and, I believe wrongfully, concluded that the program would not have any significant effect on the quality of the environment (including noise pollution). The FAA then made the changes permanent.
The result is that while NetGen reduces emissions and flight delays, new low flight patterns disturb more Queens residents. This apparently was not taken into account. To make matters worse, the FAA quietly introduced a new rule that will allow them to make future changes to flight patterns without conducting environmental reviews to study the impact of the changes.
Along with Congresswoman Grace Meng, Congressman Steve Israel, Congressman Joseph Crowley and a host of elected officials, I am pressing the FAA and the Port Authority to prepare a full environmental review of flight changes, as it has been done at most other U.S. airports. Also, our congress members sent a letter to the FAA calling on the agency to exempt LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy Airport flights from the new rule that allows the FAA to make changes to flight patterns without environmental impact reviews.
In the meantime, there are a few things residents can do to let the "powers that be" know you don't like this new pattern:
- Write to Governor Cuomo and ask him to sign the Part 150 Bill (A7697/S3841), requiring the Port Authority to prepare a Noise Compatibility Study for JFK and LaGuardia Airports. This has been passed by both the Assembly and State Senate. These studies have been done in more than 50 other airports around the country.
- Complete and submit a complaint form to the Port Authority here or leave a detailed voicemail on this hotline at 1-800-225-1071.
- Make complaints to the Port Authority and email a copy of the complaint to Bob Whitehair of Queens Quiet Skies for statistical purposes at queensquietskies@aol.com.
- Work with civic organizations and elected officials towards the installation of more noise monitors at LaGuardia, where there are only 4, and JFK where there are only 6. At most other major airports, there are 30 noise monitors at each airport.
- Advocate for the creation of an Aviation Roundtable, where decisions are made by all affected parties: citizens, airport personnel, the airlines and the FAA - as found in 25 other locations around the country.
- In the near future, I will hold a Town Hall meeting to bring residents together to discuss other ideas about what can be done to decrease this assault on our quality of life.
I believe that with our efforts and working united as a community, we can push the FAA to listen to our concerns and work with us to resolve this matter.
Please feel free to contact my office if you have any questions at (718) 803-6373 or email me at dromm@council.nyc.gov.