||| FROM DAVID BOWMAN |||
The noise pollution is quite bad, especially in the summer, and any efforts to reduce it are welcome. But as long as the airport is spending millions of dollars to expand their facilities with the goal of accommodating more flights, noise abatement efforts will not result in a net reduction of noise pollution. The only way to truly reduce the noise pollution is to reduce the number of flights.
One way to do this is to increase the cost of using the airport by imposing an impact fee on flights which have no direct benefit to the general public. For example, FedEx services or San Juan Airlines flights are accessible to everyone, but an individual flying into KORS to stay in his vacation home generates a public cost with no direct public benefit. Such individuals should not be allowed to impose costs on the community without some form of compensation being paid, and ideally, this will disincentivize some people from flying.
Like overtourism, noise pollution is something that “the little people” are expected to put up with because they might derive some minor or infrequent benefit from having an airport. But the airplane noise that drowns out conversations in town or rouses the locals from sleep in the early hours of morning is mostly a result of tourism-oriented businesses generating profits and wealthy people joyriding in their privately-owned flying toys.
Another issue is the fact that most of our educational facilities are adjacent to the flight paths and are potentially exposed to airborne particulate pollution in the form of heavy metals like lead. Read the recent (Oct 18 2023) EPA endangerment finding titled: “Lead Emissions from Aircraft Engines Cause or Contribute to Air Pollution .” Leaded fuel for passenger vehicles was phased out in the 1970s due to serious health risks, but most small aircraft, including those that fly over Eastsound every day, still use leaded fuel (AVGAS) and disperse it into their flight path like crop dusters as they travel. Based on public data sources it appears that KORS sells leaded 100LL fuel to pilots. Is there enough lead in the flight path that it constitutes a threat to public health? This can only be determined through quantitative sampling methods, but that work should be done and the data should be used in any future discussion of airport expansion.
Then there’s the recent spike in airplane crashes, none of which, miraculously, have caused collisions with homes, businesses, or vehicles on Mt Baker Rd even though one plane went directly through the fence and crossed the road. Guess what… increasing the number of flights will increase the risk of crashes, and one of them could eventually lead to a catastrophic loss of life and property.
It’s always surprising when islanders can’t see that they’re constantly being asked to tolerate a lower standard of living so that a very small number of people can generate profits or use the island as their personal playground. The worst part is that we pay taxes for this…
SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO the recent (Oct 18 2023) EPA endangerment finding.
From the 11/20/23 Port meeting–
In relation to the below I think it’s worth noting that not much flying takes place in October–
OLD BUSINESS
1. Noise Abatement Update
It was noted that noise complaints have been less frequent of late. After approval, the new brochures should be made widely available to both the public and pilots.
5. Helipad Relocation
An e-mail from Sadie Bailey concerning the master plan notation of helipad relocation to the
south end of the field was not acceptable due to increased noise. The commissioners
present agreed that relocation was not feasible at the present time.
Thank you Sadie… always got our back.
Man, I couldn’t agree more with this guy more. I want to see a BIG tax put on these flights. Maybe a sliding scale so the really wealthy are having to part with some serious cash in order to disturb our peace. I do not live near town but the airplane traffic is annoying as all get out in my garden. Commercial flights I can tell time by and they stay up but local and non local pilots sometimes are way too low for over someone’s house away from town and the airport. And in town it is almost intolerable. So make them pay alot of money and perhaps these rich folks will take the boat like the rest of us islanders…..jeez, what a concept.
Thank you for this well thought article. I live directly under the flight path at lavender Hollow apartments in the northernmost building, besides the one on Enchanted Forest superhighway (don’t fall into one of those 4′ deep gutters!) I’ve been in this building for over 20 years and have lost my hearing in my already damaged left ear, due to noise impacts which have worsened to unbearable in the past 8 or so years.
I agree with everything you say and the ideas presented. The problem is, taking the money from the Airport Improvement Plan, which places NO stipulations on noise pollution or the dangers to those living under the flight path in clustered housing if an accident should occur (and there have been several RECENT accidents.)
The noise abatement thing is voluntary. Many pilots seem to ignore it. Unfortunately, even the suggestion of changing the flight path by a few degrees so that they don’t fly directly over our rooftops -adding to our significant anxiety about crashes into our buildings – is not being taken seriously by most of the pilots. I’m all for a graduated tax and while we’re at it, let’s go back to that for auto tabs. I am paying with my health as are so many low and middle income people who live in town due to the dumbass idea to make our most diverse contiguous wetland (at sea level) an Urban Growth Area with an airport and runway through it. No answers here, but where I garden, the noise level is almost as bad.
Maybe we need some kind of citizens’ coalition. The Port needs to hear our thoughts on noise pollution and more. We still have a quorum of responsive commissioners – for now – and a good manager. But the tides are turning and we have had two seats won because no one ran against the candidates. The balance is in danger of tipping and we the citizens need to show up, speak out, and keep paying attention.
Thank you, Michael Johnson, for always paying attention.
Maybe the more effective thing to do is communicate en masse to the FAA, and we should be doing that anyway because the current master plan’s eventuality is to allow up to 78 foot wingspans! Can you imagine!? Now is the time to start pressuring them – before the next Master Plan is due to begin – and we need to keep at it. The FAA had dangled the carrot of a “B-2 Narrow” category for our airport (and others’) that would never allow this due to the issues already covered. (narrow land mass, sea level rise, clustered housing all around and beneath the flight path, ETC.) It is my opinion that we MUST NOT ALLOW the FAA to get away with not making this category. It’s the only way to prevent massive growth in directions that will endanger us all and make town living impossible. The FAA’s only ‘solution’ to this is to give people a small amount of money to ‘relocate’ – not even enough for a first and last month’s rent, IF there were housing, which there isn’t.
As Michael Johnson has said repeatedly, until we look at over-tourism and its impacts, we will keep having problems of gentrification and the rich pushing out the working class and poor. A few people alone can’t effect anything. Only mass resistance to these kinds of things could do any good or be effective and it involves changing county politics as well. As it is, we can’t even get people to run for opposed seats on commissions. Not sure if that is apathy or that people are too busy and worn out just trying to survive.
Keep writing, David Bowman. We need voices like yours. The only next steps I can see are to hound the FAA, in numbers, until they listen to us and we get the current master plan dialed back with the B-2 Narrow category and as many Mod of Standards (a 5 yr stay on having to separate the runways to allow for the 78′ wingspan) as it takes til we get their attention. Perhaps a good researcher can find out what other counties are battling this same thing with their airports – the more of us putting pressure on the FAA, the better. Who’s in?
continued;
also leaded fuel and the fuel pollution and particulates issue MUST be addressed. That is huge. Thanks the the EPA link; will be reading that and looking into it next.
Ports have all the power – more than the county. Luckily we have several commissioners who want to honor citizens’ concerns about overgrowth in our airport. We DON’T want to become what Paine Field did. But know this; there is a significant demand for more and more hangars and they WILL be built, starting on the West side. Not sure of exact number but I think something in the 30s, ultimately. That generates money for the Port. Even though were are now continuously over the 10,000 enplanements required for the million bucks a year, this will only ensure that we’ll be getting BIG money and not just through that program. Ours is a strategic military location, as well as a place for ‘securing the border’ and that is being pushed, along with broadband bill and infrastructure bill (Biden, Larsen).
We have our hands full; many pilots want jet fuel (so toxic!),and unleaded fuel may be an impossibility, due to expense alone. That said, a graduated tax would help pay for that – anyone here a lawyer who would help us look into legalities like this? The airport is considered an essential service so that has bearing on everything. It’s complex and I have neither the the energy or time to look into all of this alone.