Air traffic controllers

By Jack Nicas

City officials are “seriously considering” taking legal action against the federal government after the number of planes flying over Somerville has tripled in the last two years, and according to city officials, the feds have turned a cold shoulder to local noise complaints.

City spokesman Tom Champion said the city could sue the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and potentially the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) in response to the increase in airplane noise over Somerville skies.

FAA spokesman Jim Peters said attorney Peter Koff, the Cambridge representative on the Logan Airport Community Advisory Committee (CAC), has already filed suit against the FAA over Runway 33L, the runway responsible for all Somerville air traffic.

Wig Zamore, the CAC's Somerville representative, said air traffic over Somerville tripled in 2007 following the introduction of Runway 14/32 at Logan. According to CAC data, takeoffs from Runway 33L accounted for 6.4 percent of all takeoffs prior to 2007. Once Runway 14/32 was introduced, that number skyrocketed to 24 percent, according to Massport.

Zamore said the increase was the result of a three-way model, where runways 27 and 32 would handle most arrivals and 33L most takeoffs. Richard Walsh, spokesman for Massport, said the use of Runway 33L is up to the FAA, but is often determined by weather, specifically wind conditions; however, Champion disagrees: “The statistics just don't bear out that the wind patterns have changed so much that they're sending out 300 percent more operations over Somerville than they used to.”

Peters said wind is the determining factor for runway usage and that the FAA has “to use the runways available to [them].” He said the three-fold increase from 2006 to 2007 on 33L was a result of “persistent wind conditions.”

Champion said the FAA's runway configuration fostered the increased usage. “If you look at what's happened since [Runway 14/32] opened, it's clear the FAA is making an operational decision to send a lot more aircrafts over Somerville. Logan operated for years without that traffic, so presumably it would be possible to operate the airport safely and efficiently without sending aircrafts in those numbers over Somerville.”

The FAA, in conjunction with Massport and the CAC, is in the fifth year of a six-year study called the Boston Logan Airport Noise Study (BLANS), which looks to reduce noise impact from Logan flights. In the first phase of the study, the CAC introduced one flight concept to abate noise over Somerville: planes would be required to make turns, which create more noise, farther down Mystic River near Wellington Station and at a higher altitude.

Champion said this could create “modest impact, but not substantial relief,” because the real problem is runway assignments and configurations. He said the city has exhausted all attempts to get the FAA to acknowledge this, but to no avail. The FAA refuses to speak with Somerville outside of BLANS, the study cannot involve any runway configurations, and the FAA refuses to discuss any runway configurations or assignments in general, he said.

“As long as the FAA is adamant that they won't even look at this issue or sit down and talk with us,” he said, “then the odds are pretty good that we'll have to take some sort of legal action.”

State Rep. Denise Provost, State Senator Patricia Jehlen and the Board of Aldermen have all contacted the FAA as well. Provost suggested an extension past Wellington and an increase of 2,000 feet in altitude for the turnaround point. Jehlen called for portable noise monitoring devices for affected neighborhoods, such as Winter Hill. And the Board of Aldermen passed an order requesting a “respite” policy to alleviate residents' sleep deprivation. The FAA responded to all three in a letter that said, “Your letter and comments will be made part of the record and considered accordingly.”

Jenny Shallenberger, a Mead Street resident, said with the exception of the early morning hours, flights are a constant above her house. As a music teacher, the noise is disrupting her life. “I teach students at home,” she said, “and I have to stop talking or playing when the airplanes go over in order to complete what I'm doing.”

She said the planes wake her up most mornings around 5:30 a.m.

Champion said the city's next step is consulting with neighboring communities to see if joint action is possible. “Then based off the kind of response we receive, we'll formulate an appropriate plan for how best to proceed legally.” He said action could be taken “in a matter of months.”

Zamore said the city's density makes its skies a bad place for regular air traffic. He said, “If there's anywhere that'll have an impact if you fly jets over it, it's here.”

Comments

[Grinch]

What noise?

This is retarded; a large car / truck going down the street makes more noise then a plane coming in at the height and speed it’s at over Somerville.

[Mike Hillwig]

Having lived in East Boston for two years, this all sounds like a bunch of whining.

[somebody]

I pretty pissed about the airplane noise pollution. I bought my home in 2006, and then a year later the noise and frequency of events increases. It's not whining. If you move somewhere where airplane noise is already a problem, then it is whining. If you move somewhere that doesn't have airplane noise, but later starts to, it's not whining. I didn't choose to live in East Boston; one of the reasons is the airplane noise. I choose to live in West Somerville, which was fairly quiet. I remember one Saturday trying to have a conversation with my neighbor outside, and we got so annoyed because every 5-10 min we got interrupted by plane noise that drowned out our voices.

[Somerville n00b]

East Boston person, you think about your own local community, we think about ours. If you are wimp and are afraid of complaining, that's your problem. Here in Somerville we got the Green Line going, after suing the bastards, and we'll get the airplane noise fixed too using the same means.
I'm all for this. I'll sign whatever petition is required. Planes are flying low over Somerville too often, these days. They wake you up early in the morning, and that has health implications for residents.

[ECartman]

I noticed this living in Prospect Hill over a year ago. I recently moved to the Tufts area and the noise is so bad it rattles my house. If I wanted a helping of plane noise instead drunk college kid parties, I would live in Winthrop.

[BSquare gal]

This is a great article - very informative. From teh sound of it, there is a solution tht would allow planes to fly, and reduce problems for people in the neighborhoods. Why won't the FAA and Logan use those solutions? What's up with that?? What will it take??

[JARfromWard3]

It's funny how 14/32 was the big issue 10 years ago; the political line-in-the-sand as it were. Does anyone remember Teamsters head George Cashman and the head of Boston's CofC rallying around it with forecasts that it was the key to Boston's economic future? In the end, it got built. Quietly, quickly, and with little in the way of bravado or ceremony.

15/33 and 14/32 allow ATC to put the tin to the wind--or safely and comfortably onto the ground--under the most common of weather circumstances in Boston, that being prevailing West/Northwesterly winds. Unfortunately for us, we happen to be in the departure path for those climb-outs. Equally unfortunate is that we are right on the coast and have the US airport located closest to the city it serves. No amount of political grandstanding or community activism will change that... ever.

The bad news is that air traffic will, over the long term, increase. The good news is that the average amount of noise produced by newer-generation engines is considerably less than the turbojets of the 60s and 70s. (Remember Northeast's "Yellowbirds"?). Those 727's and Convairs and DC-8's could really haul the mail (recall Eastern Airlines' "Gate-to-Gate in 28" between Gen. Edward Lawrence Logan and Idlewild), but they screamed in order to do it!

I live on Spring Hill and as such have to live with the jets going overhead on 60-90 second headways just like everyone else. Especially in the evenings when the heavies of BOAC and Aer Lingus and 'Thansa are heading out on their overseas, overnight routes. Cool late summer evenings right about the time the Sox are on NESN are the worst.

It is what it is though. Folks don't take the train no more!

73
JAR

[Husband of Wife of RETIRED ATC]

This rings a bell. Check the website linked at my name, below. The FAA, from which I recently retired, is led by very arrogant individuals. They don't believe they have to answer to anyone. The link above will educate you about another community which is fighting the FAA.

[John J. Tormey III, Esq.]

My group Quiet Rockland in Rockland County NY has been fighting the FAA for over a year on a similar issue. I used to live in Somerville - at 62 Elm Street. One of FAA's strategies is to enlist its workers as fake citizen bloggers to post to message boards like these, and tell you the noise isn't that bad. Well the noise IS that bad - and the real problems include safety and disaster planning, falling aircraft parts, falling blue ice, psychological torture like a water drip but worse, and your house and property values going way south and STAYING there. Fight them NOW, and shut them down NOW, or they will BEAT you! And as far as I remember from living in Somerville, citizens there usually don't like to lose that much.
John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Quiet Rockland
http://removesturgell.blogspot.com
jtormey@optonline.net

[Somerville n00b]

John, thanks. Actually, it appears that we already have a list of names of potential FAA infiltrators, thanks to our own moles working there. The noise is terrible and the bastards will be stopped.

[JARfromWard3]

John J.;

You left out "aerosolized jet fuel" in the stuff-falling-from-sky list.

Is there a large airport in Orange-Rockland or are these mainly the departure routes from NYC/Newreck/Teeterboro?

By the way, the noise IS "that bad", although it used to be worse... just not quite as frequent.

73
JAR

[Travis Ritch]

i've been surprised at the number of flyovers.

[DavisSquareResident]

I could not agree more with the third and fourth posters above. We bought our house in the Davis Square/Tufts area in late 2006 and have witnessed a steady increase in air traffic since - particularly since summer of 2007. When they decide to fire up 33L it can literally be 4-5 days of airplanes flying low and loud over our neighborhood from 5:30 in the morning until almost 11:00 at night. There are times when there is almost no time interval between the flights - you can hear the next one coming as the last one dissapates.