The View From Prospect Hill

Contrary to popular opinion amongst certain local groups who only pop up to voice their opinion when they see a comment about their favorite darling in the print or online editions of our newspaper, the personal opinion of one person at The Somerville News does not normally translate into the opinion of the entire paper. Every once in a while a personal opinion or topic morphs into something much bigger and not only does everyone here agree with the opinion, but it becomes difficult to find anyone outside our newspaper who could possibly disagree with it.

Such is the case with the “planes over Somerville” issue. Some of us thought for a period of time that we were losing our minds – almost every morning and sometimes at other random times during the day – a jet would fly what seemed to be 30 feet overhead. It would be so loud you’d swear it was about to rip the roof off. It started off slowly, only happening once in a while, then it became every morning and now you would think it was such a regular occurrence that you would get used to it. That would be a big negative on that one.

One of us started bitching about this back in July, and we know he wasn’t alone – and now after watching the Board of Aldermen this past week and talking to other people around the city – we know there are a lot of people who are feeling the same way. Massport and the FAA in particular don’t give a crap about the people of Somerville – that’s plainly evident by their consistent ignorance of our elected officials when they look for answers on our behalf.

This isn’t an issue that has just affected people on Winter Hill and Prospect Hill – it affects this entire city, especially the people who live at the top of the various hills. The city has asked for answers, people calling the noise hotline at Massport/Logan have asked for answers – even U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano (who lives on Winter Hill) has officially asked for answers. We get nothing – not even an acknowledgement that there have been complaints and/or inquiries in the first place.

First Massport tried to sell us the sad explanation that it was due to the “weather and wind patterns.” Quite frankly, we don’t know whether we as a community should be insulted more by the FAA and Massport for ignoring us or by them thinking we are stupid enough to believe that it is all about the weather.

Maybe Al Gore should roll up his sleeves and park himself here in Somerville in search of his next Nobel Prize. It is possible that all of a sudden there has been such a shift in global weather patterns in just one year to cause this?  Are they actually going to say this is the only year in the last 30-40 years that we have “unusually high” Northwest wind patterns?  Are they serious?  We aren’t buying it – and neither should you. 

Okay, so maybe compared to the daily noise and grief the people living in East Boston have to go through it might seem silly of us to complain, but that part of Boston has had years and years to absorb the good and bad attributes of having the airport right there – changing runways and frequency of flights affects us in ways we as a community can’t adjust to overnight – not by a long shot.

Not only is it a quality of life issue with the noise, but how about the impact on local real estate – present and future? What about the new luxurious condos to be built at Assembly Square for example? Its doubtful that the brochures from the developers will be touting the lovely plane traffic a few hundred feet overhead.

At the end of the day we are screwed doubly – first because Massport couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Somerville and secondly because the FAA (read – Bush Administration) also couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Somerville. Wig Zamore might be right – the only way we will even get someone to listen to our concerns is to file a lawsuit in Federal Court. How insane is it in this day and age when we have to sue our own government just to get them to listen to us?

Comments

[??]

Where would you suggest the planes fly instead?

[!!!]

how about underground?

[Election]

Check out the most recent Massport stats about complaints by town:
http://www.massport.com/logan/pdf/c_noise_town_907.pdf

As you can see, there has been a major increase in Chelsea, Cambridge, Somerville and "Other"...

[Election]

Regarding wind patters, the history of winds direction and strength is open to the public... Easy to verify. The issue is whether they tweak the wind criteria to decide where planes take off and whether these tweaks have to do with safety.

[Election]

Also, don't forget that East Boston's homeowners are eligible for free noise insulation:
http://www.massport.com/logan/airpo_noise.html

Here are the noise patterns (in dBs), at least in 2005. Where are the 2006/2007 data?

http://www.massport.com/logan/pdf/c_dnl_cont05.pdf