NY State Lawmakers Call for Study of Aircraft Noise

Following the passage of a bill last week in the New York State Legislature to address the concerns of aircraft noise in local communities in western Nassau County and Queens over which airplanes pass on their way to and from JFK and LaGuardia airports, local and state representatives detailed the next steps which are needed during a press conference Wednesday at the New Hyde Park Village Hall.

The Federal Aviation Administration recently put in place a new flightpath pattern for the New York Metro area, which has caused much of the complaints from residents about noise, putting the path of the planes over heavily residential neighborhoods, more so than in the past, with planes coming overhead and landing at about one-minute intervals.

“This decision was made without any community input whatsoever, Assemblyman Edward Braunstein, D-Bayside, said “and no environmental impact study. In fact, the FAA for our area in northeast Queens, issued a categorical exclusion that said that their change would have no significant impact on the surrounding communities so they could go ahead with it; basically self-certifying that everything’s going to be fine.”

Currently, planes come over the village to approach two runways at JFK, known as 22 Left and 22 Right, which, according to Port Authority statistics, 22L saw increases in traffic of 800 flights specifically at night from September to December 2011 than the same period in 2010. The landing strip also was used more in the past 3 years, accounting for 10 percent of all arrivals at the airport in 2009, 16.88 in 2010 and 16.19 percent in 2011. One of the airport’s runways was closed during the summer of 2010 for reconstruction and widening, accounting for another jump in traffic over residential areas.

“We did not ask the control tower to operate 22 Left today,” New Hyde Park Mayor Robert Lofaro said as ironically enough, at least six planes passed overhead during the press conference. “We do realize we live near an airport and some people say ‘well, you live near an airport, you should kind of expect it,’ but what we look for is fair distribution.”

Airplane safety regulations require planes to land into the wind, which has been coming from the southwest for the past 19 months, placing their patterns directly over residential neighborhoods. The various municipalities affected by the low-flying aircraft had formed a group TVASNAC (Town-Village Aircraft Safety & Noise Abatement Committee), which is dedicated to reducing such air traffic and noise over the residential areas in its members’ municipalities.

The bill requires the Port Authority to enter into the “Part 150 Program” which allows for mitigation efforts at the local level. In order to qualify for federal funding, a Part 150 study has to be conducted by the airport, in this case JFK, LaGuardia and Newark, “and it would allow us to study the noise concerns that have become far to common in our local communities and helpfully move us towards broader conversation of addressing this issue,” Assemblyman Edward Ra, R-Franklin Square, said.

The legislation was introduced in the senate by Sen. Jack Martins, R-Mineola, and Sen. Kemp Hannon, R-Garden City, and in the assembly by Braunstein and Michele Titus, D-Far Rockaway. It must now be signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The study would most likely be conducted by an environmental consultant or outside contracting firm. Federal funding for the program is available, though exactly how much remains unclear due to governmental sequestration.

Ra stated that such studies have been conducted at other airports in New York State including Albany and Buffalo as well as 470 across the country and that over $5 billion has been spent on the Part 150 program since its inception.

“There certainly is an upfront cost to doing the study, especially at three major metropolitan airports, but I think in the long run it will improve our quality of life and our mitigation measures,” Ra said.

The bill would also provide for annual hearings where residents of the counties around the airports could address Port Authority commissioners directly with noise complaints.

“We’re confident that if we get this Part 150 study done, it will prove that there is a significant impact on our communities and the FAA and the Port Authority will be required to find measures to remediate this problem,” Braunstein said.

Lofaro thanked the legislators for passing the bill “because now we’ll have an independent party tell us what we already know.”

Any legislation having to deal with the Port Authority, a multi-state agency, must be passed by both the state governments of New York and New Jersey in order to become binding. Ra stated that bill (S.2876) has already been introduced in the New Jersey State Legislature, but that the bill does not have a timeline in which it must be passed. The bill does specify a date for the study to be conducted.

“If that becomes an unrealistic end date because New Jersey hasn’t passed it yet, obviously we’d have to explore a chapter amendment or something like that to move the date forward because we certainly want to study done, but we do want it done right, we don’t want it rushed,” Ra said. “We want it done properly so that when it’s submitted to the FAA it is approved and it does open up those funding opportunities.”

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