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davis_squareHello, Ladies and Gents of the DSLJ
I note the airplane noise discussion got ginned up again over the weekend (understandably so, since noise levels were noticeably higher than usual).
I’m going to try once more, as briefly as I can, to provide some crucial historical background, since DSLJ debate on this topic usually resolves so quickly into a match among the “this-is-a-fact-of-life-in-an-urban-environment-and-we-all-need-the-airport” forces, the “my-quality-of-life-my-sanity-my-ability-to-work-are-all-being-destroyed-by-constant-jet-noise” forces and – perhaps most numerous – the “why-discuss-it-when-nothing-ever-happens?” forces. I am not trying to prolong the discussion, and everyone is entitled to her/his opinion, but it's really important to know the history.
If you lived in Somerville before 2007, your ears do not deceive you: there’s been a sharp increase in jet noise. The FAA and Massport COULD bring the noise back to past levels with very little change in airfield throughput or on-time performance. They WON’T, because appealing the most recent court ruling just isn’t cost-effective, so Somerville is unable to carry on the fight. Policy at the FAA is still largely in the hands of Bush-area appointees, and even Obama appointees don’t like setting precedents that might constrain the authority of the FAA to do whatever it deems necessary to manage air traffic.
So it is what it is.
Here are some key bits of information that often go missing from these discussions:
1. Even though commercial jet aircraft are, on the whole, much quieter today than then they were in the ’70s and ’80s, it really IS a lot noisier today in Somerville’s skies than it was five, ten or twenty years ago. The added noise cannot be explained by changes in wind patterns or in the number of takeoffs and landings.
2. We know to a fair degree of certainty why this change has occurred: In November 2006, Logan opened a new runway (14/32) that has become part of a favored reconfiguration of how the entire airfield is used by the FAA’s air traffic controllers. In the new configuration, takeoffs from Runway 33L have nearly tripled – and almost all the aircraft using the runway are so-called “heavies,” i.e., the biggest jets.
3. In seeking environmental permissions to build the new runway, Massport officials promised back in the late '90's and early '00s that the added capacity would not result in a “significant change” in Logan’s overall noise envelope or in the use of any particular runway.
4. In June 2009, the City of Somerville brought suit to reopen the settlement of the environmental case against Massport (Massport v. City of Boston et al., 2004) on the grounds that Massport and Logan were no longer in compliance with the terms of the settlement that cleared the way for the construction of 14/32. (The City of Boston did not join in the request to reopen the case, in part because the noise Somerville experiences today used to be heard over the skies over Dorchester and Jamaica Plain.)
5. Judge Stephen Neel refused to reopen the case, saying that Somerville wasn’t part of the area of major impact covered by the original agreement (the area in which jet noise regularly exceeds 60 dB) and it’s impossible to determine whether it is now. There’s a real Catch-22 here, since the noise monitoring equipment needed to verify current levels is expensive and, unlike communities like East Boston or Revere, Somerville would have to pay for it itself and collect data for at least a year before claiming that it should receive protection under the original settlement.
So there you have it. Speaking as someone who worked for Massport from 1983 to 1995 and for the City of Somerville from 2005 to the start of 2010, I can only restate my personal belief that more could and should be done to mitigate the impacts of the sharp increase in airport noise over Somerville in the past four years. I also readily acknowledge that there is little likelihood that anything will ever be done.
As Rabelais has it, “What cannot be remedied must be endured.”
I note the airplane noise discussion got ginned up again over the weekend (understandably so, since noise levels were noticeably higher than usual).
I’m going to try once more, as briefly as I can, to provide some crucial historical background, since DSLJ debate on this topic usually resolves so quickly into a match among the “this-is-a-fact-of-life-in-an-urban-environment-and-we-all-need-the-airport” forces, the “my-quality-of-life-my-sanity-my-ability-to-work-are-all-being-destroyed-by-constant-jet-noise” forces and – perhaps most numerous – the “why-discuss-it-when-nothing-ever-happens?” forces. I am not trying to prolong the discussion, and everyone is entitled to her/his opinion, but it's really important to know the history.
If you lived in Somerville before 2007, your ears do not deceive you: there’s been a sharp increase in jet noise. The FAA and Massport COULD bring the noise back to past levels with very little change in airfield throughput or on-time performance. They WON’T, because appealing the most recent court ruling just isn’t cost-effective, so Somerville is unable to carry on the fight. Policy at the FAA is still largely in the hands of Bush-area appointees, and even Obama appointees don’t like setting precedents that might constrain the authority of the FAA to do whatever it deems necessary to manage air traffic.
So it is what it is.
Here are some key bits of information that often go missing from these discussions:
1. Even though commercial jet aircraft are, on the whole, much quieter today than then they were in the ’70s and ’80s, it really IS a lot noisier today in Somerville’s skies than it was five, ten or twenty years ago. The added noise cannot be explained by changes in wind patterns or in the number of takeoffs and landings.
2. We know to a fair degree of certainty why this change has occurred: In November 2006, Logan opened a new runway (14/32) that has become part of a favored reconfiguration of how the entire airfield is used by the FAA’s air traffic controllers. In the new configuration, takeoffs from Runway 33L have nearly tripled – and almost all the aircraft using the runway are so-called “heavies,” i.e., the biggest jets.
3. In seeking environmental permissions to build the new runway, Massport officials promised back in the late '90's and early '00s that the added capacity would not result in a “significant change” in Logan’s overall noise envelope or in the use of any particular runway.
4. In June 2009, the City of Somerville brought suit to reopen the settlement of the environmental case against Massport (Massport v. City of Boston et al., 2004) on the grounds that Massport and Logan were no longer in compliance with the terms of the settlement that cleared the way for the construction of 14/32. (The City of Boston did not join in the request to reopen the case, in part because the noise Somerville experiences today used to be heard over the skies over Dorchester and Jamaica Plain.)
5. Judge Stephen Neel refused to reopen the case, saying that Somerville wasn’t part of the area of major impact covered by the original agreement (the area in which jet noise regularly exceeds 60 dB) and it’s impossible to determine whether it is now. There’s a real Catch-22 here, since the noise monitoring equipment needed to verify current levels is expensive and, unlike communities like East Boston or Revere, Somerville would have to pay for it itself and collect data for at least a year before claiming that it should receive protection under the original settlement.
So there you have it. Speaking as someone who worked for Massport from 1983 to 1995 and for the City of Somerville from 2005 to the start of 2010, I can only restate my personal belief that more could and should be done to mitigate the impacts of the sharp increase in airport noise over Somerville in the past four years. I also readily acknowledge that there is little likelihood that anything will ever be done.
As Rabelais has it, “What cannot be remedied must be endured.”
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Date: 2010-09-17 02:31 am (UTC)"You may also call Massport's Noise Complaint Line at (617) 561-3333. This line is staffed by Massport's Noise Abatement Office from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on business days."