Dear Friends:
On Monday the FAA released three documents describing the state of their efforts to reduce noise. See them here: http://www.quietskieslosaltoshills.org/in-the-news/analysis-of-faa-proposal-of-may-19-2016
The
Steering Committee for Quiet Skies Mid-Peninsula met last night (Thursday evening)
to discuss our consensus response to the FAA, to the Select Committee,
and to Eshoo / Speier / Farr...and our next steps.
We
agreed to
convene a
Mid-Peninsula-wide meeting
- on Saturday, June 4
- from 10:00am to 12:30pm
-
in the Council Chambers of the Town of Los Altos Hills
- at 26379 Fremont Road, Los Altos Hills.
By that date we hope to have the feedback
from the Select Committee's meeting on May 25, the technical advisory review meeting on May 26, and the initial review by
the aviation consultants. We feel that your time will be better spent
if we meet once the initial recommendations of the aviation
consultants, hired by the Palo Alto and Portola Valley governments, may be available.
Please plan to join us for this meeting, open to the
public. Gary Waldeck, vice-mayor of Los Altos Hills and a member of the Select Committee has agreed to moderate
this meeting to ensure that all points of view are fairly aired. If you
want to present at this meeting, contact Pilar Parducci (pilar99@yahoo.com), resident of Los Altos, who is coordinating the agenda.
Based on our initial review, we are disappointed by the FAA documents for several reasons:
- Nowhere
in the documents is there any suggestion that the FAA understands our
pain, either noise or air pollution. They do not commit to any
reduction in noise or to measure the noise that results from their
proposals. They insist that they will continue to use the same discredited noise
metrics (FAA 1050.1F) that predicted "no significant impact" for the
NextGen deployment.
- They deliver a laundry list of 46
possible modifications to Metroplex air traffic procedures of which 25
were "arrivals" and 6 were "arrivals and departures". They concluded
that 9 modifications to arrivals were "feasible". The FAA did not even respond to
the proposals by Palo Alto, made in 2015, to move arrivals to overfly
the San Francisco Bay, disperse flights arriving at SFO, or retrofit noisy
Airbus aircraft with vortex generators. They are thinking inside a very
small box.
- All the discussion of SFO arrivals is
focused on flights from the south. The FAA has disregarded flights from
the north and west that are vectored over the mid-peninsula. Even flights from
the South won't be appreciably quieter: the FAA proposes a new arrival that
will (a) follow the SEFFR track to somewhere between Monterey
and the coast of Santa Cruz/Aptos, and then (b) transition over to the
BIGSUR ground track while remaining at the lower SERFR altitudes. Because this changes neither NextGen's lowered altitudes nor denser flight concentrations, this might at best provide
minimal relief to homes in the hills north of Santa
Cruz and south of Saratoga.
This modest proposal is consistent with the statement by Glen Martin, the
FAA's Western Pacific Regional Administrator, that "moving back to the
state of affairs before NextGen" is
not an option.
- While Mid-Peninsula could see incremental
noise reductions if the promised "optimized profile descents"
(engine-idle descents) are implemented, this is cold comfort and has
been promised--but not delivered--in the past. The significant benefits
accrue only to residents in the Santa Cruz Mountains who live under the SERFR route.
- There
is no commitment to continuous improvement. The FAA seems intent on a
handful of one-off changes, only. Due to its complexity, this problem
cannot be solved in a single pass. Joe Simitian, chairman of the Select
Committee, made clear last Saturday, May 14, that he anticipates that the Committee's efforts will wrap up in several months.
Without the Select Committee, there is no body representing the entire
mid-Peninsula which can hold the FAA accountable for immediate and
ongoing noise reduction. The problem needs an ongoing, iterative
process, in which a change is made, tested, implemented, reviewed and
revised.
Finally,
Quiet Skies Mid-Peninsula continues to object to the notion that
residents are expected to offer specific solutions to the FAA for
reducing aircraft noise. We believe that this is a strategy by the FAA
to deflect criticism of the problems they created with NextGen. In July
2015, the FAA committed to delivering proposed solutions, but never
did. Now, instead of the hundreds of possible solutions that they--the
experts--might have conceived of, the FAA will only consider the handful
proposed by mere mortals living in the Metroplex. Yet they can simply
dismiss any of these proposals with the criticism that it lacks the
mysterious quality of "overall fly-ability".
Thank you for supporting Quiet Skies Mid-Peninsula's efforts to limit aircraft noise. We hope to see you on Saturday, June 4.
Sincerely,
The Quiet Skies Mid-Peninsula Team |
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