Under Integrated Airspace Alternative, EWR Arrivals Would Move East To Rockland

Residents in Rockland, NY barely notice aircraft departing from area airports. Most aircraft are already at 10,000 feet or higher by the time they get to the area. But, that all may change by 2011 if plans by the Federal Aviation Administration go through.

Right now, aircraft departing LaGuardia Airport, Stewart International Airport and Westchester County airports often go unnoticed by area residents.

The FAA has almost completed a project that has spanned the last 10 years to change air traffic patterns in a 31,000-square-mile area covering five states that includes New York, according to the Journal News.

"What happens in New York has a big effect on the rest of the country," said Steve Kelley, program manager for the FAA's airspace redesign.

Kelley will be in Washington Wednesday with other FAA officials for a meeting with Rep. Eliot Engel, D-Bronx, who says increased activity over Rockland is "completely unacceptable." Thursday, he is scheduled to appear on a local cable TV show to answer questions about the proposed changes.

The agency insists any noise impacts felt by the more than 11,000 affected area residents would be "slight to moderate," according to the Journal News.

In order to meet growth and efficiency goals, the FAA plan will require 200-600 flights per day to be redirected over Rockland, at an altitude of 5,000-6,000 feet.

There are currently "relatively few" flights over Rockland, said FAA spokesman Jim Peters, but he could not say for certain exactly how many. Most flights directed to Runway 22 at Newark Liberty International Airport would, under the new plan, fly directly over Rockland during summer months due to wind conditions.

Peters acknowledged an average of 200 to 400 flights a day could occur -- that works out to about one every three minutes between the hours of 6 am and midnight.

On busy days, "You could get as many as 600," he said.

This is a battle the FAA has been fighting -- some might say waging -- for quite some time as it struggles with issues of too many aircraft and not enough appropriate technology to deal with them properly, as ANN has reported, for other areas in the same boat as Rockland.

Area resident David Merkin is taking a wait-and-see approach on any changes.

"We're not going to know what the real impact is until they actually start flying over us," he said.

Fellow resident Rick Oliver said he doesn't want to wait that long to see how his quality of life will be affected.

"To go from where you don't see that much, no activity, basically, that's a lot," Oliver said. "Going from nothing, that's tremendous."

"You certainly will hear the aircraft noise much more frequently," said Thomas Micelli, county Department of Health environmental health director. "With the increased traffic, every time a plane goes over, it will be heard by people on the ground."

Now, the politicians are getting upset over the issue.

"Does it seem like we were caught off guard?" said C.J. Miller, County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef spokeswoman. "Yes, it does. Because the outreach has been abysmal, absolutely abysmal. And when you're talking about the quality of people's lives, that's unacceptable. So the failure lies directly at (the FAA's) feet."

New York Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer want FAA meetings to be conducted in Rockland. The county Legislature passed a resolution, by a unanimous vote, calling on the FAA to hold a hearing in the county and delay any decision making until local residents have a say.

The FAA said it has been reaching out to the public and has conducted several meetings already. In October, Kelley noted there were 31 public meetings held in the study area. In response to political pressure, there was even a public hearing in New Jersey in June. There have been several Rockland officials say they were never notified of any meetings, but the FAA contends they were, indeed, contacted.

"We need to know what the facts are with regard to the increase in noise and which communities are going to be affected," Orangetown Supervisor Thom Kleiner said. "And then we need to be able to comment on that."

The Rockland county planning department said last year a 5-decibel day-night average sound level (DNL) minimum increase resulting in noise exposure between 45 and 60 decibels DNL are considered to have a slight to moderate aircraft noise impact.
 
Decibel levels in the towns of Ramapo and Orangetown are currently in the mid-30s, but could possibly reach 45 decibels under the new design.

A conversation between two people is usually between 55 and 65 decibels, said Micelli. But noise is dependent on the intensity of the source and the distance to the receptor, according to the News.

Peters refused to characterize potential noise levels because "noise perception is very personal."

Arline Bronzaft, a professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and a member of the Council on the Environment of New York, has long opposed the FAA's proposed plan. She accuses the FAA of trying to minimize noise impacts by using a 24-hour period average as instead of single incidents.

"A 10-decibel increase is a doubling of how loud it is to a human being. That is not slight," said Bronzaft.

Peters said the FAA doesn't measure single events because such a measure is "meaningless." He said the number of aircraft events, the absence of events and a 10 percent penalty are added at night to calculate its numbers.

Micelli warns that in general, averages, can be misleading.

"You can have your head in the oven and your feet in the freezer," Micelli said, "and on the average you're OK."

The public comment period closed June 28. A record of decision is expected next month from the FAA .

FMI: www.whiteplainsairport.com, www.faa.gov