Complaint Redux: Eden Prairie no different than other communities throughout the nation fighting against airport intrusions: Santa Monica Airport leads the way in fighting the FAA 2007
Here's a recent article from Martin Rubin, who lives near Santa Monica airport and is the director of a local organization like Zero Expansion. Santa Monica Airport is a General Aviation airport similar to ours. Though Santa Monica's operations are down, like ours, their jet operations increased by twenty-fold: our future?
Santa Monica Daily Press
Friday, Decemver 14, 2007
Guest Commentary
by Martin Rubin regarding proposed Santa Monica Airport ordinance
What's really up with the airport?
A buzz is going around among aviation enthusiasts as well as residents who feel they have had to endure much more than their share of aviation impacts. The City of Santa Monica has made a move in the right direction by unanimously passing the first-reading of an ordinance that limits what size and speed aircraft can be used at its airport. The City's arguments are clear and valid to all who read them; all but the FAA and affected users of the airport.
Santa Monica Airport (SMO) has changed so much since the short-sighted agreement in 1984 that the City and the FAA contracted into. Piston aircraft annual operations are down approximately 125,000 while jet operations have increased twenty-fold. The Big Brother Orwellian images brought to mind by the date 1984 are very appropriate today as the FAA flexes its muscle with threats of challenging this proposed ordinance on behalf of some airport users.
Although the 1984 Santa Monica Airport Agreement was designed to address the concerns of the surrounding communities regarding noise, jets account for 90% of the measured noise violations. The agreement was a raw deal dealt to the community but quite a sweet deal for the jet operators. Disregard to the air quality changes that 20,000 jet operations a year would have was like rubbing salt into that raw wound. The question that concerns many who are negatively impacted by present day airport operations is: How well will this new ordinance really address all community-related safety concerns at and near SMO?
Let us assume the ordinance is adopted and goes unchallenged. We will be left with at least 10,000 annual jet operations. These smaller, slower jets are not necessarily less noisy or less air polluting than the other 10,000 which could no longer use SMO, and so we should not think air and noise pollution will be cut by 50% or more. A 1999 risk assessment by Bill Piazza from the Los Angeles Unified School District Office of Environmental Health and Safety concluded that 10,000 annual jet operations significantly increased the cancer risks to the communities east, south and north of the airport. Feeling good about reducing jet operations from 20,000 to 10,000, and believing that it will be an adequate solution to jet air pollution, would be like bragging about cutting back on smoking cigarettes from four packs to just two packs a day. For years, impacted residents have been suffering from these jet emissions. They are real and they occur on a daily basis. Some families are so concerned for the safety of their children that they move away. In recent European studies, noise pollution has also been shown to adversely affect human health. It is crucial that air and noise pollution are also considered when determining airport safety. The definition of safety according to the Microsoft Encarta Reference Library is, "freedom from danger: protection from or nonexposure to the risk of harm or injury".
The ordinance the City passed is long overdue and was greatly influenced by community pressure. Therefore, it is important for everyone, especially those concerned about their family's health and safety, including their pets, to speak out every chance they can.
It is time for the City to aggressively address the pollution problem that has cast an ominous shadow over Santa Monica's environmentally- friendly reputation.
Martin Rubin - Director of Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution