Sep 13, 2007
Feds approve airspace redesign over county
Greenwich seeks information, considers lawsuit
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A project that will shift airplane traffic over Fairfield County but is expected to save approximately 12 million minutes of annual regional airport delay was approved last week by the federal government’s eye on the sky. For Greenwich officials, the approval doesn’t come as a complete surprise.
“We thought all along that in spite of all the public meetings they held they would go ahead and do what they wanted to do,” Selectman Peter Crumbine told the Post Tuesday about the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The agency released its “Record of Decision” last Wednesday, officially endorsing one of four airspace redesign options it studied during a nine-year period focused on the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia areas. Known as the Integrated Airspace Alternative, the plan was identified in March as the FAA’s preferred alternative.
As part of the now-approved plan, planes arriving at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport will shift from their current path to about 30 miles east, moving traffic from above Putnam County, N.Y., to above Fairfield County. Planes departing Greenwich-bordering Westchester County Airport will now make a circular turn after takeoff and make much of their initial climb over the facility.
The plan is expected, FAA reports have said, to reduce delays, fuel consumption, aircraft emissions and noise. It is estimated that a 20% reduction in airport delays will be seen over the estimated five-year implementation period, which is said to contain “several qualitatively different stages.”
“The FAA is trying to cram additional flights into airspace that is already the most crowded in the country, so in general we are opposed to the plan,” Mr. Crumbine said. “The FAA’s priorities are No. 1, safety, and No. 2, efficiency. They pay lip service to noise on the ground.”
Mr. Crumbine, an ex-officio member of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Aircraft Noise, along with First Selectman James Lash and Town Planner Diane Fox, said he is disappointed that the FAA has not paid adequate attention to noise and has not been clear enough in its reports.
Ingrid McMenamin, president of the Northwest Greenwich Association and a member of the selectmen’s committee, agreed. She said the FAA withheld “vital information,” such as raw data used in its noise impact study, until the final round of public hearings, three of which she attended, and intentionally made its documents complicated.
Ms. McMenamin said airport matters, including noise, have consistently been the primary concerns noted on an annual survey of members of the homeowners group.
The town, Mr. Crumbine said, is now considering legal action against the federal agency regarding its proposed redesign because of residents’ airplane noise concerns. While he stressed that no final decision on that strategy has been made, Mr. Crumbine said that the town’s next steps involved the committee meeting with Tom Cahill, tower manager at Westchester County Airport, during its scheduled meeting yesterday at Town Hall.
Bruce Dixon, chairman of the selectmen’s committee, said Mr. Cahill was slated to give his best idea of what the redesign’s impact on Greenwich would be.
“What he says could impact our decision,” Mr. Crumbine said in advance of yesterday’s meeting. “At this point, it shifts from a technical discussion to a legal venue and political arena, and we will certainly fight the battle in those two.”
He added that the cost of potential litigation would also be considered in reaching a decision.
Towns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are reportedly consulting with lawyers, and New Canaan First Selectwoman Judy Neville is also said to be strongly considering legal action, telling the Post’s sister paper, the New Canaan Advertiser, Tuesday, “The fight has just begun.” As of Tuesday, almost 2,600 of the target 5,000 names had been accumulated on a petition circulating in New Canaan, which will be sent to Connecticut senators.
“I do not believe the FAA has addressed the quality-of-life concerns of residents affected by the airspace redesign, nor seriously considered alternatives that would lessen the impact on residents in the 4th District,” United States Rep. Christopher Shays said in a statement released following the FAA decision. “I hope to continue to work with Sens. [Joseph] Lieberman and [Christopher] Dodd to block this redesign proposal through the appropriation process in the Senate.”
The Connecticut attorney general’s office also is gathering legal steam.
“A powerful legal coalition can defeat this misguided plan because the FAA failed to consider the harmful effect of its proposed new flight pattern on our environment and quality of life,” Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement released the day after the FAA’s report. “I have begun to assemble this coalition, combining state and local authorities, to challenge the FAA’s rerouting projects as legally flawed and environmentally clueless.
“One of our key points: The FAA has ignored its clear legal obligation to consider feasible alternatives that would reduce air traffic delays with far less damage to natural resources and quality of life. Arrogantly and improperly, the FAA has disregarded its duty to listen — refusing to hold sufficient hearings for views and voices of citizens to be heard.”
Last month, the FAA denied Mr. Shays’ request for an additional public hearing on the matter.
Mr. Dixon said Tuesday that he wasn’t sure litigation would do anything more than cause a delay in the FAA carrying out its plan. He said the task now was to look at what could be done to minimize the “adverse” effects of the redesign.
“What we’re asking is for the FAA to try to be sensitive to the impact of aircraft movements on the community,” he told the Post. “It’s not a black-or-white situation.”
Mr. Dixon, who called the FAA’s air traffic control system “antiquated,” said the issue of airplane noise is a “complex subject both for us to understand and for the FAA to try to resolve.” He added that despite the FAA’s diagrams and charts depicting the arrival and departure paths of planes at the area’s airports, he had yet to see one overlaying a topographical map.
“Where do flight paths cross in this part of the country?” he asked, adding that not enough information about altitudes had been made available. He said the commission’s position and advice to the town was to “sit tight until we could determine what impact this would have, either positive or negative, on this area.”
Of the Record of Decision, Mr. Dixon said it was a complicated document.
“It’s very hard to determine what the impact of these changes will be on the Greenwich area,” he said.
The analysis of the current and potential airspace designs started in 1998, and has included more than 120 public meetings in the tri-state area, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Twenty-one airports were involved in the study, including Westchester County Airport.
“This new concept in airspace design will help us handle the rapidly growing number of flights in the Northeast in a much more efficient way,” said FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey in a Sept. 5 press release. “This airspace was first designed in the 1960s and has become much more complex. We now need to look at creative new ways to avoid delays.”
In April, a representative of Metron Aviation, the company hired by the FAA to answer the public’s questions about potential noise impacts, told a crowd at a public hearing in Stamford that planes taking off from Westchester County Airport would be anywhere from 3,000 feet to 11,000 feet in the air during the new climb.
Results of the FAA’s final Environmental Impact Statement, released last month, showed that New Canaan and Wilton will likely see more impact than Greenwich with the change in holding patterns.
Steven Kelley, program manager for the FAA’s airspace redesign project, said in June that the airspace redesign project could cost between $200 million and $300 million.
More about the project is available at Faa.gov/nynjphl_airspace_redesign.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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