Queens Quiet Skies News

Queens Quiet Skies News – April 9, 2015:

Hello to all –

I have not sent out an email for quite a while. There is so much going on that it has seemed overwhelming to try to get it all written down and sent out at one time. Writing a QQS News email can take a whole day, sometimes longer. Some of you don’t like getting a lot of emails, but I will have to start breaking up the news into more manageable (for me) pieces so I can get it to you in a timely manner. That means there will be more frequent emails from now on.

There have been some really encouraging developments. I see, at last, movement like tectonic plates under the earth. I believe events are slowly shifting in our favor, but it will still take time for us to see the results. We refuse to live with the noise and pollution forever, so we have no choice but to continue this fight. We are making progress, although it may not seem that way as the planes fly low over our homes every minute all day and all night.

This is the first part of this week’s news. I will have time to finish later in the week.

COMMUNITY AVIATION ROUNDTABLE

On April 7th, we had a meeting of the Community Aviation Roundtable. Thanks to your efforts, Gov. Cuomo heard and understood that the majority of affected communities wanted one roundtable. The Port Authority came up with a plan that, although quite flawed and sometimes incomprehensible, was at least a beginning.

The Port Authority named 64 Roundtable members, divided into a JFK committee and a LGA committee. Once again, they tried to establish what is on paper one roundtable but is essentially two independent roundtables with a small coordinating committee making all the decisions. Some aspects of this plan will have to be changed.

There are problems with representation among the 64 members named by the Port Authority. For example, some Queens members have more than one vote, but the entire County of Nassau only has 4 votes. The New York City Economic Development Corporation and the NYC tourist agency each get two votes – that’s four votes for the NYC economic interests that are pushing reckless expansion of our airports. The Queens Chamber of Commerce gets two votes about aviation noise abatement. I am attaching to this email the Port Authority’s February letter so you can see what we’re starting out with. They did leave out the Queens Symphony Orchestra and the Queens Botanical Gardens, so that’s something.

Here’s another gem from that letter: “Port Authority and Federal Aviation Administration officials will attend NYACR Executive Committee and JFK and LGA Airport Committee meetings and serve on the Roundtables on an advisory basis.” In other words, the Port Authority has excused itself from participating in the roundtable. That is unacceptable and will have to change. A federal statute restricts the FAA to an advisory role. That is not true of the Port Authority. There’s no point in establishing a Roundtable if the Port Authority refuses to participate in decision-making and to be bound by the decisions of the Roundtable members.

Another question is: where’s the money for the Roundtable operations? Real community aviation roundtables employ their own staff members and control their own budgets. Is that money already in the PA budget? We don’t know yet.

But – and this is big – we did have a productive meeting on Tuesday night. The members elected Barbara Brown (representing AM Titus) and me (representing Queens CB 11) to be Co-Chairs of the coordinating committee. Warren Schreiber (representing Queens CB 7) and Kendall Lampkin (representing the Town of Hempstead) were chosen as Vice Co-Chairs. Rich Hellenbrecht (representing Queens CB 13) was elected secretary. This is a great step forward. The Roundtable is now in our hands. The coordinating committee will meet in executive session sometime in the next two weeks to map out our immediate direction.

We can thank our elected representatives in northern Queens for supporting the vision of an inclusive roundtable. All of them went to bat for us repeatedly, especially Rep. Israel, Rep. Meng and Sen. Avella. I also want to thank Ian van Praagh, Director of Government and Community Relations at the Port Authority.

In the second part of this email, which you will see sometime this week, I will tell you what’s happening (and not happening) with the Part 150 noise studies.

THE SURGEON GENERAL WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU

Dorothy Woo of the Holly Civic Association in Flushing, just sent an email from the U.S. Surgeon General. He wants to hear from us about our air pollution concerns. Well, we’ve got something to talk about. Let’s let him know we’re worried about the health hazards from too much noise and fine particulate pollution from increased jet flights at low altitudes over our neighborhoods. Some of us smell jet fuel at all hours of the day and night. The email from the White House is attached, with directions on how to make your voice heard. Let’s do it today!

OUR SKIES NATIONAL COALITION

Aviation-focused groups from around the country have organized the Our Skies National Coalition. This is an important beginning. There has never been an organization like this. The founding members are:

Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion (ARSAC) – Southern California
Boston Fair Skies – Boston
Chicago FAIR – Chicago, IL
Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution (CRAAP) – Santa Monica, CA
Eastern Queens Alliance – Queens County, New York
East Hills Group – Nassau County, New York
FHCA Air Traffic Committee – Newark, NJ
MSP Fair Skies – Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
NJCAAN – Northern and Central New Jersey
Plane Sense 4 LI – Nassau County, New York
Phoenix Quiet Skies – Phoenix, AZ
Prospect Park Quiet Skies – Brooklyn, New York
Queens Quiet Skies – Queens County, New York
Quiet Skies Coalition – Suffolk County, New York
Seattle Quiet Skies – Seattle, WA
Sky Posse Palo Alto – Palo Alto, CA
South Phoenix Group – South Phoenix/Laveen, AZ

The history of aviation-focused groups is that they tend to fizzle out because the leaders get frustrated by the FAA’s intransigence. The agency knows it only has to stonewall and wait them out and the likelihood is that these groups will quit. Forming our national coalition sends a signal to the FAA, Congress and the industry that we mean business and we’re not quitting.

We have been holding regular conference calls, working on a list of national legislative goals and setting up a website. It has been so helpful to exchange ideas and information with people all around the country. I just got off the phone with a coalition member who gave me a great idea for tackling the noise problem here. There will be more news soon about the coalition.

Our colleagues at Chicago FAIR have been doing great work in their mayoral election. Even the New York Times has taken notice:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/us/ohare-noise-complaints-influence-chicagos-mayoral-race.html?ref=todayspaper

And our friends at Phoenix Quiet Skies and South Phoenix Group have been in the national news:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/faa-new-air-traffic-control-system-nextgen-causing-major-noise-pollution/

This is a rising tide that is lifting all our boats. Every time our problems make the national news, the FAA and Congress members everywhere take notice.

QQS COMMUNITY OUTREACH ACTIVITIES

Fifteen QQS members attended the initial meeting of our community outreach team. They plan to hold our first outreach activity on April 19th at Lippman Plaza in Flushing. They will hand out brochures and earplugs and talk to people about our aviation noise and pollution problems. We will give you more details as the event gets closer. I am looking forward to it. We hope to see some of our elected officials there too, if they are available.

At the outreach team meeting, we talked about making lawn signs and other activities that are in the planning stages. If you are interested in joining your neighbors in doing community outreach, please let us know.

We hope soon to be working with members of Plane Sense 4 LI and Prospect Park Quiet Skies on broader community events.

QQS ACRP PROJECT PROPOSAL

Each year, the Airport Cooperative Research Program solicits proposals for research projects. QQS member Brian Will conceived and proposed a project on behalf of QQS members. This is the link to our proposal:

If you would like more information about the ACRP, this is the link to their website: http://www.trb.org/ACRP/ACRP.aspx

NY STATE ASSEMBLY QUIET SKIES CAUCUS

AM Ed Braunstein and other members of the NY State Assembly have organized an Assembly Quiet Skies Caucus to address our aviation problems. I do not yet have a list of the members, but will provide that to you as soon as I can.

THE NEW FAA CATEX PROPOSAL

You may recall that, in 2012, Congress gave the FAA a free pass to evade environmental impact assessments for all NextGen procedures. The problem turned out to be that the FAA couldn’t figure out how implement that gift. They’ve just tried again to establish a workable method. California attorney Steve Taber wrote a good explanation of the FAA’s predicament on his blog at:

https://airportlaw.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/faa-whiffs-again-on-catex2-proposes-underwhelming-replacement-to-nacs-net-noise-reduction/

This is Part I of this week’s QQS News. In the next email (which I really hope you will see very soon) I will tell you about the Part 150 studies, proposed airport perimeter and slot rule changes, the international movement to limit what some people are calling the global aerotropolis and other newsworthy items.

In the meantime, hang in there. Things are changing for the better. It won’t be tomorrow, but good things are on the horizon.

Thanks for everything you do –

Janet