Residents Claim To Be "In It For The Long Haul"

Backed by local and state officials, residents of Delaware County in Southeastern Pennsylvania are gearing up for a huge fight with the FAA over plans to reroute Eastern Seaboard traffic over their houses.

It's an ongoing battle over noise -- and that's the one thing that most concerns Taylor Hospital Board member Hank Eberle, who's also the mayor of Ridley Park.

"Planes would be just flying a couple thousand feet over the hospital, windows would vibrate, doctors will be operating, patients will have a lot of noise," said Eberle to the DelCo Times, on the FAA's proposed flight paths are implemented to reduce flight delays.

To make their feelings known, Delaware County officials recently fired off a letter to the FAA in Washington... saying the new plan would increase noise levels up to 900-percent for some residents.

"The FAA's preferred alternative would have planes leaving Philadelphia International Airport in a westerly direction, immediately banking to the right and flying over the Delaware County neighborhoods instead of staying over the Delaware River," County Council Chairman Andrew J. Reilly told the paper.

Reilly added that although federal law requires public hearings over any such rerouting, "hardly any public discussion with any municipal or county officials was held in this process."

County leaders say they're banding together with town governments and anyone else they can find to oppose the new traffic proposal before it's made effective.

Already, Delaware County has put the FAA on notice... this plan will end up in the courts before it ends up in the skies over Southeastern Pennsylvania.

"I’ve heard it 10 times, I’ve heard it a 100: you’re not going to be able to fight the FAA -- we are going to be able to fight the FAA," Reilly said.

"And we’re going to be in it for the long haul."

FMI: www.faa.gov