Nothing Brings Communities Together Like Litigation

Fairfield County, CT officials from Greenwich and New Canaan are working together to refute the FAA's new flight plans set to increase air traffic, and potentially airplane noise in their communities.

They are working together to commission their own study to analyze the FAA's proposal. Williams Aviation Consultants, Inc. of Queen Creek, AZ has been selected to provide the officials with the analysis. The study will examine, not just the proposal, but the methodology used and the agency's projected air traffic volume.

"I think this is a regional problem," Greenwich First Selectman Jim Lash said. "We all have the same concern with this, and that is the report that has been presented makes no attempt to mitigate the noise impact. That's unacceptable to all of us."

"If there's no attention paid to the noise issue, I think it's possible there will be litigation coming out of many of these communities," Lash said.

After several years studying air traffic congestion in the area between Philadelphia, Newark Liberty, La Guardia and Kennedy, the FAA has released their new aircraft routing system -- saying that the changes would save 12 million minutes of delays per year at area airports. The new patterns would take planes over parts of Fairfield County. Current routes fly over Putnam and Westchester Counties in New York.

While the FAA denies the new flight patterns will have a dramatic effect on Fairfield County, they do say there will be some increased noise, "but not significant by FAA standards", states Jim Peters, a spokesman for the FAA's Eastern Regional Office in Queens, NY.

As reported by the Stamford Advocate and other Southern Connecticut Newspapers, another controversial proposal would allow planes departing from Westchester County Airport to turn back over Connecticut as they ascend. Peters said the route would take outbound planes back over the airport.

Now, most departing flights head west or south, climbing over the Hudson River, lower Westchester County or the Bronx, NY. An FAA rendering of the proposed departure route showing a loop over northwestern Greenwich, which borders the Rye Brook airport, alarming Fairfield County officials.

The FAA will issue a report before the hearing on April 24 with recommendations for mitigating noise. The public will have until May 11 to comment on the rerouting proposal, which the FAA has said could take effect in August.

FMI: www.faa.gov