Sues FAA Over Redesign Plan

Move over, Bergen County, NJ and Delaware County, PA. Make room, Rockland County, NY and Elizabeth NJ.

Stamford, CT, and its lawyers are diving into a growing lawsuit against the FAA aimed at scuttling the agency's plan to redesign the airspace around New York's LaGuardia and Westchester County Airports. And Stamford isn't alone. New Canaan, Norwalk, Darien, Greenwich, Wilton, Weston and Ridgefield, CT, along with Pound Ridge, NY, are also thinking about joining the fray.

"The critical question at this hour, of course, is we need to take on litigation before a 60-day clock expires, and that clock began on September 7," Michael Freimuth, Stamford Director of Economic Development, told the city's Advocate newspaper.

The Connecticut cities are moving quickly, holding another meeting on Thursday to propel the lawsuit along before the airspace redesign becomes final in less than two years.

The Federal Aviation Administration is currently accepting public comment on proposed changes to air traffic patterns over New York, New Jersey and the Philadelphia region. Those changes are designed to reduce delays at some of the most congested airports in the country -- but area residents say if the new routes increase noise over their homes, they want no part of it.

The FAA has issued a final decision for redesigning the New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia metropolitan area airspace -- a move the agency asserts will reduce delays, fuel consumption, aircraft emissions and noise.

The FAA says it did extensive analysis and held more than 120 public meetings in five states throughout the environmental process. The airspace redesign involved a 31,000-square-mile area over New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Connecticut with a population of 29 million residents. Twenty-one airports were included in the study.

"The federal government is not above the law," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal at a redesign protest rally on Aug. 29 in New Canaan, CT.

FMI: www.faa.gov