SCOTUS Declines To Hear Rockland County NY Case

The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday it would not consider a case brought by Rockland County, New York, in an attempt to block implementation of an FAA plan to re-direct air traffic. The county held that the new plan would send hundreds of additional flights over the region every day.

Rockland County sits under a proposed air corridor for flights inbound to Newark Liberty International Airport. But the appeal was considered a long shot from the beginning because there had to be legal deficiencies in the lower court's decision to warrant a review by the Supreme Court. It's not enough that the county disagreed with the lower court's ruling.

"While not unexpected, I'm extremely disappointed that the Supreme Court would not hear our case," said County Executive C.Scott Vanderhoef. "I still believe that we have a strong case that the FAA erred in its approach to the redesign."

The Lower Hudson Valley online news site lohud.com reports that Vanderhoef and Democratic U.S. Representative Eliot Engel contend that the FAA did not follow proper procedures for assessing the environmental impact and noise mitigation in designing the new corridors. The FAA wants to implement a complete re-design of air traffic the New York-New Jersey-Philadelphia metro area. Currently, flights into Newark approach from the west over Orange county. The redesign would place as many as 600 additional flights a day over Rockland County.

The decision by SCOTUS leaves no other legal recourse for the county, but Vanderhoef and Engel said they would now pursue a political tactic in an effort to stop implementation of the new air traffic corridors.

FMI: www.faa.gov