On FAA fight plans

On FAA fight plans
(Original publication: August 1, 2007)
For more than three hours Monday evening, residents and officials got to sound off on the Federal Aviation Administration's plan that could redirect hundreds of jetliners over Rockland airspace by 2011.
There were dozens of questions, about the process, about noise, about the implications of other suggested options.
But at the end of the night, one question remained unanswered: Will any of it matter?
As Orangetown Supervisor Thom Kleiner notes in his Community View on this page, he and others failed at several attempts to pin down FAA officials as to whether suggestions made at Monday's meeting, hosted by Rep. Eliot Engel, D-Bronx, and attended by 1,000 people, would get a serious review.
The most that the FAA's Steve Kelley, manager of the project to redesign the use of airspace over five states, would say is that the meeting's minutes would be part of what's called the "record of decision."
That could, and underline could, result in a decision that certain suggestions warrant further study.
And so . . .
That's when things get sticky. Any suggestion, such as one a couple of weeks back by Montebello Mayor Jeff Oppenheim that the flight path of Newark Liberty International Airport arrivals be shifted west, would mean that others would be newly impacted, requiring supplemental environmental review that would take time and cost money.
Time might not be a problem, even in a project that has gone on for nine years. But money may not be easy. Officials wanted to sound like they could make additional funding happen, but even Engel hedged a bit, saying he would do everything in his power to try to get money. But he also noted that an effort last week to cut off funding for the project fell flat in the House of Representatives.
It might not be any easier getting more money to study a sliver of change to placate two or three communities, no matter how vocal.
With every adjustment that the FAA might make, there would be new challengers. Sloatsburg and Warwick don't want to see the flight patterns shifted west, a view that would assuredly be shared by New Jersey communities that so far are being spared. Environmental groups don't want them shifted to pass over parkland.
The 11th hour
In essence, we may be too late to the fight to bring about piecemeal changes to benefit Rockland, or Westchester, where almost a dozen communities have been worried about flight plan changes related to other airports in the region. And everyone is rightly concerned about more jets flying over Indian Point. They're unhappy to our south, too, where 1,000 residents were so angry police had to be called to a meeting in Woodcliff Lake. So, what then?
It may well come down to trying to block the entire project in the courts because of its failure to seek broad enough input from the impacted communities.
There's no question that some of our elected officials dropped the ball, failing to realize the local impacts when they received the project's draft environmental impact statement from the FAA.
But the list of those who got the document is way too short to constitute the level of outreach required in such a project. Project manager Kelley, on his earlier visit to Rockland admitted that "we obviously dropped the ball on notification."
Additionally, County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef said that the study failed to properly address potential noise impacts. Beyond that, the FAA has said it has no way to judge the air-pollution impact its proposed changes might have in an area that already can't meet federal Clean Air mandates.
A legal fight
Add to that legitimate concerns that our volunteer emergency services may not be prepared to deal with an airline disaster made exponentially more likely by the addition of hundred more flights over the county. Together, those issues could land us in litigation.
Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, at the meeting he hosted at Town Hall on July 12, said trying to implement the proposed flight paths without a public hearing would probably mean legal challenges from officials and individuals. Vanderhoef held open the option of legal action Monday night, and Kleiner is of a mind to join in if the county does so.
Slim as it might be, this late in the game, it could be our only hope.
A Journal News editorial