My impressions from the meeting. I’ll keep it short and sweet but there was a
lot.
These are only my notes and I only speak for myself. I am only speaking about
the Standish-Ericsson area, so if someone has something to add or change,
please do so responsibly. I know that emotions are high.
The meeting started at 7pm and ended close to 10:30pm and we were engaged the
entire time. The FAA presenter was very good. I encourage you to view his
PowerPoint on the MAC Noise website though I can’t promise it will make sense
without his narrative. The FAA presentation did confirm our belief that there
are more planes flying north, flying at a lower altitude, all while
concentrated approximately between Cedar and 28th Ave. That is practically ALL
of Standish and Corcoran.
There was ZERO data on physical noise in the FAA presentation, because the
presentation was not designed to address or research noise issues, only
designed to address and research potential changes in airport and flight
operations.
Even though there was no noise data, the FAA presentation worked in favor of
our neighborhoods.
>From the presentation, we now know the following:
• Much of this new concentration of flights over our neighborhood is within the
last one year.
• The airlines control the type of planes they fly, the schedule they fly, the
speed of the plane and other pilot decisions.
• Pilots will not willingly fly low and slow. Speed and altitude are their
most important friends.
• Flight decisions are based on safety, weather, volume of flights in and out
of the airport, and amount of passengers. There are other issues as well, but
those are the main concerns for airport operations. These decision factors
change daily and the airport, the MAC and the FAA have little to no control
over these issues.
• Because the airlines control the type of planes flown etc, some days a DC-9
may fly to Denver, the next day a smaller and quieter airplane may fly the same
route.
• There are less propeller powered planes out of MSP. This significantly
changes how the faster and more powerful jet powered planes can take-off and
operate.
• Because of the September 10th near miss, depending on the final destination
planes now must take off from specific runways.
• There are few exceptions to the runway rules, mostly with really big and
heavy planes like the 777 and 747 to Asia or that damn giant FedEx Airbus 330
that is our neighborhood White Whale (Aye, aye! It was that accursed white
whale that razed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!....)
• Because the mix of airplanes has changed, jets can now take off faster and
turn sooner to their destination. (This is why they are concentrating over our
neighborhood.)
• The FAA flight instructions given to the airlines and to pilots have
technically not changed in 10 years. The flight pattern change to our
neighborhood is from the mix of faster aircraft and the (safety first) runways
utilized.
This new mix of largely jet aircraft, now having to use the two runways that
take-off to the north over our neighborhood for safety issues, can take off
faster, and condense their take-off patterns more tightly. This means
considerably more air traffic over the unmitigated areas surrounding Lake
Nokomis, Lake Hiawatha, Hiawatha Golf Course, 42nd St and all points north.
Those are the details as I remember them. The meeting was contentious in
parts, repetitive in others, but in my opinion the FAA and the MAC are open to
ideas to address our noise concerns. We also have some very erudite and
passionate neighbors, maybe they could join SENA?
However, what was shown about airport operations and airplane types, plus a
recovering economy leading to more future flights it’s my opinion this noise is
probably here to stay. It’s an airport in a city and we live by it – but yes I
am upset that things have changed because like others, I purchased using the
noise contour maps that showed my little slice of SMPLS to be quieter than
others. But from this meeting, I believe the flights and patterns are
probably here to stay in some current capacity.
My major concern take away from this meeting was a side comment made about how
noise is actually measured. We got a strange answer about how the noise
monitoring stations actually don't impact the noise contour mapping used to
establish mitigation eligible properties, but instead a whole bunch of data
EXCLUSIVE of the noise monitoring stations in our neighborhood! Holy cow I
hope I am wrong on that one....
We must better understand the noise mapping, because as of right now the MAC is
saying that they will support exploring moving the mitigation lines to the 60
DBL contours, where now that stop is at 65 DBL. This is very important.
So personally I will be pressing Councilmember Colvin-Roy and Councilmember
Quincy, plus the MAC and the NOC, to change the eligible mitigation contours to
60 DBL so that at least I can have some respite while in my house. That is
where I see the most value and the most opportunity for me and my family,
though I understand others feel differently. I do hope others will join me in
pressing for mitigation in concert with other neighbors who will lead the
charge to try to change the flight patterns to their historic routes.