Airport Noise

I wonder how many readers are aware that we have a 24-hour airport in Burbank. There has been little said about the night noise that routinely awakens those of us who live near the airport. This night noise is created by "running up" the engines of planes on the runway, either for maintenance or prior to a late-night takeoff. I know I'm not the only mother who has had to console a frightened child about these scary sounds that awaken us late at night. Many more homes are being disturbed by this relentless, repetitive nighttime noise.

After nearly two years of closed-door negotiations, Newport Beach Mayor Keith Curry announced this week that the strict curfews governing John Wayne Airport's operations could remain in place through 2035 if a proposed settlement extension is approved. A cap on the number of passengers and flights that can pass through the airport would be allowed to rise starting in 2021. "This is a balanced approach that will follow the law and maintain the protection of our community," Curry said at a news conference in the Newport Beach Police Department auditorium.

The controversy over noise from departing planes at Burbank Airport baffles me except as it concerns residents in the immediate vicinity of the airport. The incessant noise in my "quiet" neighborhood from lawn mowers, tree trimers, leaf blowers, errant car alarms and barking dogs is far louder and more irritating than the occasional plane overhead. Aircraft safety, not noise, must be the primary concern. JOHN GLASS Studio City

After nearly two years of closed-door negotiations, Newport Beach Mayor Keith Curry announced Thursday that the strict curfews governing John Wayne Airport's operations could remain in place through 2035 if a proposed airport settlement agreement extension is approved. But a cap on the number of passengers and flights that can pass through the airport would be allowed to rise starting in 2021. "This is a balanced approach that will follow the law and maintain the protection of our community," Curry said at a news conference in the Newport Beach Police Department auditorium.

The Los Angeles City Council will meet near Van Nuys Airport on Tuesday to take up new rules for noisy jets at the San Fernando Valley airfield. Councilman Joel Wachs asked that the council meet at the Airtel Hotel to consider an ordinance that would ban additional Stage 2 jets, the noisiest aircraft allowed, and phase out Stage 2 jets already there.

Let me add my voice to that of Ellen Bagelman (Letters to the Editor, Times Valley Edition, Dec. 7). It is hugely unfair and unjust to ask one segment of the community to bear the entire burden of airport noise without offering anything in return. I would go further and say that this compensation should come from the aircraft owners, the airport and the government--federal, state and local. The compensation could be, for example, funds for soundproofing homes and for loss of the peaceful enjoyment of one's property, and could also be in the form of lowered property taxes and/or income taxes, utility rates, etc. There are many possibilities.

What the FAA knows about airports, you could stick into the "O" in politics. In Long Beach, they have handed an airport task force some federal money to prove in kindergarten formulas that adding more jetliners to Long Beach Airport will in fact make less noise. The formulas, with the help of bucket studies in cumulative arrangements over one year, prove that the noise you heard when that 727 cleared your house by 100 feet on takeoff was only an average, like the purr of a kitten, and you therefore have no reason to complain.

Airport noise is increasing in the East Valley, a fact that anyone who lives here will attest to. More flights are being shifted here while Burbank Airport fights to gain ownership of the airspace over our homes. If the airport succeeds, this will ensure that Los Angeles, not Burbank, will continue to be the sole recipient of all the noise. This appalling unwillingness to take responsibility for at least part of the burden is an example of societal decay on a large scale.

In a victory for residents and business owners who have fought for years to impose tough noise restrictions at Van Nuys Airport, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday instructed the city attorney to prepare an ordinance limiting the number of noisy jets based at the airfield and expanding a noise curfew. "This is something we have all been fighting for for a long time," Councilman Joel Wachs said. "This will get the ball rolling as soon as possible."

Citizens and officials from Orange and Los Angeles counties will seek to modify new federal airport noise restrictions during a congressional subcommittee hearing today in Newport Beach. Reps. Barbara Boxer, (D-San Rafael), who chairs a House subcommittee on government operations, and Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) will take public testimony regarding the Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990.

The Federal Aviation Administration has successfully completed tests for a new John Wayne Airport flight path, and planes will start flying the new route this month. The procedure is the result of a nearly one-year tussle between Newport Beach residents and FAA officials, who agreed to modify a new satellite-based navigation system after residents complained about jet engine noise in the skies above some homes. The new route, called STREL, replaces two others that had raised the ire of residents on the east side of upper Newport Bay and in the Irvine Terrace neighborhood.

The noisiest jets at Van Nuys Airport will be phased out over the next six years with a new law approved unanimously by the Los Angeles City Council on Friday, but residents may not notice a difference for several years. A debate over noise around the San Fernando Valley airport, one of the busiest general aviation centers in the nation, has spanned several decades. Officials have tried to mitigate the sound through an overnight departure curfew that begins at 10 p.m. and a residential soundproofing program, but Councilman Tony Cardenas hailed Friday's change as the most significant.

Federal officials on Monday dealt a serious blow to a decades-long effort to restrict nighttime flights at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, asserting that to do so would harm the national air transportation system. The Federal Aviation Administration rejected a proposed curfew that would have banned flights by airlines, cargo operators, charter services and private pilots between 10 p.m. and 6:59 a.m. with some exceptions, including emergencies. The airlines now operate under a voluntary agreement not to fly between those hours.

State legislators on Monday approved an advisory resolution encouraging the Federal Aviation Administration to honor Santa Monica's ban on the fastest jets that use the city's airport. The resolution, which passed the Assembly in July and the Senate by a narrow margin Monday, also called on the FAA to review the safety of flight operations at the airport, which is within 300 feet of residential neighborhoods.

It's taken eight years and $6 million for Burbank airport officials to come up with a proposed solution to ease sleep-depriving aircraft noise that has frustrated nearby residents for decades: Shift some overnight operations to Van Nuys Airport. The recommendation by the Glendale-Burbank-Pasadena Airport Authority is the latest chapter in what has been among the most acrimonious homeowner battles in the San Fernando Valley.

Resurrecting a years-long battle between airplane operators and other businesses that rely on the world's busiest general aviation airport and residents who live around it, Los Angeles officials moved on Monday to consider additional restrictions on noisy commercial and charter jets at Van Nuys Airport.

A number of new real estate laws, including more involving rentals than in years past, took effect Jan. 1. A few more of note will kick in this summer or next year. The laws arm potential home buyers with information about airport noise, make homeownership easier for teachers and enable non-English-speaking renters to feel more confident about signing lease agreements.

It was business as usual as an Orange County land-use commission recently turned down plans for an Irvine housing tract, saying it would be too close to an airport. Some of the houses, commissioners reasoned, could end up so close to the runways that they would be in a potential crash zone. And the noise of jets overhead made the area unsuitable for homes. There is only one problem: The airport doesn't exist.