URGENT! WE NEED EVERYONE’S HELP - WRITE YOUR CA SENATORS TODAY
In the 2018 FAA Reauthorization Act, there are a number of amendments that recently passed the House and have now been forwarded to the Senate addressing aircraft noise and the FAA improving its involvement with communities being affected. The amendments are now “Sections” and part of the entire FAA Reauthorization Act. We need everyone to write an email to both Senators Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein asking them for help with the air traffic noise problem in Huntington Beach.
There are two sample letters below that you can use as an example or you can copy and paste into each Senator’s email which is also furnished below. * We have also provided their mailing addresses if you prefer sending a letter by mail. From what we understand, the Senate will need to vote on the 2018 FAA Reauthorization Act before the end of the summer, so it is urgent that you send an email or letter to them right away.
As always, you can visit our website at www.StopTheJetNoise.com for more info, links, our inline petition and more! Tell your neighbors.
Thank you!
Sample Letter #1
Dear Senator:
As I am sure you are aware, the implementation of the FAA’s NextGen/Metroplex project has caused many communities within California to become alarmed at the excessive aircraft noise which we never experienced before. It is my understanding that the 2018 FAA Reauthorization Act has been passed by the House of Representatives with a number of amendments which address this issue. I urge your support of Sections 156, 157, 159, 160, 162, 166 and 167.
I live in Huntington Beach, California and our city is between three airports including Long Beach, Santa Ana and Los Angeles. We have no airport in our City, and residents have become the victims of excessive aircraft noise from these three airports when there was not a significant problem in the past. Although the FAA has said that they notified our community of the changes involved in NextGen, most residents had no knowledge that these changes would occur or have any effect on our quality of life. Of the two people who have come forward that attended one of the FAA meetings regarding NextGen, they were told by the FAA that there would be no impact. The direct quote is “You will see them, not hear them.” This primarily has to do with the way the FAA averages decibel levels over a 24 hour period. If we have low altitude flights flying over us every 5 minutes for 11 hours a day but many fewer flights at night, it is not possible for decibel levels, when averaged, to ever exceed the FAA’s threshold of 65 DNL. This is why it is imperative for you and other Senators whose states are experiencing these problems to support the Sections mentioned above and then amend the bill to include “frequency of flights” as part of the noise disturbances to be studied.
For example, Section 157 states: “(a) In General.—Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall enter into an agreement with an eligible institution of higher education to conduct a study on the health impacts of noise from aircraft flights on residents exposed to a range of noise levels from such flights.” It would be extremely beneficial to amend this sentence to read……exposed to a range of noise levels including frequency of flights and decibel levels from such flights. While “Southern California Metroplex” residents are specifically mentioned as a focus for the study, there needs to be a way for a City such as Huntington Beach to apply to be part of the study since we are located between three major airports as mentioned above.
Section 159 reads: “(a) REVIEW. —The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall conduct a review of the relationship between aircraft noise exposure and its effects on communities around airports.” Again, there is a place to include “frequency of flights” as part of the review of aircraft noise exposure……aircraft noise exposure to include frequency of flights and decibel level and its effects on communities around airports.
Section 160. Community Involvement in FAA NextGen projects located in Metroplexes asked the FAA how they can improve community involvement. Since the City of Huntington Beach, which was greatly affected by the changes implemented by the FAA’s NextGen/Metroplex project, received little notification of how these changes would impact its community, I believe it is imperative that this section be amended to require the FAA to have a representative from Cities within 20 miles of a major airport to be part of any group the FAA consults with about current and future NextGen and Metroplex projects.
Huntington Beach has been left out of the loop concerning the implementation of NextGen and Metroplex projects, although many, if not most, of the flights going into Long Beach, Santa Ana and LAX flight over our once quiet city. In addition to the many residential homes, schools and businesses being affected, we are home to the a sensitive nature habit called the Bolsa Chica Wetlands and many of the flights arriving into Long Beach fly over our area at altitudes from 1400 to 2000 feet. We believe we were not made a party to this conversation because we do not have an airport, but we also believe that we have more flights affecting our city than cities that have airports. There is no possible way that our residents could have known the significant detriment in our quality of life prior to actually experiencing the numerous and frequent flights that traverse our city today due to NextGen’s implementation. By the time we realized the impact, we were outside the 60 Day limit to file a lawsuit. We feel deceived and misled by the FAA, as many other communities do in California. I hope you will help us by supporting Sections 156, 157, 159, 160, 162, 166 and 167 of the 2018 FAA Reauthorization Act and that you will amend any section to include “frequency of flights” among the noise to be studied and mitigated, as well as provide us a way to gain a place at the table. Thank you in advance for your support.
Sincerely,
Your Name & Address (if mailing)
Sample Letter #2
My family and I are residents of Huntington Beach, California. We are requesting your urgent assistance in getting the FAA to mitigate the intolerable aircraft noise created by the NextGen project. This is a nationwide, non-partisan problem. We sincerely would appreciate anything you can do get the FAA to pay attention to, and resolve, the massive noise assault before passing the FAA Reauthorization Act presently before the Senate.
Cities across the country, including Huntington Beach, have experienced a vast increase in aircraft noise over the past several years. Aircraft are flying at lower altitudes than before and air traffic patterns have concentrated flights – and corresponding noise and pollution – over particular neighborhoods. The aircraft noise in Huntington Beach is almost constant, with an average gap of only 3-4 minutes between planes for approximately 17 hours per day, 7 days a week. Inbound flights to LAX over Huntington Beach now run 24 hours per day. The noise from each jet lasts between 10-20 seconds over any ground point, and reaches levels anywhere from approximately 55-80 dB.
NextGen has been implemented by the FAA in Southern California through the SoCal Metroplex. The result for Huntington Beach has been a dramatic shift in jet traffic patterns into very narrow, compacted half-mile geographical corridors covering multiple approaches and takeoffs at all of the major Southern California airports, including LAX, Orange County, and Long Beach. This has placed massive and virtually non-stop noise burdens on those of us unlucky enough to live under those newly implemented corridors.
Based purely on changes in the number of flights overhead, the jet activity increases appear to have exceeded 1,000-1,200% despite the fact that Huntington Beach is more than 12-15 miles from the closest of the involved airports. Under previous flight patterns, the noise burden was spread out and shared much more broadly among the Southern California populace. The NextGen project has now unfairly burdened Huntington Beach with the noise outputs generated by airports throughout the region.
It has become clear nationwide that the NextGen design and implementation by the FAA lacked transparency, that the actual impacts of the project have exceeded the modeled impacts, the impact assessment process was grossly faulty, and that the project is an abuse of the FAA’s preemption powers over airspace. This has fundamentally altered our property rights and quiet enjoyment without due process.
The FAA’s standard for assessing whether the project would have significant impacts on Huntington Beach ignored any measure of the actual and gross differences between historical and current noise burdens. In a recent court filing in the Culver City case, the FAA asserted that, “In many cases, historical flight tracks were used instead of designing procedures that would overfly new areas, so as to reduce the possibility of adverse noise and pollution impacts on new communities.” Along the same lines, it claimed that, “Throughout their design process, [the project designers] tried to keep aircraft within historical flight tracks to minimize noise impacts.” This is akin to an argument that if the FAA put an eight-lane freeway on top of a two-lane country road, there would be no impact because the route previously existed. This defies logic and common sense, and brings to life George Orwell’s description of government “doublespeak.”
The FAA uses a standard for assessing whether noise changes would have a “significant impact” based on a measure (65 DNL) that can almost never be met regardless of the number of aircraft or their frequency passing overhead. DNL is a noise metric which describes an average day/night sound level. To meet a 65 DNL threshold, which is the only level deemed “significant” by the FAA, noise would have to average 65 dB over an entire 24 hour period. Any spacing or gaps in jet noise, such as between flights or overnight when traffic is significantly reduced or at higher altitudes, makes it virtually impossible to achieve a 65 DNL level almost anywhere. Jets could be screaming overhead at a few hundred feet literally nonstop for several hours each day seven days a week and that would never reach a “significant” level because of the ambient noise levels over the balance of the 24-hour period. The use of DNL also conflicts with California’s noise measurement standards (CNEL), which at least takes into account the extra disturbance to residents during evening hours.
The FAA has shown no inclination to change anything. To the contrary, various FAA spokespersons have defiantly pronounced that their sole mission is aviation safety and be damned anyone who may have to suffer the consequences on the ground, no matter how severe. The FAA’s summary Environmental Assessment that there would be “no significant impact” from NextGen on noise - and therefore no need for an EIR - is agency deception and arrogance at its worst.
Thank you for any assistance you can provide.
Your name & address
* Emails for Senator Harris & Senator Feinstein: (copy & paste one of the letters into the "Comment" or "Message" section of each Senator's email)
Email: https://www.harris.senate.gov/contact/email
Email: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
If you prefer to send a letter via regular mail, you can use the addresses below for Senator Harris and Senator Feinstein .
The Honorable Kamala Harris
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone (202) 224 - 3553
Fax (202) 224 - 2200
The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3841
Fax: (202) 228-3954