Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Long Beach Airport Noise Map to be Discussed at City Counsel Meeting

When aircraft take off from Long Beach Airport, the Gardenia Avenue home of Leslie Reimer and Olga Echerri northwest of the airport's runway shakes with the roar of the jet engines.
Conversations stop, and the couple's dogs begin a frenzied barking as the airplanes soar overhead. "If you came to my house now, you could reach out and touch the planes, it's that bad," Reimer said Monday.

The airport noise happens about 41 times a day, which is the maximum number of commercial flights that are allowed to take off from Long Beach, not including commuter flights, private planes and military aircraft that regularly use the airport.

For two years, airport neighbors such as Reimer and Echerri have been waiting in hope of getting their residences soundproofed under the city's QuieterHome Program.
The City Council is scheduled today to approve a "noise contour" map that outlines which areas are most affected by the airport noise and which residences will be able to take advantage of QuieterHome. The council meets later than usual, at 7 p.m. in City Hall, 333 W. Ocean Blvd.
Unfortunately for Reimer and Echerri, their home won't be among those that will be soundproofed.

The noise contour map, which was created by the Federal Aviation Administration based on data from 18 noise monitors around the airport, lists 27 homes that qualify for QuieterHome. All 27 are at the southern, aircraft-landing end of the airport's main runway.

The noise contour map outlines areas that averaged 65 decibels or higher from aircraft noise in 2008. Normal conversation is about 60 decibels, 70 decibels is the equivalent of a vacuum cleaner, and noises louder than 80 decibels are considered potentially hazardous, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

The QuieterHome Program will retrofit homes with sound-insulating treatments such as acoustic windows, new exterior doors, caulking and sealing of gaps, attic insulation, mechanical ventilation, and upgrades to or installation of air conditioning systems, according to the council agenda report. The program's goal is to reduce interior noise levels to 45 decibels or lower and achieve at least a 5 decibel noise reduction.

The cost of the program is $2.8 million, which will be reimbursed by the FAA, said airport spokeswoman Sharon Diggs-Jackson. Each year, the FAA and airport officials will re-evaluate the noise contour to determine if more homes should join QuieterHome.

Reimer said she and many of her neighbors are "absolutely furious" that their homes are not - in fact, none on the northwest end of the airport runway are - included in the program.
"We've all been patiently waiting, some people holding off not getting (soundproof) windows," Reimer said, adding that when she moved into her house 10 years ago, there were far fewer flights and less noise. "You tolerated the noise these last few years because you knew something would be better down the road."

Diggs-Jackson said that airport officials have never made promises to anyone that their home would be included. "The airport has not sent out any notification as to whether or not they're in the QuieterHome program," Diggs-Jackson said, noting that homeowners won't be notified until after the council approves the plan.

Reimer said that she thought her home would qualify for the program because airport officials have used a map over the past two years that shows areas that are impacted by air traffic noise. Diggs-Jackson said that such maps were used to project future noise impacts, but that they didn't indicate which areas would be included.

Diggs-Jackson said this is the first year the airport has had to use the QuieterHome Program, the result of filling all of the commercial flight slots and seeing an increase in military flights. This shows the effectiveness of the airport's noise ordinance, which restricts the number of flights and fines airlines for taking off or landing between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. "That's a testament to how good our noise ordinance is," she said.

(Paul Eikans - Long Beach Press Telgram)

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