In the late summer of 2007, residents of the very quiet, old, well-run and well-cared-for towns of Greenwich (including Cos Cob, Riverside, Old Greenwich) Connecticut, and of Pound Ridge, New York, and many other similar towns, noticed a marked increase in the number of airplanes flying over our residences. We noticed an increase in planes' noise due to markedly decreased flight-altitudes. A typical "evening rush-hour" consisted on planes flying over us every 2-3 minutes. Often they were flying so low that we could see their headlights blazing. I could discern their red-green lights even when wearing weaker-prescription glasses!
These new over-flights were not limited to "rush hours." Planes had begun flying low overhead well past midnight, often also at 2 or 4 a.m. Daytime hours also became filled with airplane noise. Some people sensed a change in the air -- we used to have crisp clean air on most days, but now it seemed just a bit more polluted. But the main issue was the noise.
It soon became known that the F.A.A., the Federal Aviation Administration, was implementing its new so-called "New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Airspace Re-design."
On Sept. 12, 2007, a meeting was held in the Greenwich Town Hall. Its purported purpose was to have a group of people who formed some sort of aviation "advisory committee" recommend to the town of Greenwich whether or not to sue the FAA over the noise. Some leading Greenwich politicians seemed reluctant to sue. I recall that on Sept 17, Jim Lash, then First-Selectman, e-mailed me and said that it actually may be in my interest to not oppose the redesign, because when it is fully implemented, planes currently flying over Greenwich will fly over different towns. A few days later, I received an e-mail from a woman who had attended a meeting in the town of Rye Brook, New York. Apparently, the residents of Rye brook were told that one the redesign took full effect, planes currently making noise over their houses will be flying over... Greenwich!
I feel greatly indebted to Greenwich Selectman Peter Crumbine, for his supportiveness in those early days and for telling others about my blog.
I know of 1-2 attempts to try and convince the populace that the planes had been there all along. In fact, I recall John Inserra, the kindly man who serves as the Noise Abatement officer at Westchester County Airport, suggesting that to me, however good naturedly... A newspaper article quoted an FAA representative saying the same thing: The planes had "been there all along," nothing had, as yet, changed in their flight-paths. "It's only that" people became aware of the planes when they heard about the impending redesign, and became more sensitive to the noise because of that.
While I realized that could have been so in some cases, I also doubted whether so many officials from so many towns in Connecticut would have taken the trouble to sue the FAA just because I, whom they had never met or even heard of... had become more sensitive to planes' noise! :-) very soon thereafter, Stamford, the largest town in the area, joined the lawsuit. I never heard a thing from or about Jim Lash after that time... Around the same time, Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut State Attorney, declared his full support of the towns that were suing the FAA. Soon after that, the State of Connecticut filed its own lawsuit against the FAA and its redesign.
At some point, U.S representative Chris Shays joined our cause, organizing several meetings and declaring he is with us "one hundred percent." He assigned a "case worker" to the issue, Chris Catropa. Catropa organized several dozen residents to keep "logs" of plane overflights. Currently Shays' successor, Jim Himes, is supporting our cause.
The area towns formed an "alliance" for "Sensible Airspace." At one of their meetings, they displayed a beautifully designed sign with the words "Noise Destroys." They proposed to make copies of the signs and have people display them as yard-signs.
Unfortunately nothing seems to have come of that idea; Members of the Alliance suggested that we speak to our neighbors to make them aware of the lawsuits. But I'm sure many of us know by now that people often don't want to admit they are bothered by the noise. Making such an admission "advertises to the world" two things which people usually don't like to advertize about themselves: One -- the value of their home had just taken a nose-dive, two, they could be considered "health-risks" by, i.e, their insurance companies, since the planes' nocturnal over-flights may well be depriving them of sleep.
For whatever reasons, I found people I spoke to reluctant to join the groups we have, by now, formed in order to combat the re-design. Coverage in local newspapers and other media (especially around Greenwich?) has been scant and perfunctory, and certainly not at all sympathetic. Perhaps because so many real-estate firms and home-improvement entities advertize, or "have a presence" in, for example, the Greenwich Post and the WNLK1400/WSTC1350 radio station/s.
And speaking of real estate firms, "developers" and the like, at no time did I learn of any local entity that had expressed its opinion in favor of the redesign. However, it's not hard to imagine that some "entities" would like to see the redesign not only go into effect but help to chase at least some residents out of their homes: A book I saw last year, about real-estate appraising, often invokes something it calls "highest and best use" of a given piece of real-estate. Both Greenwich and Stamford have a lot of office-space. I'm sure some entities would like to see even more of the beautiful properties around here converted to office use! Office buildings are easier to sound-proof, and indeed according to a website called "quality sound" which sells sound-proofing services, the FAA has shelled out billions of dollars for soundproofing of homes near airports -- a bonanza of jobs for various contractors! Building more office-towers in Greenwich would be an even bigger bonanza. I don't know anyone who thinks along those lines but as a friend said to me last year, "there are people who think like that."
In 2007 and 2008, we heard or read often that the main reason for the FAA's redesign is to decrease the number of "passenger-hours" of flight-delays which, presumably, are caused by "congestion." However, in the nearly 2 years that have passed since that time, I and others have recorded numerous instances of flight delays that did indeed take place, that were indeed long, but... were not caused by "congestion," (whatever the unpredicted congestion was caused by...) they were simply caused by inclement weather! Said weather being fully noticeable around the Tri-State area. As far as I know, humans are not able to re-design the day-to-day weather. Occasionally there would be a delay caused by i.e a software "glitch" or a major power-outage. I recorded only one instance of hearing about flight-delays that seemed to be just that -- delays, for unspecified reason but not because of weather.
For a number of months during 2008, I ran a blog, as part of "AOL Journals," about the airplane noise issues. In Oct. 2008 AOL announced that it was doing away with its "journals" so would people please move their blogs to somewhere else. The advice given by AOL about transferring the blog was useless, and my blog was "down" for many months. I hope that I have found a way to renew it here. I hope to add to it a few of my old posts as well as, of course, new posts.
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