South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Under the flight paths
Long’s community is west of the airport to the north of Interstate 595. Neighborhoods along that stretch are affected more heavily in winter as seasonal westerly winds force planes to take off to the west. Many of the planes bank to the northwest, over the neighborhoods, before heading to destinations up the east coast.
Michael Arnold, senior vice president of the ESA firm doing the study, said all its parameters are established by the Federal Aviation Administration.
So, despite heavy complaints from many communities, FAA rules require noise studies to look at sound levels over an entire year, Arnold said. That’s why the noise maps don’t show Long’s neighborhood as needing attention, he said.
“I think the challenge was nobody really knew what the noise footprint was going to look like,” Arnold said. “I think we were surprised it didn’t show more of a concentration in that direction.”
Westerly takeoffs make up only a fifth of all departures from the airport, the study says, so their noise impact is greatly minimized when averaged over a year’s time span. The annualized noise levels factor in the much larger number of days in the western communities when there was no airplane noise overhead, Arnold said.
South Florida’s prevailing winds are usually from the east, with planes taking off to the east and over the ocean. The normal procedure is for planes to take off facing into the wind.
Plane landings from the west are less of an issue for the communities along I-595, residents said, because
they follow a more direct path from the west as they approach the airport, putting them over a largely industrial area.
Study enters new phase
Consultants will now take data from the report (called a Part 150 study), have discussions with FAA officials about their reasons for using the current headings for arriving and departing flights and develop recommendations for federal authorities to review. The recommendations can include changes to flight paths, altering land use designations so homes aren’t built in high noise areas and other noise abatement or noise mitigation practices. The process won’t be completed until sometime in 2020, Arnold said.
But Arnold said people with noise complaints outside the high-decibel areas identified in the study won’t likely see any relief.
“Nothing that we can recommend in the study is likely to benefit them,” he said.
The study is looking at all potential noise-affected areas. That includes those to the east — and others to the west south of I-595 that are greatly affected by takeoffs and landings on the airport’s south runway.
“Our windows rattle, our roofs are covered with soot,” said Conrad Taylor, who lives in Dania Beach’s Oakbridge community west of the airport. Taylor said he’s now seeing planes directly over Griffin Road. “I want the flight path changed back to the way it was. I’d really like to have that south runway shut down.”
Broward County isn’t unique with its noise problems. The FAA has changed flight paths for “safety and efficiency” reasons across the country, affecting neighborhoods previously not plagued by noise.
Fort Lauderdale is hoping to use the experience gained from other cities to make sure flight paths steer clear of its heavily residential areas.
On Tuesday, city commissioners hired the Kaplan, Kirsch & Rockwell law firm that successfully challenged FAA policies at Phoenix’s airport in 2017. The city also plans to hire an independent airport noise consultant to help in its dealings with the FAA.
“Through collaboration and engagement we can come up with some great solution sets,” City Commissioner Ben Sorensen said. “Challenging in the courts is not my preferred method, but if that’s needed, we’re ready and able to do that.”
Sorensen said the city needs to keep its eyes on airport flight patterns because the FAA is also doing another study, called Metroplex-Florida, which is assessing the state’s heavily trafficked routes. Any changes from that study are at least several years away.
“What we don’t know is what impact [it will have]. It could be a positive impact, more favorable headings, or it could be the opposite,” Sorensen said.
How to avoid the noise
Sara Nichols, of Lauderdale Isles, said the solution to the noise affecting her Fort Lauderdale community is simple: Move the westerly departures that have been banking to the northwest back to the more due-west heading that was used more frequently in the past. The planes would go farther west before turning to the north or south.
“We don’t need this,” Nichols said of the current flight patterns. “What happened years ago, somebody arbitrarily decided to change the headings.”
Another Lauderdale Isles homeowner, James Patterson, said consultants should look to a solution used in California at the John Wayne Airport in Orange County. Planes there rev their engines to achieve quick acceleration, he said, and then take off at a sharp angled ascent so they quickly achieve high altitude to reduce the groundlevel noise experienced in nearby neighborhoods.
“With the extreme angle of attack, it allows the noise to get way above the homeowners and allows them to enjoy peace and quiet,” Patterson said.
The rapid ascent proposal is the type of noise abatement that could be considered for recommendation in the Part 150 study, Arnold said. Consultants would have to show the procedure would be beneficial in reducing noise for people in the identified high-noise areas and not just those farther out looking for some relief, he said.