[Scan-DC] No Answer to Airline Noise in Sight

Alan Henney alan at henney.com
Tue Sep 25 03:15:34 EDT 2018


No Answer to Airline Noise in Sight

https://georgetowner.com/articles/2018/09/24/no-answer-airline-noise-sight/


No Answer to Airline Noise in Sight
By Peggy Sands - SEPTEMBER 24, 2018070

Can you hear me now? Courtesy Georgetown University.

It’s been an ongoing and undeniable complaint for years. Airplanes arriving
at and departing from Reagan National Airport over Georgetown have been
increasing both in number and in noise.

This despite a late-2013 change of flight patterns by the Federal Aviation
Administration that steered airliners over the Potomac River for slightly
longer stretches. This despite official complaints that irate neighbors
have launched in federal courts over the past two years (denied and
rejected on appeal). This despite speeches from the likes of Maryland Gov.
Larry Hogan that residents around Reagan National are “miserable in their
homes.” This despite numerous town hall meetings and studies funded by the
DC Department of Energy and Environment.

Despite it all, flights have been taking off at lower altitudes, on more
frequent schedules and in more concentrated, narrower paths. One response
by the frustrated sufferers has been to involve local politicians.

In Georgetown, local politicians has mostly meant lawyer Rick Murphy, a
member of the Georgetown-Burleith Advisory Neighborhood Commission who has
been involved with the issue for years.

On Sept. 20, Murphy and a number of representatives from the FAA, DOEE and
a plethora of agencies with less familiar acronyms — such as OFRA, MOCRS,
MWAA and RNACNWG (the Reagan National Airport Community Noise Working
Group) — revealed the latest results of a second-year study on noise levels
at a meeting at Georgetown Day School.

In a mind-numbing presentation of charts, graphs, displays and mathematical
results of studies of decibel noise levels in all possible configurations,
Randy Waldeck of the CSDA Design Group concluded, yet again and with a
shrug, that airplane noise is increasing and there’s not much that can be
done about it.

The ideal-world solutions he suggested include: persuading someone with
authority to reduce or at least cap the number of flights over Georgetown,
especially between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.; establishing a strict higher
altitude level for over-town traffic; and hiring an SME (subject matter
expert) for the working group.


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