AIR MAIL: Waxman and Harman to FAA
Randolph Babbitt
Administrator Federal Aviation Administration
800 Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20591
Dear Administrator Babbitt:
We are writing to urge the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to produce a thorough Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) examining flight traffic at Santa Monica Airport (SMO).
As you know, SMO is a uniquely situated airport directly abutting densely populated neighborhoods. Both sides of the airport’s single runway face homes as close as 250 feet. The dramatic rise in traffic at the airport in recent years, particularly among large business jets, has elevated community concerns about safety, noise and pollution.
Sensitivity about SMO traffic has most recently been heightened following a test initiated by the FAA in December 2009 to change the flight path of certain SMO departures to separate traffic from flights departing Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in order to reduce aircraft idling times at both airports. Regrettably, the FAA failed to conduct meaningful community outreach about the goals and objectives or the expected impact of the 6-month test. While supporters of the test welcomed the air quality improvements associated with reduced idling, the Santa Monica Airport staff also received thousands of complaints from residents living in the vicinity of the tested flight-path.
It is imperative that the FAA produce a complete and thorough EIS and hold public meetings to explain the purpose and results of the recent flight-path test, hear from affected homeowners and assess the broader safety, noise and air quality impacts of air traffic in the midst of densely populated neighborhoods. We look forward to your response.
Maybe if residents don’t like being near an airport they shouldn’t have bought homes near an airport that has been there since the late 1930s.
Cities are noisy, polluted place. Maybe you’d enjoy being in a rural area better.
Dear Bob, your comment is not appreciated by residents like myself who bought homes far from the flight path only to have the FAA and SMO create a new flight path over our homes in Ocean Park. Today there were about two hundred loud low flying propeller planes over my home and several blasting scorching jets.
How would you like if if the Feds built a motocross track built around your home? The recreational fliers and student pilots do not deserve the right to destroy our neighborhood.
We residents need to shut SMO down if they are not going back to their original flight path and types of planes.
PS Santa Monica Airport does not contribute to the city to pay for schools and roads.