The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) released a statement on Oct. 7 announcing that they would explore changing flight paths out of Boston Logan International Airport due to noise complaints from residents in Somerville, Medford, Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge, Watertown and Winchester.
According to Boston West Fair Skies, an advocacy group that deals with airplane noise, the announcement came after a three-year fight by residents to reverse a June 2013 FAA and Massport decision to implement a new measure called Area Navigation (RNAV) to improve the efficiency of flights departing from runway 33L at Logan Airport.
In an effort to improve effectiveness and safety, RNAV’s implementation resulted in flights being concentrated over only a few cities, according to Edward Beuchert, a member of the Board of Directors at the West Somerville Neighborhood Association.
“I understand that the FAA ... routing decision was made in June of 2013, but I believe I particularly noticed planes becoming very loud and frequent over West Somerville in 2014,” Beuchert told the Daily in an email.
Boston West Fair Skies was the first organization that mobilized to address the noise, Beuchert explained. According to its website, the organization was started by Adriana Poole, a resident of Belmont who recognized a need to address the issue about a month after the FAA’s decision in 2013.
“I, at the citizen level, organized the Boston West Fair Skies," Poole said. I started up a group that I called Quiet Belmont, just an internet group, a Google group, and I thought, well am I just the one? Then, I discovered [Belmont Community Advisory Committee Representative] Myron [Kassaraba] said it’s the whole thing … We became this, like a coalition, with everybody who was affected by it,” Poole said.
According to Beuchert and Poole, since RNAV’s implementation back in 2013, the FAA and Massport have not been receptive to noise complaints and remain detached from community concerns.
“My impression has been that the FAA and Massport have been essentially unresponsive to the complaints from the affected communities," Beuchert said. "It seems the FAA and Massport decision makers have their objectives to achieve. The pain of the human casualties those decisions cause is just an abstract cost to them."
Poole agreed that the FAA and Massport have been unresponsive.
“They didn’t talk to us for a long time," Poole said. "It took a lot of pressure. I mean there are two separate things. There are the letters from the Massport that we get, and they say you were affected by this and that, which is a cookie-cutter letter, and it doesn’t mean anything.” Massport did not respond to the Daily’s requests for comment.
After countless community efforts to re-evaluate RNAV’s implementation, Congressman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts’ eighth district was one of the earliest representatives interested in helping move the issue forward, Poole said. She explained that the congressman motioned to cut $25 million from the FAA’s community outreach budget.
Congressman Michael E. Capuano, who represents Massachusetts’ seventh district, has also been dedicated to the issue, according to Alison Mills, director of communications for the congressman.
“This is not a new issue for us," Mills told the Daily in an email. "Since the day he took office, Congressman [Michael] Capuano has been bringing constituent concerns to Massport and the FAA. He has fought for more soundproofing, additional environmental reviews, greater transparency from Massport and so much more. He was the first elected leader to raise concerns about a new runway that Massport wanted to build more than a decade ago."
Capuano has proposed evenly distributing flights so as to diminish noise while specialists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology develop test projects to diminish noise and appease residents, according to Mills.
“Congressman Capuano has proposed dispersing flights over a broader path if a community and an airport request it. We think the best solution is to spread the flight paths out where practicable so no single neighborhood or community bears the greatest burden. He has urged the FAA to update its noise measurements, which will make more neighborhoods eligible for noise mitigation efforts, and to increase the amounts spent on soundproofing,” Mills said.
Going forward, Poole suggested that affected parties submit complaints and actively fight to reduce airplane noise pollution in their respective cities.
“Spread the word. Make sure you place complaints. Not crazy, you don’t have place 300 complaints a day, but I’d say 10 a day," she said. "We might organize ... a protest or something in a year or so, just be part of it.”
Community members fight to address airplane noise from Logan Airport
