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Your Neighborhood Zero Expansion Team
Our commitment is to community and quality-of-life... |
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Your Neighborhood Zero Expansion Team
Our commitment is to community and quality-of-life... |
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High Flyers - How Private Jet Travel Is Straining the System, Warming the Planet, and Costing You Money A Report by the Institute for Policy Studies As Americans prepare to pay extra for checked bags, wait in long lines, and endure increasingly crowded commercial flights, super-wealthy private jet owners are enjoying tax breaks and luxury at the public’s expense. “High Flyers: How Private Jet Travel Is Straining the System, Warming the Planet, and Costing You Money,” a report from the Institute for Policy Studies and Essential Action, exposes the impacts of private aviation on the air traffic system, carbon emissions, and everyday travelers. The report criticizes government inaction to rein in gas-guzzling, sky-crowding private jets, and the super-wealthy High Flyers who dodge security restrictions, carbon costs, and taxes. FAA Budget, AATF and General Aviation Presented to the FCAAC on March 13, 2008 by Mark Michelson, Zero Expansion Member And Member of the FCAAC Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission Zero Expansion Presentation to the Eden Prairie Airport Advisory Commission January 2008 Laura Neuman presenting and Mark Michelson, Eden Prairie Airport Advisory Commission Member Click here to view Powerpoint presentation.
Complaint Redux: Eden Prairie is no different than other small airport communities against airport noise and pollution Here's a recent article from Martin Rubin, who lives near Santa Monica airport and is the director of a local organization like Zero Expansion. Santa Monica Airport is a General Aviation airport similar to ours. Though Santa Monica's operations are down, like ours, their jet operations increased by twenty-fold: our future? Santa Monica Daily Press Guest Commentary What's really up with the airport? A buzz is going around among aviation enthusiasts as well as residents who feel they have had to endure much more than their share of aviation impacts. The City of Santa Monica has made a move in the right direction by unanimously passing the first-reading of an ordinance that limits what size and speed aircraft can be used at its airport. The City's arguments are clear and valid to all who read them; all but the FAA and affected users of the airport. Santa Monica Airport (SMO) has changed so much since the short-sighted agreement in 1984 that the City and the FAA contracted into. Piston aircraft annual operations are down approximately 125,000 while jet operations have increased twenty-fold. The Big Brother Orwellian images brought to mind by the date 1984 are very appropriate today as the FAA flexes its muscle with threats of challenging this proposed ordinance on behalf of some airport users. Although the 1984 Santa Monica Airport Agreement was designed to address the concerns of the surrounding communities regarding noise, jets account for 90% of the measured noise violations. The agreement was a raw deal dealt to the community but quite a sweet deal for the jet operators. Disregard to the air quality changes that 20,000 jet operations a year would have was like rubbing salt into that raw wound. The question that concerns many who are negatively impacted by present day airport operations is: How well will this new ordinance really address all community-related safety concerns at and near SMO?
The ordinance the City passed is long overdue and was greatly influenced by community pressure. Therefore, it is important for everyone, especially those concerned about their family's health and safety, including their pets, to speak out every chance they can. It is time for the City to aggressively address the pollution problem that has cast an ominous shadow over Santa Monica's environmentally- friendly reputation. Martin Rubin - Director of Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution
   Bad Community Relations Which Eden Prairie Companies are going to privately fund the runway expansions? Will the runway(s) be named after them or their facilitators: Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce or new council leadership...? MAC's CIP for runway 10R/28L to 5,000 ft, to the tune of $11M, set for 2009 expansion It wasn't too long ago, pre-Mayor Young, that Scott Neal told us our worry over the airport expansion was for naught, because there were no funds. Enter Phil Young and a first ever Legislative Agenda requesting federal funds for the airport; enter the letter delivered to Federal Legislators requesting funding for the expansion on behalf of businesses and Chamber of Commerce; enter Chamber of Commerce meetings with MAC, the Mayor and a representative from the FCM Advisory Airports Commission which included a discussion of airport funding and private business involvement in securing funding; enter the Airports Advisory Commission plans to align with the Chamber in business development and marketing the airport: the result is funds that weren't even imaginable to MAC are on their CIP for 2009. MAC's CIP, Capital Improvement Program for Flying Cloud Airport as of September 2007 Preliminary 2008-20014 MAC CIP- pgs 52-70 $84M on an expansion for an airport that's not self-sufficient, and is experiencing its lowest number of operations and just think the community doesn't even have representation on the MAC commission....
Take action now and tell our representatives transportation funds should be spent where they're needed most for public use, not on an expansion of a runway for a handful of wealthy corporate aircraft owners:
Governor Tim Pawlenty-tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us Public Hearing September 19th, 2007 on Metropolitan Airports Commission Governance Issues at 7:00 PM, Eagan Community Center. Local Government and Metropolitan Affairs Rep. Debra Hilstrom, Chair and the and Transportation Working Group, Rep Frank Hornstein, Chair Statement from Zero Expansion, Eden Prairie, Minnesota  WHY BUILD NEW HANGARS WHEN TELL JIM OBERSTAR ENOUGH WITH THE PORK-PH:(202) 225-6211 TAKE ACTION! NO CHAMBER INVOLVEMENT IN ADVISORY COMMISSION. NO PROMOTION OF IMPROVEMENTS BY CITY THAT INVOLVE EXPANSION PLANS. KEEP CONTACTING YOUR CITY REPRESENTATIVES AND REMIND THEM THEY PLEDGED TO BE NEUTRAL! The Noise Myth: Jets aren't quieter than Pistons A warning to Eden Prairie airport neighbors, Santa Monica Airport neighbors, like so many others, have been ripped off regarding noise impact measurements. Aside from the Db difference, do to the distance differential from noise monitors, there are noise impacts from jet-specific operations that go unmeasured. Ignored is the noise from reverse thrusters, often much louder than the approach. We hear reverse thrusters ½ mile to the east of the airport when they are applying the reverse thrusters to stop their aircraft far down the runway to the west. This same noise is perceived much louder by the Santa Monica residents on the west side of the airport. All this very loud noise is not part of any measurements. Also, there is the ongoing noise of jets holding and idling sometimes more than 30 minutes at a time and often backed up. It sounds like having a commercial vacuum cleaner running across the street many hours, each day, seven days a week. Again, this jet-related noise is not measured. Another very important consideration that goes to the heart of the difference is that jet-blasts noise, on take offs especially and carry very much farther than even loud piston aircraft noise. I do not know of any studies to measure and quantify what the differences are, but there should be. A jet take-off is always heard, loud and clear, for two or more miles from the aircraft’s location. I do not ever hear a piston plane when it's taking off. This is clear, simple science using anecdotal evidence, of a tremendous difference in how jet aircraft impacts a much, much larger area with relation to noise than piston aircraft. -- Martin Rubin, Director of jetairpollution.com, a group fighting against the public health dangers at Santa Monica Airport www.jetairpollution.com Eden Prairie and Zero Expansion Documents CONTACT, FLYER AND MEETING INFORMATION For Eden Prairie Residents Only: for further updates please email us to register on our mailing list. transportationtalk@yahoo.com Meeting Flyer PDFs: Print and Distribute to Neighbors EVERY NOISE COMPLAINT GOES ON RECORD AND MAKES A DIFFERENCE. Contact the Airport Noise Complaint Line: Phone in your noise complaints or other airport complaints to: 612-726-9411 or macapps@macnoise.com FILE NOISE COMPLAINT ONLINE AT THIS URL: http://www.macnoise.com/complaint COMPLAINT GUIDELINES: http://www.macnoise.com/pdfs/community-outreach/complaint_guidelines_2006.pdf
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Let us assume the ordinance is adopted and goes unchallenged. We will be left with at least 10,000 annual jet operations. These smaller, slower jets are not necessarily less noisy or less air polluting than the other 10,000 which could no longer use SMO, and so we should not think air and noise pollution will be cut by 50% or more. A 1999 risk assessment by Bill Piazza from the Los Angeles Unified School District Office of Environmental Health and Safety concluded that 10,000 annual jet operations significantly increased the cancer risks to the communities east, south and north of the airport. Feeling good about reducing jet operations from 20,000 to 10,000, and believing that it will be an adequate solution to jet air pollution, would be like bragging about cutting back on smoking cigarettes from four packs to just two packs a day. For years, impacted residents have been suffering from these jet emissions. They are real and they occur on a daily basis. Some families are so concerned for the safety of their children that they move away. In recent European studies, noise pollution has also been shown to adversely affect human health. It is crucial that air and noise pollution are also considered when determining airport safety. The definition of safety according to the Microsoft Encarta Reference Library is, "freedom from danger: protection from or nonexposure to the risk of harm or injury".
