"New SFO runways would reduce noise problem, officials say"

Saturday, October 5, 2002

New runways would reduce noise problem, officials say
By Aaron Davis
The San Jose (CA) Mercury News


Pushing aside the years-old argument at San Francisco International
Airport that runway expansion into the bay is needed to squash pesky
flight delays, airport officials on Friday unveiled a whole new reason
why Peninsula residents might back the controversial project: noise.

The most ambitious plans for pushing runways a mile into the bay would
cut from 20,000 to 5,000 the number of Peninsula homes that ultimately
would be subjected to the worst noise pollution from jet blasts during
takeoffs and landings.

A whole swath of homes, from Foster City, San Mateo and Burlingame to
Millbrae, Daly City and South San Francisco, would no longer rattle with
jet rumbles over the 65-decibel mark -- the threshold at which the
government says major airports must outfit homes with thicker windows
and other racket-reducing barriers.

Critics of the multibillion-dollar project, which would fill in a
portion of the bay to accommodate the expansion, acknowledged Friday
that the noise argument may someday play to the airport's favor.

``We know this is very important to many people,'' said Dan Kalb,
director of the Loma Prieta chapter of the Sierra Club in Palo Alto.
``Our worry, however, is that the airport may take credit for reducing
noise with runways that would occur naturally with improvements in
aircraft.''

Planning ahead

Airport officials contend the opposite is true: More flights and plans
for bigger aircraft -- which would fit some 500 to 600 passengers --
will only add to airport noise in coming years.

Exactly how soon San Francisco Airport becomes swamped with flights and
needs new runways is up for debate, especially after last year's Sept.
11 terrorist attacks.

Flight schedules at the airport have recovered somewhat since the
attacks, but the airport remains 200 daily flights below Sept. 11
levels. Officials predict plane traffic won't return to 1999 levels --
about 1,200 flights a day -- for at least two more years.

Put another way, runway advocates who once said the airport would come
to a standstill within 10 to 15 years without major expansion now say
the real need for runways will not hit until about 2020.

Environmentalists argue that even those projections are too dire and
that many of the airport's studies should be thrown out because they are
based on pre-Sept. 11 figures.

Either way, with runways pushed farther out in the bay, jets would
approach and depart more over water and less over homes.

``There's a direct relationship here: the further out in the water, the
less noise on land,'' said Mike McCarron, San Francisco International
Airport spokesman who also heads the airport's noise abatement efforts.
San Francisco became the first airport in the state last year to fully
meet California's requirement that all homes in an airport's blast zone
be fortified against major noise pollution, to the tune of $156 million.

Airport estimates show the number of homes in the critical 65-decibel
zone will nearly double over the next 20 years, and all would face major
jet noise. Airport officials also reiterated Friday that runway
expansion would stymie flight delays at the fog-ridden airport and
increase safety as runways become more crowded over the next two
decades.

Environmental review

The noise, safety and air traffic reports that airport officials
released Friday largely form the airport's legal basis for why new
runways will be needed. Now the airport must satisfy a series of local,
state and federal environmental panels that the bay fill for such
runways -- which probably represents the largest filling of the bay
since World War II -- would not irreparably harm marine life.

That environmental review process has also been affected by the
terrorist attacks. The airport's two major runway environmental
documents will not be released later this year as planned, but in mid-
and late 2003.

Stuart Sunshine, director of San Francisco's airfield development
bureau, which coordinates runway planning, said a bay fill project for
runway expansion probably could not appear on the ballot until 2005, at
the earliest.


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?conf=DCConfID8

*****************************************