"Minneapolis commission overrules its chief on airport noise study"

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

MAC overrules its chief on noise study
BY Dan Wascoe 
The Minneapolis (MN) Tribune

  
Top officials of the Metropolitan Airports Commission don't want
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to be part of a new federal
study of rumbling, low-frequency jet noise.

But the full commission, in an unusual rebuff to its leaders, decided on
a divided vote Monday to look more closely at the issue.

Low-frequency noise produces vibrations that can rattle windows and
pictures in buildings near an airport. Because a new runway is to open
next year at MSP, officials in Richfield, just west of the airport, have
sought more study and possible insulation to reduce the impact of the
resulting low-frequency noise. 

Jets using the new runway will take off and land closer to residences in
Richfield than at any other point around the airport. The city already
has removed several blocks of homes west of Cedar Avenue in anticipation
of the runway's opening. Two other neighborhoods east of Cedar were
leveled to let the commission build the runway.

Providing insulation for low-frequency noise could cost millions of
dollars, and cost-conscious Northwest Airlines, the dominant airline,
also opposes the study locally. Jeff Hamiel, the commission's executive
director, said Monday that he was aware of that opposition. 

A local study of low-frequency noise in 1999 and 2000 produced
conflicting conclusions by different consultants and was rejected by the
Federal Aviation Administration. 

John-Paul Clarke, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, wrote last month to Richfield Mayor Martin Kirsch that
after visiting the city, federal researchers intend to conduct the
second part of the study in Richfield and other cities around the
airport.

But Hamiel said Monday that previous controversy over low-frequency
noise makes the airport an undesirable candidate for a new study.

"Why compound noise sensitivities?" he asked. 

In an April 29 letter to the Federal Aviation Administration, MAC
Chairwoman Vicki Tigwell (formerly Grunseth) wrote that new noise
measurements for the study might be needed before the new runway opens,
making MSP unsuitable for the study. She also said that extensive
publicity over the earlier study makes it "unlikely that an unbiased
survey [of residents] could be completed in this area in the future."

But Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minneapolis, wrote to Tigwell last week, "I
believe that the experience of communities impacted by MSP is very
relevant to the low-frequency noise work now being undertaken." Sabo's
seniority has made him a powerful commission ally in securing federal
airport funds.

Pam Dmytrenko, assistant to Richfield's city manager, and several MAC
members questioned Monday why Tigwell wrote her letter without first
going through the commission's normal committee procedure. In a split
vote, the commission referred the matter to its Planning and Environment
Committee, which will consider it next month. Dmytrenko said Tigwell's
letter violates the spirit of a 1998 agreement in which the commission
and Richfield pledged to behave "in a cooperative and collaborative
manner."

Dealing with low-frequency noise could have implications for airports,
airlines and cities across the country.


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