Friday, May 18, 2007
Late night jet curfew not likely
By David McGrath
Schwartz
The Las Vegas (NV) Review-Journal
Residents hoping for a
late night curfew on jets making the "right turn" might instead want to buy some
earplugs and sleeping pills.
Federal law makes it virtually impossible
for McCarran International Airport officials to restrict departure times,
according to Randall Walker, director of the Clark County Department of
Aviation.
Since March 20, on most days about 200 planes have been using
the new flight path, taking off west and then arcing to the north - a right turn
- before heading east.
That flight path has divided the
community.
Those under the new departure path complain of sleepless
nights, unusable patios and depreciating home values. The Federal Aviation
Administration and McCarran noise complaint hot lines have been flooded with
such complaints.
Those living elsewhere in the valley say they have had
to live with airplane noise for years, and it's about time residents under the
new flight path share the burden.
The city of Las Vegas has a lawsuit
pending in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, challenging the FAA's finding that
the flight path would have no significant impact on the environment.
The
city pitched restricted flight times as a compromise with federal and airport
officials.
But Walker said several issues make it impossible to limit the
hours of flights. In particular, a 1990 federal law requires airports seeking to
restrict air space for noise reasons to follow a lengthy set of rules. The rules
demand that "the restriction is reasonable, nonarbitrary, and
nondiscrimatory."
That condition would make it impossible to eliminate
early morning or late night right-turn flights without also eliminating all
other departures at those times, Walker said.
Since the law's passage no
airport has successfully met the federal requirements to restrict aviation
space, Walker said. As a result, the airport is not going to look at restricting
flights, he said. [The FAA approved an FAR Part 161 Study
submitted by Naples Municipal Airport, Florida in 2005 to ban Stage 2 corporate
jets 24/7. Three Part 161 studies are currently underway; LAX, Van Nuys and
Burbank - Ed.]
"We're not going to spend money on a task that's
impossible," Walker said. "Under the rules, that would basically be a
non-starter."
Del Meadows, FAA air traffic manager for the Las Vegas
district, said the busiest hours for the airport, and the hours when the right
turn is most needed for efficiency and capacity, are between 10:30 p.m. and
12:30 a.m.
"We didn't create (the new flight path) to take the noise and
move it someplace else. We did this for airspace reasons," he
said.
Ultimately, though, any decision to restrict hours of operation
would have to be made by the airport, Meadows said.
Airports with
restricted flight times, known as curfews in the aviation community, had them in
place before the 1990 law and the restrictions were grandfathered in, Walker and
Meadows said.
Anne Kohut, publisher of the Airport Noise Report, a
national newsletter, agreed that airports cannot put mandatory restrictions to
curb noise.
But she said other airports have had voluntary noise
procedures put in place, such as using only certain runways late at night. Those
voluntary procedures would have to be agreed upon by community representatives,
airport officials, the FAA and airlines, she said. Getting that kind of
consensus is unlikely in Las Vegas' contentious debate.
Clark County and
the FAA have recently stepped up their defense of the departure path, saying it
improves efficiency and capacity at the airport.
"Let me say, without
equivocation and without hesitation, the new departure is every bit as safe as
the previous one and every other procedure in use at this airport," Meadows
said.
In response to Meadows' statement, Mayor Oscar Goodman said: "I'd
like to interrogate him under oath."
Goodman has said his major concern
about the flight path is safety.
Councilman Steve Wolfson said he has set
up a meeting with Walker for later this week to discuss options for noise
abatement, including limiting flight times.
"The community is as bothered
and annoyed and appalled as ever," Wolfson said.
But FAA and McCarran
officials said some of the complaints that have poured in since the change are
unfounded.
The FAA gets complaints about the right turn on days when that
configuration is not in use, Meadows said.
Some complaints have come in
from residents near Palace Station, at Sahara Avenue near Martin Luther King
Boulevard. A takeoff pattern over that area has been used for decades when high
or shifting winds force the airport to use different runways for
departures.
Other complaints have been about planes at 4 a.m., when there
are no flights making the right turn. That noise is from flights going to the
Nevada Test Site as they have for years.
"Any airplane in the northwest
area now that's up there for any reason, people are attributing to the right
turn," Meadows said.