CAA: GA News, "We must start standing up to anti-airport groups"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@cwnet.com>]

Friday, March 31, 2000

We must start standing up to anti-airport groups
Jack Elliott
GA News


WARREN, New Jersey — The extent to which anti-general-aviation public
officials will go to discredit, misrepresent and launch attacks against GA
airports, pilots and plane owners often defies credibility. And yet their
nefarious methods bear fruit. General aviation airports are being closed all
over the country, in no small part because the constant onslaughts of the
anti-aviation forces create the impression that airports are some kind of
evil that has to be snuffed out.

Often these groups constitute a small minority, but their incessant assaults
inspire elected officials who often choose to go with the wind, to pick up
their cause and run with it.

Nowhere, perhaps, is this more evident than in New Jersey, where the
anti-airport fever has been carried to ridiculous extremes.

Here are some recent examples.

During Hurricane Floyd last September, the town of Bound Brook was
devastated by flood waters that came up to the second story of many homes,
flooded out every business on Main Street, and inundated a water-treatment
plant. Many lives were threatened.

Using helicopters, the Coast Guard plucked people from second stories and
brought them to nearby Central Jersey Regional Airport in Hillsborough,
which was high and dry. The helicopters carried rescue swimmers in wet suits
who were repeatedly lowered to the water by hoists to help people in
trouble.

Two stricken people were picked up by helicopters and airlifted to
hospitals, which were inaccessible by ambulance because of flooded roads.
The airport served as a base of operations for the Coast Guard and a place
to bring flood victims.

Operations were slowed when Central Jersey Regional ran out of fuel and the
Coast Guard had to fly to distant airports to refuel. Central Jersey
officials had bought larger, double-walled tanks more than a year earlier,
but anti-airport activists forced the withdrawal of state and local permits
that had been issued for their installation. If those tanks had been
installed, valuable emergency time could have been saved.

Angelo Corradino, mayor of Manville, a town that borders the airport and
which also suffered some flooding, held a dinner to honor rescue volunteers.
There were 175 people at the dinner. The mayor, an avowed opponent of the
airport, did not invite anyone who was associated with the airport’s
efforts.

The work of Coast Guard men and women who had three helicopters on the scene
at all times and worked from the wee hours of the morning through the next
day, was not recognized.

A Red Cross volunteer who lives next to the airport and brought food and
beverages to evacuees was not recognized. Her husband and two children
walked through water to a railroad track in order to help in the rescue
efforts. The husband then drove victims from the airport to a shelter that
had been set up in a VFW hall. His efforts, and those of his children who
pitched in, were not recognized.

A charter pilot who slept at the airport because he couldn’t get home to his
wife and two-week-old daughter — who were without power — worked from 3:15
in the morning fueling helicopters and coordinating rescue operations at the
airport. He was not among the people recognized by the mayor.

(The work of these people was reported in the local press.)

At the mayor’s dinner, many individuals and businesses were presented with
certificates of appreciation for monetary donations to the rescue efforts.
The airport, which enclosed a solicitation with its monthly bills to
tenants, collected and donated $3,000. That collective act of charity went
unrecognized.

After the flood, when people began talking about the role the airport played
in the rescue efforts, the mayor was quoted in the press as saying it was a
shame they were using this to justify the existence of the airport.

In another illustration of glaring anti-airport bias by public officials,
two New Jersey legislators, Assemblywomen Rose Eeck and Assemblyman Guy
Talarico, both from Bergen County, introduced a bill to appropriate
$1,620,000 of taxpayer money to conduct a two-year study on emissions
generated by air traffic at Bergen County airports.

The fact is, there is only one airport in Bergen County, Teterboro Airport,
and the bill is obviously aimed at that facility, though it’s never
mentioned.

The study would involve gathering emissions data, making comparative
analyses of such data with other worldwide locations, and creating a model
that could be used for further study and analyses, which would require more
taxpayer money to finance an anti-airport agenda.

In 1973, during the oil embargo, when it was difficult and often impossible
to get gas for your car, Congress came up with a solution: Cut off all fuel
for general aviation.

When a coalition of aviation organizations pointed out that general aviation
burned less than 1% of the nation’s transportation fuel, Congress quickly
retreated.

That situation hasn’t changed much. There are fewer airplanes today and many
more cars. Cessna, the world’s leading manufacturer of piston-powered
aircraft, shut down its piston production lines for 10 years, so the
percentage of fuel burned by general aviation today may be even lower than
it was then.

Of course, a majority of the aircraft using Teterboro is business jets, and
there are many more of them now than there were in 1973, but the newer jet
engines are cleaner and less polluting than the early jet engines.

The point is, however, that these two legislators are proposing a $1.62
million study of approximately 1% of the problem while ignoring emissions
from tens of thousands of trucks, buses and private automobiles that use
Bergen County highways every day, frequently under pollution-causing
gridlock conditions.

If the aviation community were as well organized as the National Rifle
Association or the animal rights activists, legislators wouldn’t dare
propose such legislation. While national organizations such as AOPA, NBAA,
NATA, and GAMA do outstanding work, few local groups carry clout. The vacuum
on a local level is filled by energetic anti-aviation activists. They often
succeed in their endeavors because there are usually no strong local groups
to confront them. They are destroying the nation’s general aviation airport
system at a time when relievers are more desperately needed than ever.

Not only do anti-aviation officials throw their weight around, they do it
with impunity because few local aviation advocates stand up to them.

On a federal level, New Jersey’s retiring senior senator, Frank Lautenberg,
has been a prime mover in continuing efforts to close New Jersey general
aviation airports. He is apparently dedicated to pursuing those efforts
until his last day in office. His current target is Atlantic City’s historic
Bader Field, an airport that was established in 1919 within walking distance
of the famous boardwalk. Bader was the first aviation facility in the
country to use the term “air-port.”

The field is protected until 2006, when federal grant obligations expire,
but Lautenberg is trying to engineer a deal to close it before then by
transferring funds to Woodbine Airport, located a half-hour away. The people
of Woodbine, which would become home to Atlantic City’s lone general
aviation field, are very much in favor of expanding their airport. There is
high unemployment in the area, and they believe expansion could attract
industry and create jobs.

The demise of Bader Field when the federal grant period expires is
considered a foregone conclusion. In the past, Lautenberg has also tried to
close Linden Airport. It was deeded to the city under the war-surplus act
for a sum of one dollar with the proviso that it be maintained as an
aviation facility in perpetuity.

Lautenberg inserted a rider into a federal appropriations bill, thereby
relieving the city of its responsibility to keep the airport open. He did so
late one night when no one who had an interest in the airport would know
about it or have an opportunity to respond. The bill was voted on after 2
a.m., when few senators were present. It was passed and eventually signed by
President Reagan. Lautenberg, however, was unaware of the existing federal
grant commitments, which prevented the airport from being closed. He later
tried to cut off improvement funds to Princeton Airport, an effort that also
failed.

At last fall’s groundbreaking for the new tower at Newark Airport,
Lautenberg was introduced as “Mr. Aviation.” He used the occasion to ask
that the new tower be named after him.

It should be noted that Lautenberg, when running for reelection, used
general aviation aircraft, which enabled him to make many more appearances
in many more places than would have been possible by car, train or boat.

In that respect, Lautenberg is no different than other politicians. After
they use general aviation aircraft to get themselves elected, they turn on
aviation — until the next election.


Jack Elliott, writes a general aviation column for The Star-Ledger in
Newark, New Jersey. Last fall he received the Max Karant Lifetime
Achievement Award, a journalism award presented by the Aircraft Owners and
Pilots Association.

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