Whose noise problem?
Excessive jet noise at Hailey’s Friedman
Memorial Airport generates an ample supply of complaints to the airport
authority every year.
Bellevue officials are particularly
annoyed by the noise, which they say is increasing.
They are frustrated with the authority’s
apparent inability to do much about it. Even members of the authority have
expressed frustration over the noise that emanates primarily from private and
chartered jets.
Airport manager Rick Baird says 90 percent
of pilots comply with provisions that prohibit operations after 11 p.m. and
before 7 a.m., and limit takeoff and landing patterns. The rest get polite
letters or phone calls asking them to comply with the noise abatement
procedures.
The high compliance rate is great, but it
obviously hasn’t kept a few bad eggs from driving Bellevue and Hailey residents
crazy.
Authority members say they would like to
do more. However, they say the Federal Aviation Administration discourages
penalties by requiring a prohibitively expensive study--$600,000—before the
airport is allowed to impose penalties.
There’s a cheaper way.
The airport should publish the names of
repeat offenders. The names of pilots and the names of individuals or companies
that own, lease or charter the planes should be published each time a violation
occurs.
The Wood River Valley is a small place and
residents aren’t shy about talking about valley issues like jet noise.
If the names of people and companies who
blow off the airport’s noise restrictions become well known, they will suddenly
find it easier to comply with the rules than to face the public derision that
will accompany repeat offenses.
With publication, it won’t be Bellevue and
Hailey with a noise problem. It will be pilots and owners.