Noise Protesters to Fight Airport’s Caltrans Permit

Noise protesters, who have besieged Burbank Airport in the courts and in political arenas from the Los Angeles City Council to Congress, open a new front Monday.

A hearing, scheduled to last two weeks, will get under way at Burbank City Hall on renewal of the airport’s variance, a crucial permit from the state Department of Transportation. Without a variance, which allows the airport to operate without fully complying with state noise-control limits, it would have to close.

The hearing will be held before Richard Lopez, a state administrative law judge, who will submit his findings to the chief of the division of aeronautics of Caltrans, Jack Kemmerly.

The protesters appear to have little chance of shutting down the airport.

Almost all the major airports in the state continue operating because they have been granted variances. Of the 26 hearings held since the noise law went into effect in 1972, 25 ended with renewal of the variance, although sometimes with restrictions attached. The 26th case--that of Van Nuys Airport, subject of a weeklong hearing last February--is still under consideration, but the renewal is expected to be granted. The renewals are for three years.

Concerted Effort

Nevertheless, anti-noise activists, backed by the City of Los Angeles and by sympathetic state and federal lawmakers, have been preparing a heavy attack, casting an uneasy eye on the airport’s plans to build a terminal twice the size of the existing one.

Their primary demand is for what they call a “fair share” runway use plan.

The proposal would force airline pilots to take off about half the time toward the east. That would reroute climbing planes, which make the most noise, over Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena, which own the airport. Now, almost all commercial flights take off toward the south, for what pilots say are compelling technical reasons, and circle to the west and north over Los Angeles neighborhoods in the East San Fernando Valley.

So far, the protesters have been unsuccessful in several attempts to force adoption of the plan. Airport administrators argue that they have no authority to issue such an order, that the U. S. government gives power over flight decisions only to pilots and air-traffic controllers.

But the campaign to require the airport to at least try to impose such a regulation will continue and grow, Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, a leader of the effort, promised.

“We are committed to pushing this at every step along the way, in every possible way--at the variance hearing, in federal funding debates, in zoning procedures or in lawsuits brought by the city or individuals,” Wachs said.

‘Fair Share’

He introduced a City Council measure last month, passed unanimously, instructing the city attorney to intervene in the hearing and demand that the state refuse to renew the variance unless the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority imposes the “fair share” plan before building its big new terminal. Construction of that terminal is expected in the 1990s.

The city has already submitted to the hearing officer a sheaf of objections “2 inches thick, packed with maps and diagrams,” a Caltrans official said.

Airport official Richard M. Vacar has replied to the “fair share” argument that, under federal court rulings, the state has no authority over building plans by the airport authority.

This would be the sixth variance extension granted to the airport. In the absence of objections, Burbank’s request for an extension would have been granted automatically, but state Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) requested the hearing as part of the wide-ranging anti-noise campaign.

The protesters’ biggest victory came last year when Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) introduced an amendment to a House appropriations bill to withhold about $40 million in federal construction money for the Burbank Airport terminal unless airport administrators adopted the “fair share” plan.

The amendment was later killed by a House-Senate budget conference committee. But it reflected the growing strength of the airport protesters in the political arena.

City Council Role

Prodded by Wachs and Councilman Ernani Bernardi, whose districts are close to the airport, the Los Angeles City Council has thrust itself into the dispute.

The council supported Berman’s House amendment. In a two-day period last month, it filed objections to the environmental impact report for the new airport terminal, setting the stage for a lawsuit, and moved to use its zoning powers over a 54-acre corner of the airport that extends into Los Angeles. Although most of the airport is situated in Burbank, the council voted to require approval by Los Angeles for any development on that tract, a move that Wachs said was meant to give Los Angeles “leverage” over the airport authority. The land is in his district.

The airport authority replied that the action is illegal and will be resisted in court.

“Terminal construction is not a noise issue,” said Vacar, manager of Burbank Airport affairs. Under federal court rulings, he said, neither the city nor the state has power over the airport authority’s construction plans.

Vacar said the airport will argue that it has taken many steps to reduce noise, including imposing night-time restrictions on privately owned jets and persuading airlines to adopt a voluntary curfew on night takeoffs. The airport fought a losing court battle with three airlines over noise restrictions, he noted, and is also conducting a noise abatement study under Federal Aviation Administration guidelines.

The airport is one of the few in the nation at which all carriers have been persuaded to use only the quietest modern jetliners, those that meet the FAA’s Stage 3 noise limits, he said, adding that the airport also contributes $1.3 billion and 38,000 jobs to the economy of northern Los Angeles County.

The authority plans to hold a special meeting of its own on the “fair share” proposal at the Burbank Airport Hilton on Feb. 17 to hear expert testimony on the proposal’s feasibility.

The key issue to be debated during the variance hearing involves the Community Noise Equivalent Level, a complicated, somewhat abstract method by which airport noise is measured under California law.

That level is the daily average of decibel readings recorded by monitoring stations near airports, weighted by a mathematical formula to reflect the fact that the noise is more annoying at night. Aircraft noise registered between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. is multiplied three times before being figured into the average, and noises between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. are multiplied 10 times.

The results are used to draw imaginary lines around airports, a “noise footprint” marking boundaries of the areas where the average community noise reading reaches a common level. A 70 line, for example, encloses the area in which all average readings are 70 or above.

The “footprint” is a statistical tool used to come to grips with aircraft noise, which fluctuates from moment to moment.

The real “footprint” shrinks to nothing when no aircraft are landing or taking off, and swells far beyond the average line when a heavily loaded jetliner is climbing rapidly away from the airstrip. The shape of the real “footprint” also reacts to changes in the wind and air traffic patterns.

The “footprint” exists only as an abstract measurement. Human ears cannot detect any difference in noise on either side of the line. The daily averages are further abstracted into a quarterly average, which is used to draw the “footprints” on which the state law is administered.

Under the law, airports are judged by the amount of “incompatible usage” land--residential areas and schools--within the “footprint.” Industrial, commercial, park and agricultural land is not counted.

The goal of the law is to shrink the “footprint” to the point where there is no incompatible land within it. The “footprint” boundary was set at 80 decibels in 1975, reduced to 75 decibels in 1976, to 70 decibels in 1981 and 65 decibels in 1986.

A 65-decibel noise is loud enough to interfere when speaking to someone a few feet away, but not loud enough to drown out the conversation, sound engineers say. A low-flying plane registers about 80 decibels. A jetliner taking off, or a rock band in a nightclub, register 90 to 100.

Burbank Airport’s “footprint” area included 186 acres in the first quarter of 1984 and had been reduced to 82 acres by the third quarter of that year, primarily because of the shift to quieter lanes.

However, when the stricter 65-decibel standard came into effect in 1986, it extended the boundaries to include 437 acres for the first quarter of the year. The figure was 446 acres for the third quarter of 1987, the most recent period for which figures are available.

At the hearings beginning this week, the hearing officer will judge the airport on whether it has taken steps to reduce the amount of incompatible land within the boundaries of the “footprint.”

Doesn’t Reflect Reality

Tom Patterson, of the East Valley Homeowners Coalition, a group of seven residential associations, said the noise protesters will argue that the community noise level is an artificial “computer noise” measurement that does not reflect the experience of living with aircraft.

“The impact should be measured by a single event activity--one plane taking off, and the level of noise that plane makes, and at what distances from the airport it can be heard,” he said.

“Every time a jet flies over a neighborhood 4 miles from the airport, the noise level goes up 300% to 1,000%. What’s significant for that neighborhood is how often that happens now, and how often it will happen in the future, even though, under the present regulations, the neighborhood has no legal noise problem.

“If the airport isn’t willing to provide massive noise assistance to these neighborhoods--soundproofing houses or whatever is appropriate--then the airport has to scale down its growth plans.”