Little Hope for Quieter Burbank

A three-year study of noise problems at Burbank Airport is inching toward a conclusion that not much more can be done to reduce aircraft noise, and the federal government should pay the airport’s closest neighbors to soundproof their homes or move.

The study, a complex and bureaucratic affair, has been further complicated by becoming entangled in the bitter political struggle between the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority and Los Angeles officeholders who represent neighborhood anti-noise groups in the eastern San Fernando Valley.

Begun in July, 1985, and involving two committees with 68 members and a consulting firm, the study still faces two major hurdles: a vote by the nine-member airport authority, expected in September, and a review by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA, expected to complete its review next spring, is free to reject any or all of the study’s recommendations.

The study has cost about $450,000 to date, 60% paid by a federal grant, Burbank Airport officials said, mostly for computer modeling studies aimed at showing the noise impact of the expected growth in the airport’s traffic load by the year 2000.

Central to the political battle are the airport authority’s plans to build a new terminal and the demands of noise protesters and Los Angeles officeholders that the authority try to persuade airline pilots to “share the noise” by taking off at least half the time over the Burbank and Glendale areas east of the airport.

The FAA sponsors the study process, which has been carried out at Los Angeles International, Long Beach and other airports throughout the country and is known as a Part 150 study after the FAA regulation that establishes the procedure. A study of Van Nuys Airport began in June.

Bias Alleged

Critics allege that the process is weighted against them and that FAA and airport administrators establish procedural rules and technical presumptions that guide the study in the direction they wish--toward more air traffic and the soundproofing or elimination of nearby homes.

Airport administrators say the study committees include virtually anyone with an interest in the subject, from all levels of local government to airport users and neighborhood groups.

Critics counter that the very openness of the process, the inclusion of so many people with such a variety of conflicting goals and attitudes, guarantees there will be delays, confusion and many long, boring or divisive meetings that eventually wear out citizen activists.

“It’s a stalling technique that airports use to buy anywhere from two to five years’ time,” said Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino and a leader of efforts against aircraft noise in the Valley for years.

Silver, who argues that all jet air traffic should be banished from the Valley to airports in the Mojave Desert, said he rejects Part 150 studies as flawed from the start because they do not try to limit the number of aircraft using an airport and because of the method used to measure noise.

The basic measurement of Part 150 studies is the CNEL--Community Noise Equivalent Level. It is based on decibel readings of noise recorded by 15 listening stations around the airport. The readings are added together and averaged, under a formula that reflects that noise is more annoying at night. The daily averages are added and averaged into a quarterly reading.

The quarterly readings are used in drawing imaginary lines around the airport on a map, creating noise zones called “footprints.” The “65 CNEL footprint,” for example, encloses the area in which all the average readings are 65 decibels or higher.

Abstract tool

The “footprint” is an abstract statistical tool used for measuring noise that in the real world fluctuates from moment to moment. The real noise zone shrinks to nothing when there are no aircraft landing or taking off, and it expands far beyond the average-reading line when a heavily loaded jetliner is taking off under full power. It reacts to changes in the wind and air traffic patterns.

Supporters of the CNEL call it a valuable tool for reflecting the differences in noise burdens imposed on different areas, the only way to come to grips with a condition that changes by the second. Anti-noise critics say it is a meaningless measurement, most of them arguing that it should be replaced by a “single event” standard, such as a limit on the amount of noise any one aircraft is allowed to make or on the number of aircraft operations allowed at an airport.

Administrators of other airports look forward to reducing noise through use of newer jets, which have quieter engines. At Burbank, however, the administration has already persuaded airlines to use only Stage Three aircraft--the quietest now available--becoming the first airport in the nation to do this. So there is little help to be expected from the use of quieter engines, the study concluded.

The first draft of the study, by Peat Marwick, a consulting firm, suggested the airport administrators consider buying 54 homes within the 75 CNEL footprint projected for the year 2000. The homes are all in a small neighborhood just south of the airport, between Victory Boulevard and Valhalla Memorial Park.

The airport authority is specifically prohibited, by the state law that established it, from acquiring property by condemnation, as most local governments can do. If the suggestion is accepted, the airport will have to negotiate with the owners and discuss with Burbank city planners the impact of converting the land to non-residential use.

Informational Meetings

The airport has held informational sessions for residents, and, so far, there is “little receptivity” among residents or Burbank officials for the buyout idea, airport spokesman Victor Gill said.

“Some of them say they have spent money remodeling their homes and they don’t want to be forced out, which has never been on the agenda,” he said.

The report suggested that the airport soundproof homes in the projected 70 footprint, or help their owners sell by paying the difference between the sale price and the amount the home would sell for if there were no aircraft noise.

The initial version of the report suggested that the airport pay all soundproofing expenses for the 800 homes in the 70-plus area, and half the cost for 1,500 homes in areas where the average noise level is expected to be between 65 and 70 decibels.

Later Version

Spurred by complaints of homeowner representatives on the Part 150 technical committee, a later version of the report suggested that the airport pay full costs of soundproofing all 2,300 homes.

Airport administrators estimate that the program would cost about $50 million, with about 80% paid for with FAA grants available to airports that go through the Part 150 process. But the FAA has the last word on what is acceptable.

In return for financial help, homeowners would renounce the right to protest against aircraft noise. The proposal calls for owners of the 2,300 properties to give or sell to the airport “avigation easements”--the right to fly aircraft over the property and cause noise on it.

The easements would be based on the predicted traffic level of the airport in the year 2000--an estimated 92,000 takeoffs and landings annually, a 70% increase from the current level of 54,000.

Questions Remain

Many questions about how the program would work remain, such as:

* How would those involved determine the difference between the actual market value of a house and its hypothetical value if there were no airport?

* Would owners of soundproofed homes wind up paying higher property taxes--since their homes would be improved and worth more than previously--that would wipe out the financial benefit of the airport’s payment?

* If the airport wins its point in a current lawsuit--in which the airport’s lawyers argue that it has already acquired avigation easements over neighboring homes, through historical use--what incentive would the airport commission have to follow through with such an expensive program?

The study has recommended that the city of Los Angeles refuse to issue zoning changes or building permits to property owners who refuse to grant air traffic easements.

Pressure Applied

However, the Los Angeles city government, under pressure from homeowners groups, has been feuding with the airport authority, pushing it to adopt a different approach to noise control.

The city wants the authority to try to persuade airline pilots to take off at least half the time toward the east, over the three cities that own the airport. Now, virtually all flights take off to the south and circle westward and northward over Los Angeles neighborhoods in the eastern Valley.

The authority has refused to take a stand on runway use, insisting that it is powerless to interfere with flight decisions reserved by federal law for the FAA and pilots.

Pilots prefer to take off to the south because the southbound runway is longer, runs downhill and faces into the wind and away from the nearby Verdugo Mountains. In any case, the FAA has banned eastbound takeoffs until the passenger terminal is moved farther from the east-west runway.

In the Middle

Airport administrators complain that they are caught between the FAA’s ban on eastbound takeoffs until they build a new terminal, and the noise protesters’ insistence that they be prevented from building a new terminal until half the takeoffs are to the east.

City Councilman Joel Wachs, one of the more prominent political foes of the airport administration, has tried to withdraw the six Los Angeles representatives from the Part 150 study’s policy committee to protest the authority’s stand.

“Soundproofing is a worthy idea, but it’s a separate issue from our objective from Day One, which is to get the airport authority to share the noise and give the people east of the airport a little of it instead of sending it all over Los Angeles,” said Heather Dalmont, Wachs’ deputy.