Anti-Noise Plan Sounds Sweet to Airport Tenants, Businesses

Van Nuys Airport sound-reduction measures were warmly received by airport tenants, area businesses and a homeowner group Wednesday, one day after being endorsed by an airport noise advisory committee.

“The fact that it was adopted bodes well for us,” said Don Schultz, president of Ban Airport Noise and a member of the panel. “It is a compromise settlement that can be done quickly.”

The Van Nuys Airport Part 150 Committee, which takes its name from Federal Aviation Administration rules governing noise-control efforts, voted 10 to 4 late Tuesday to recommend approval of a noise-reduction plan. The plan now goes to the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners and the FAA for final approval.

Although some airport neighbors said the plan does not do enough to cut aircraft noise, Phil Berg, president of the Van Nuys Airport Assn., which represents about 200 airport tenants, pilots and others, said the panel did a good job of balancing the concerns of residents and airport tenants.

“I think it satisfied a majority of people--that would be an understatement,” he said.

Representatives of the Mid-San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce said they too supported the plan because stricter measures could have driven businesses out of the airport and hurt the local economy.

The plan would impose a nighttime noise curfew one hour earlier, at 10 p.m., for the noisiest jets--those the FAA says make 74 decibels of noise on takeoff. The current noise curfew is from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Other elements of the plan require pilots to reduce thrust during takeoff and provide the airport with equipment to monitor and identify noisy planes.

The airport also would be required to hire a full-time noise-abatement officer to identify pilots who routinely violate noise limits and report violators to airport officials. Committee members said they believe they can persuade the FAA to pay for the monitoring system and the salary of the noise-abatement officer.

Berg said any noise-control official would have limited power because the airport does not have the authority to impose penalties or fines on violators. He said the new plan would rely on peer pressure from pilots and other airport tenants to get the pilots to comply.

Berg said that if the noise problems do not improve significantly, the Part 150 Committee can reconvene within two years to strengthen the plan.

But the measures, which culminated nearly three years of debate and study, failed to win the support of Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino, who urged the committee to adopt a more stringent noise-reduction plan that he wrote. State Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles) and U.S. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) have also endorsed his plan.

Dozens of residents, mostly from North Hills, Encino and Van Nuys, urged the panel Tuesday to adopt the alternative plan, which would set a noise limit throughout the day and prohibit all jet departures and arrivals between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., except for emergencies.

Many of the residents who live near the airport said the problem has worsened in the past four years.

The alternate plan would ban jets generating 74 decibels of sound on takeoff and would prohibit all jet landings and takeoffs at night.

Silver said nearly two-thirds of departing jets already conform to the daytime noise limit.

But opponents of the alternate plan said it would be rejected by the FAA and would leave the airport open to lawsuits by airport tenants whose businesses would suffer. A Los Angeles city attorney said the FAA had rejected a similar measure that was adopted for the Santa Monica Airport in 1979.