The Rockaway Beach Fight For Justice Against A Politically Corrupted FAA and Port Authority

NEW: The community of Rockaway Beach has the distinction of being selected by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as the only community near JFK Airport to specially designated to have nighttime flights directed over it. A ten-year runway use chart for JFK Runway 22 Right shows how the FAA and Port Authority of NY/NJ have doubled the traffic on this runway while total JFK air traffic remained almost unchanged. At the same time as the FAA doubled Rockaway Beach's traffic they specially selected this community as the late night (10PM to 7AM) dumping ground for JFK air traffic. Rockaway Beach is the only community near JFK Airport to have this special night time designation. Many believe this was done by the FAA to punish the Rockaway Beach community for their opposition to JFK Airport expansion plans and the FAA's unjust, politically-influenced and racist aircraft routing policies.

1995 Newspaper article by a Rockaway Beach senior citizen after the FAA started its night-time assault. The writer, Mr. Thomas Fahie, died shortly after this article was published. How many other of the many senior citizens in Rockaway will have their sleep disturbed, and lives shortened by the politically-motivated FAA routing decisions?

EPA Refuses To Meet With Community Group! Read the Nov. 1995 letter from the Rockaway Beach Civic Association to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requesting a meeting to discuss lies and distortions of the Federal Aviation Administration. See the terse response letter from the EPA to the Rockaway Civic Assn. which not only ignored the issues brought up in the civic association letter but even REFUSED to meet with the local community group. The Rockaway Beach Civic Assoc. wanted to show evidence of FAA lies and distortions in the JFK Runway 22 "Findings of No Significance" (FONSI) which they used to select their community for JFK Airport nighttime noise impacts! This is the kind of treatment that communities receive from the Clinton Administration that never makes the newspapers. We are sure that the EPA would never refuse to meet with ANY representative of the airline industry.

See a map of the densely populated Rockaway residential area which is impacted by the new nighttime rule. Arlene Feldman, FAA Regional Administrator, cleverly avoided mentioning the residents impacted by the nighttime noise. Instead, Feldman misrepresented the area as consisting only of a "sewage treatment plant, power station and railroad yard."

Read the letter (page1 and page2) from Feldman to the NY City Public Advocate. The FAA continues to cleverly lie and distort in order to maintain its racial, ecomomic and politically biased routing policies. The letter mentions FAA's use of the "Intergrated Noise Model" in its study of noise impacts. The FAA uses the Port Authority of NY/NJ's noise data which is carefully "estimated" over minority areas in Rockaway because the PORT AUTHORITY DOESN'T PUT NOISE MONITORS THERE!

FAA "Claims" Plane Route Will Kill Rare Bird!!!

The FAA is so desperate to save the airlines money at the expense of the health of the public they actually lie and fabricate the environmental impacts of the routes the planes. In the above mentioned letter to the NY City Public Advocate, Mark Greene, Arlene Feldman, a local FAA official, explained her reason for not using the low noise impact 240 and 260 degree departure headings on JFK Runway 22 Right. She said it would harm the "Piping Plover," a endangered bird. When Friends of Rockaway, a local environmental group, which is working to protect the Plover, asked Don Riepe, a Jamaica Bay National Park Service ranger, about Piping Plover nests in Jamaica Bay, he said there "were none!" They are located on the ocean side of the Rockaway Peninsula, in areas heavily overflown by JFK aircraft!

FAA Racial Routing Noise Map The Port Authority's own 1992 map! This map clearly shows that certain communities near JFK Airport communities are avoided even though they are in a direct line with the longest runways! This is because the FAA plane routing at JFK Airport (and no doubt at other airports) is not based on science or fairness, but POLITICAL INFLUENCE and ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM!