Quote of the Week: "The NY/NJ/Philadelphia Airspace Redesign DEIS, although cleverly crafted to look scientific, is actually cynically designed to maintain many of the unscientific, politically influenced unjust aircraft routes." comment on the NY/NJ/Philadelphia Airspace Redesign DEIS by me
Aviation Conspiracy Newsletter #363...............................................................................February 12, 2006 Past newsletters can be accessed at: http://pages.prodigy.net/rockaway/ACNewsmenu.htm The PASSUR airport flight tracking system at many major U.S. airports http://www.passur.com/sites.htm (you must have Java installed to view it) Bill Mulcahy rockaway@prodigy.net
My Comments On The FAA Airspace Redesign Plan
As
Bill
Sees It: (Editorial)
My Comments On The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) of the
New York/ New Jersey Airspace Redesign Plan. The FAA has asked
for comments on the Airspace Redesign Plan so I thought I would give them some
this week. I intend to comment as the vice president of Friends of
Rockaway,
which is a environmental group that I have been associated with for a long time. 
My comments and
criticisms of the plan focus mainly on the Rockaway area impacted by JFK Airport
as that is the area where I have the most experience. I'm sure that the FAA has
used the same crude, corrupt, criminal and arrogant analysis for other areas in
the plan. I paid particular attention to the way the FAA plan dealt with the
community of Lawrence, Long Island. Lawrence has a 
powerful lobbying organization
whose purpose is to divert planes away from their community (the
Lawrence Diversion). I was amazed, but not surprised, that the FAA classified (Vol. 3, Appendix E, Sec. 4)
it as a high
(65+ DNL) zone which they indicate by the color orange (see map on the left on
their low detail (better to hide the truth) map which of course doesn't even show JFKAirport
or it's runways. The black
and white Port Authority of NY/NJ noise map above it shows the real JFK Airport
noise impacts on Lawrence. The Port Authority maps have always shown that
Lawrence has always gotten their flights diverted away from
them over their neighbors. This relationship with the FAA is so close that
the FAA even listed the Lawrence lobbying group as one of the "agencies
consulted" in the formation of the plan!!! The FAA is supposed to
answer any comments that are made on their DEIS. No doubt it will be the usual
lies and distortions that make up the plan itself. I was wrong when I said that
the EPA has to "approve" this con job, they only have to
"comment" on it. I am looking forward to seeing that. I'm sure there
is tremendous pressure for them to rubber stamp this piece of crap. I really
think an investigation into this outrage and lawsuits are in order.
1.
Heavy
use of technical jargon in unintelligible, unreadable maps , charts with
columns of numbers with no interpretation and extremely large online files (58
megabytes) readable to only those with high speed Internet connections. The FAA
has made no effort to put technical information into a form understandable
to the public. No one but engineers
involved in airspace planning could possibly understand most of their
aircraft routing maps. This is obviously an example of the FAA
hiding impacts from the public in this plan. The typical JFK Airport routing
map on the left not only doesn't show the airport, it doesn't even show 
one
landform!!!
2. Continued concentration and increased flights over poor and minority JFK Airport communities. The DEIS indicates that there will be no changes to JFK routing. In other words projected increases of JFK Airport operations will be inflicted on the poor and minority areas, which already have flights diverted from Lawrence, LI and concentrated on them. Concentration of flights over poor and minority communities. The FAA goes to great lengths to hide actual population impacts by using things like "generalized land use maps" (see below right) in order to hide the protected (wealthy and white) communities impacts and continue their policy of diversion of flights over poor and minority communities.
3.
Use
of Phony “Land Use” (see maps below) maps instead of population maps to
determine airport routing environmental 
impacts on people. This is
another example of the FAA avoiding showing the actual impacts of noise on
people. In the case of Rockaway what you see when you look at their map is
not 14 story apartments full of people but large stretches of once vacant
land. The purpose is once again to use the poor and minority areas as
dumping grounds and to protect the politically connected. The map on the
left was prepared by N.Y. City and uses the year 2000 census tracks. An updated
analysis would show even more population in the Arverne area.
4. Falsely
portraying Rockaway populated areas as being “vacant.” The JFK
Airport “Generalized Land Use” (Vol.2, 3-08) map (picture on right) misrepresents vast
stretches of land as being “vacant.”
The Arverne section of Rockaway consists of many apartment houses and
the once vacant land is all built on or in the process of being built
on. Yet the FAA falsely portrays it as vacent
in order to divert flights over
it.
5. Use of low resolution pictures, especially “noise maps,” with little detail, in extremely large files. In the online site the “noise modeling technical report” was 58 megabytes! Only people with a very high speed Internet connection could access this. I believe this was purposely done to reduce public access.
6. Use
of aircraft routing “maps” that do not show airports and even landforms
that could be correlated to the plane routes.
Some of these maps are so incomprehensible that they look more like a
Jackson Pollack painting than an aircraft route.
The picture below is typical of how the FAA shows 
aircraft routing.
This shows the contempt and arrogance the FAA has for the public and the
NEPA process.
7. “Noise Sensitive” areas mentioned, but not identified. These areas are mentioned in the DEIS Executive Summary but not identified as to where they are, or what criteria is used to determine what makes one community noise sensitive and one noise tolerant. I suspect that this one of the non-scientific terms that the FAA uses to justify racist and politically influenced aircraft routing over communities.
8. DEIS “Environmental
Justice” section (Vol.4 Appendix I) 
consists of
merely a computer printout of census
tracts. No other information was given, such as maps or comments on
minorities significantly impacted. The plan ignored the current and future
impacts of increased overflights of JFK Airport on the poor and minority
communities of Rockaway, N.Y. City. I guess the FAA thought it better to say
nothing than be caught in a lie.
9.
Safety Issues Involving the reduction of plane separation over N.Y. City not
adequately dealt with. Changing the separation distances allowed for planes
over the congested N.Y. City metropolitan area airspace is a major change. This
change of five miles to three miles separation could cause a major collision or
wake turbulence crash as what happened in Rockaway with the American Airlines
Flt. 587 crash in 2001. This is a major change in flight operations and
should have a detailed separate analysis of the safety implications for the
flying public as well as the people on the ground.
10. Air Pollution Increases Not Addressed Or Analyzed. There seems to be a total ignoring of the air pollution impacts of the Airspace Redesign Plan on communities and the ozone layer and local communities from increased numbers of planes this plan will allow to be used at NY/NY and Philadelphia airports.
11. FAA used old, inaccurate maps to indicate land use. These maps do not reflect current or immediate future residential area usage. This is especially true in the Arverne section of the Rockaway peninsula where there has been dramatic home building and population growth in the last few years. Many of these areas are classified by the FAA as “vacant.”
12. No
mention is made of night flights or the FAA's "preferred noise
abatement runways" which concentrate night time flights and noise over
poor and minority communities. Because the plan carefully avoids any routing changes at
JFK Airport, that will mean that the FAA intends to increase the already
heavy concentrations of flights on those poor and minority communities, like
the Arverne section of Rockaway, which already have flights unjustly
concentrated over them.
13. The FAA completely ignored the JFK Airport noise impacts on minority communities from planned increased flights. The FAA has decided not to change the flight routes at JFK Airport. This means that they apparently intend to inflict increased noise impacts on poor and minority communities that have long had their flights diverted away from Lawrence, Long Island (the Lawrence Diversion) and over them.
14. Falsely identifying Lawrence, Long Island as a JFK Airport 65 DNL high
noise impact noise area. The FAA has falsely identified Lawrence, Long
Island as a high impact (orange color) noise area. If the year 2000
“baseline” that the FAA used for their noise map is correct, which I doubt,
that year must be a aberration to actual noise impacts. I believe this is a
false representation as Port Authority (see picture below) maps have always
shown departure flights headed for Lawrence 
as being diverted over Rockaway
putting Lawrence in a much lower noise contour. Also, JFK Airport is not even
indicated on the FAA map. (Vol. 3, Appendix E, Sec. 4)
15. Listing of community lobbying groups as “consulting agencies” in Airspace Redesign Plan. The Town and Village Aviation Safety/Noise Mitigation (TVASNAC) organization is headquartered in Lawrence, L.I. and is a lobbying group for Lawrence and other nearby communities (the Five Towns). The "Governor's Group of Nine" is another political lobbying group which consists of people concerned with protecting particular wealthy, white areas from overflights. I think it is outrageous that these groups were included as "agencies" in the DEIS plan. They obviously have an influence on FAA policies while other communities do not get the same privilege. This unfortunately, is typical of how the FAA decides which community gets flights directed over them.
16.
Details of poor and minority impacts not adequately dealt with. While one
map shows "environmental study areas" impacted by projected impacts
from Newark and LaGuardia Airports, the impacts on JFK Airport communities from
the projected increased was not addressed. The FAA apparently is using the
excuse that there will be no route changes for JFK Airport as the reason for
avoiding dealing with environmental justice issues for JFK. However, it is my
opinion that the real reason is that they did not want to expose their long
history of favoring certain protected communities while dumping on poor and
minority communities. The impacts of the increased flights that will occur
over JFK Airport's poor and minority communities due to the airspace redesign
project should be assessed. According to the DEIS the Riker's Island prison is
going to get a dramatic increase in noise pollution. Why don't the poor and
minority communities in Rockaway, which also will get a dramatic increase noise
pollution, get the same attention as criminals?
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