Testimony
of
Donald W. MacGlashan
representing
Citizens for the Abatement of
Aircraft Noise, Inc.
before the House of
Representatives Subcommittee on Technology
The Hon. Constance A. Morella,
Chair
October 21, 1997
Thank you for inviting Citizens for the Abatement of Aircraft Noise
(CAAN) to present the citizens' side of the aviation noise issue. By holding
this hearing this subcommittee demonstrates that it is aware of the growing
noise problem for the people living near airports. The fact that experts are
predicting a doubling of aviation growth in the next 10 years emphasizes the
urgency in dealing with this problem while there is still time to achieve cost
effective solutions.
The Extent of the Problem
The first question one should ask is: Is there a noise problem and if so,
what is its magnitude. I will try to address that question by using the
Metropolitan Washington area, the communities CAAN represents, as an example.
By way of background information, this region has four large airports, Washington
National, Dulles International, BWI, and Andrews AFB, plus a number of smaller
general aviation fields. National and Dulles are operated by the Metropolitan
Washington Airports Authority. From 1990 census data we can determine that over
900,0001 people are being impacted
by the noise from these two airports. Recently the Airports Authority has
provided to the local communities quarterly reports which tabulate the monthly
noise measurements for each of its 32 noise monitoring stations which are located
near the two airports, along the Potomac River where much, but not all, of the
National Airport traffic flies, and around the Dulles Airport area. Data
collected by the Authority 2 over
the past nine months show that, in any given month, from 31 percent to 53
percent (see Exhibit 1) of the noise monitoring stations are reporting
Day/Night Levels (DNL) that are greater than 65 dB, a standard set more than 20
years ago and 10 dB higher than recommended by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA). So what does this standard mean? Having lost their case with the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and FICAN to establish the 55 dB
standard, the EPA and the American National Standards Institute agreed (ANSI
standard No. 3.23) in the 1970's that single and multiple family residential
property with outdoor usage are incompatible with day-night levels above 65 dB.
And yet we are now measuring DNL levels as high as 72 dB, and none of these
properties has received federal money for noise mitigation. Neither has the FAA
or the Airports Authority made any operational changes to mitigate the noise
beyond the daytime noise abatement procedures put in place 30 years ago or the
National Airport nighttime procedures of 16 years ago.
It should be remembered that the DNL value is an average taken over 24
hours. This averaging process smooths out the peaks, and it is the peak
aircraft noise which is so intrusive. Noise levels at 85 and 95 dBA are not
easy to ignore, especially at night when one is trying to sleep. Also remember
that at National Airport, nighttime flights, between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7
a.m., are restricted to three of the quietest types of aircraft, the 757, the
A320, and the MD 90. This restriction reduces the number of night flights to
about three dozen. What this means is that the average daytime noise level
appears to be lower than it really is. It is, by deduction, considerably higher
than 65 dB.
Unfortunately, the people living near Dulles receive no nighttime relief
because there are no nighttime restrictions. The people of Reston, Virginia -
over 40,000 of them - for example, have to live in an environment of noise
which stays about 70 DNL. With the knowledge that the Airports Authority is
currently engaged in a major effort to bring in more carriers and add more
flights to existing carriers, the noise level can only get worse, in spite of
the phase out of all Stage 2 aircraft by the year 2000.
One might well ask if Washington D.C. is a unique situation. From my
contacts with other citizens groups around the country, similar situations
exist; high DNL numbers and very little being done to mitigate the problem. The
citizens near Denver International Airport (DIA) report that their ambient
noise level is 20 dBA, and when aircraft pass over them, the noise level rises
to 77 dBA, even 50 miles from the airport.
3 This has caused a severe impact on these people judging by the 2000
complaint calls per month. In Seattle, WA, independent noise experts found that
the airport had not done enough to reduce perceived on-the-ground noise impacts
from airport operations. 4, 5 At
Chicago's O'Hare Airport which is surrounded by residential communities, 20 out
of 23 (87 percent) noise monitoring stations are reporting DNL's over 65 dB 6 (see Exhibit 2) with several locations at 80
dB. In one of the adjacent O'Hare communities, 55 percent of the daily flights
reached peaks above 95 dBA! Little A.I.P. money has been expended to improve
the insulation quality of the communities around O'Hare. With this mounting evidence,
there seems to be no question that aircraft are creating a serious noise
problem across the country. With the predictions of aviation growth, it is
certain to get much worse before any improvement can be expected.
Other Aviation Noise Sources
There is another source of aviation noise, noise from helicopters. In
some areas of Washington D.C., helicopters create more of a noise problem than
jet aircraft because helicopters in these areas seldom fly over 1000 feet, more
typically 500 feet. This low altitude is often required by FAA regulations.
Recent attempts by citizen groups in California to raise the minimum altitude
to 1000 feet were rejected by the FAA. We recognize that some of these flights
have to fly low, for example, medivac, police and National Park rangers.
However, the presence of the Pentagon and other nearby military facilities
result in many training flights directly over the heavy residential areas. We
have to ask the question: do we need that many military exercises in this area
and do they have to fly at less than 1000 feet? A reduction in military
training over the city and suburban areas would do much to alleviate the noise
from this source.
There appears to be no noise standards for helicopters. CAAN suggests
that this issue needs attention and that noise standards need to be
established.
The Government's Role
Many years ago, Congress gave the FAA three missions; to achieve safety
of flight, to promote the aviation industry (until recently) and to control the
environmental impact of aviation activities. The FAA has done a good job with
the first two missions, although there are numerous critics regarding the
safety issue. The third mission has been a stepchild with the FAA, resulting in
little meaningful reduction of noise for the people on the ground. Yes, the
Stage 3 aircraft are quieter than the Stage 2's, but reducing the sound level
from about 95 dBA to 87 dBA is not perceived to be a great achievement by
ground-based citizens. Additionally, the size of commercial aircraft has been
increasing so that larger, more powerful engines are needed to move them. The
noise reduction achieved by Stage 3 design is being offset by these larger
aircraft.
Aviation noise reduction has been achieved in some measure by property
buy-outs and by insulating schools, hospitals, and homes when the DNL was 65 dB
or greater. Much of this money came from the Federal Airport Improvement
Program. The results have been mixed; good for the affected hospitals, fair for
the schools and not very effective for homes. For homes, it has been a case of
too few done, and no discernible benefit due to poor quality work.
Defining Noise
We will never resolve the noise issue until we can all agree on what the
standards should be. The question to ask is: what constitutes excessive noise
and at what level does this noise cause psychological and physiological damage
to people? There is a mounting body of evidence which says that excessive noise
causes learning impairment, sleep deprivation, reduction in job performance,
and damaging stress levels.
Years ago, before Congress de-funded the EPA's Office of Noise Abatement
and Control, the EPA argued that the DNL should be set at 55 dB, not 65 dB. As
stated above, the 65 DNL standard won out and has been a sacred cow ever since.
It is, however, a flawed metric. It effectively leads one to believe that the
noise level is not too bad because it averages all the noise over a whole day,
masking the real noise that people experience. It is therefore a fictitious
number with no relationship to what is really happening. In California and many
European countries, a different metric is used. It is called the Community
Noise Equivalent Level (CNEL) and it imposes a 5 dB penalty to the DNL value
for the hours between 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. - to promote communications and
relaxation during those hours - in addition to the 10 dB penalty for after 10
p.m. hours. However, even the CNEL is imperfect because it does not account for
the single event noise level, that intrusive noise that a turbojet makes when
it passes. Therefore, what is needed is a metric which takes into account the
single noise event. Its formulation should include a combination of the peak
noise value and the frequency of single events. The National Resource Defense
Council has discussed the noise issue is in its publication, Flying Off
Course. 7
Having a new DNL standard will ring hollow if there is no mechanism to
enforce it. As the current airport data indicates, many people living near
airports are in an unhealthy noise environment - over 65 DNL - and still more
are living in a marginally acceptable noise environment. Right now there is no
cap as the evidence indicates, so the noise standards we have are basically
useless to control noise. We need legislation to enforce a cap on the amount of
noise people have to live with. The Netherlands has just such a cap and because
Schiphol Airport has exceeded it, has had to stop nighttime flights and
eliminate the use of one parallel runway.
Some years ago the FAA has sponsored studies that concluded that only
about 12 percent of the people are highly annoyed by noise. This figure,
however, has been disputed by other studies which indicate that the percentage
is much higher. Even if we use the 12 percent figure, for the Washington D.C.
area, it would mean that there are over 100,000 people who are highly annoyed
by aircraft noise and may be being damaged by that noise. If 100,000 people in
a single metropolitan area were discovered to have a debilitating but preventable
disease, and the authorities were ignoring it, that would be a national news
event. More and more scientists in the country think that people are being
damaged by excessive noise and that we can no longer ignore the issue. 8, 9 Even if there were no growth in the volume
of traffic at these two airports - and we do not expect that - we are saying
that these people may have to live in an unhealthy environment until enough of
the Stage 4 aircraft are used to reduce the noise level to safe levels. That time
is probably at least seven years away.
Given the record of the FAA for managing the aircraft noise issue, CAAN
has no confidence that the FAA can resolve the problem, particularly when noise
issues come in conflict with their second mission responsibility - to promote
the aviation industry - which although formally rescinded is still there as a
cultural legacy. The responsibility for noise standards and their enforcement,
CAAN feels, should be returned to the EPA.
Future Goals
The noise problem is not going to go away anytime soon. Technology
created this problem and technology is what will have to provide the ultimate
solution. What has to be done differently is to stop ignoring it or denying
that it exists. Because it took enormous sums of money to arrive at the present
situation, we will need to invest large sums of money to extricate ourselves
from the problem. CAAN feels that more emphasis should be placed in research to
quiet the turbojet engine and its supporting nacelle structures. Achieving meaningful
noise reductions may require solutions which cost more than the airlines would
like. But if they wish to continue to use inner city airports like Lindbergh
Field in San Diego, Midway in Chicago, and National in Washington DC, then that
is the price they will have to pay.
As was indicated above, we need a new noise metric. A panel of experts,
independent of the FAA, should be convened to design this metric. In
conjunction with this effort, the Government should sponsor independent studies
on the health effects of aircraft noise. The results of these studies should
form the basis for establishing new standards which should then be used in
setting the noise reduction goals for Stage 4 aircraft. If the Stage 4 aircraft
performance falls short of the new standards, noise mitigation techniques and
flight operational changes must make up the difference. One should always keep
in mind that the health of the people comes first. Industries must develop
technologies to ensure that this remains true.
In 1990, Congress mandated that by the year 2000 all Stage 2 aircraft
would be retired from service or converted to Stage 3 standards. The year 2000
is rapidly approaching, so now is the time to begin the process of establishing
new standards and timetable to phase in the Stage 4 aircraft.
CAAN is aware that Stage 4 aircraft will not, in all likelihood, reduce
the single event noise levels to much below 65 dBA. For this reason, we
recommend that money go into promising alternatives. One that has received some
publicity is a modern version of the auto gyro aircraft. Reports are that it is
capable of vertical takeoffs and landings, and normal aircraft propulsion in
level flight. 10 NASA has provided
a grant of $70,000 to assist in its development. We recommend that grants
continue to be awarded to investigate these types of alternatives.
Immediate Solutions
There are two things CAAN believes could be done to reduce some of the
aircraft noise at inner city airports. They are:
• use the aircraft Flight Management System (FMS), to fly the aircraft at
a reduced but safe climb rate. Currently the the FMS is programmed to maintain
a prescribed engine power ratio (EPR) after the initial takeoff sequence. A
single value EPR will result in far more rapid climb out in cold weather than
it will in hot weather. Therefore, by using climb rate instead of EPR, some
noise reduction should be achieved, at least in the colder months.
• using the regional jet for most of the flights. This aircraft is
smaller and therefore quieter. There may, however, be a risk of more air
pollution if the number of flights are not properly balanced.
Conclusion
In conclusion, CAAN feels that aircraft noise is a serious as well as
complex problem with far more health consequences than previously recognized.
We believe that new noise standards, keyed to health risks, need to be
established as well as a new metric for measuring noise. We urge this
subcommittee to recommend that a new timetable for the introduction of Stage 4
aircraft, and we would urge that more research dollars be applied to study ways
to alleviate the excessive noise problem around our nations' airports.
__________________________________________
1. Data derived from 1990 U.S. Census.
Only population from zip codes around airports and under flight paths were
included.
2. Metropolitan Washington Airports
Authority,Flight Operations and Aircraft Noise Quarterly Report for
Washington Dulles International Airport and Washington National Airport, Three
reports covering the period October 1996 though June 1997.
3. Measurements taken by the noise
abatement officer for the Denver International Airport.
4. Regional Commission on Airport Affairs,
Report on the Proposed Reduction in Noise Levels at the Seattle-Tacoma
Airport, Prepared by Alice H. Suter, October 26,1994.
5. Puget Sound Regional Council; Final
Decision of PSRC Experts Arbitration Panel on Phase II Noise Issues. March
29, 1996.
6. City of Chicago Department of Aviation,
Monthly Airport Noise Report Summary, Chicago O'Hare International Airport,
; Reports for January through July 1997.
7. Natural Resources Defense Council, Flying
Off Course, Environmental Impacts of America's Airports. October 1996.
8. Susan L. Staples. Human Response to
Environmental Noise . American Psychologist, February 1996.
9. Editor Patricia J. Thompson,
Interdisciplinary Perspectives; Impact of Noise on Health in Environmental
Education for the 21st Century.
10. Business Week, Developments to Watch; Is
it an Airplane or a Helicopter, or Both , Editor Peter Coy, May 27,1997.