by David M. Sykes, Vice Chair, The Quiet Coalition
It’s amazing that news media continue to treat airport noise as simply a local quality of life problem. A recent example from comes from Eagan, Minnesota, where homeowners are angry about noisy air flights creating “a significant quality of life issue.”
In fact, airport noise is a national issue, and there’s actually very little that local authorities can do about it. They quite literally don’t have the authority because a very large, powerful federal agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, calls the shots.
In short, the FAA argues and almost always wins because the agency can pre-empt local authorities.
What to do? It is essential for local communities to join hands with the 47 member-communities of the National Quiet Skies Coalition and their 47 Congressional representatives who are members of the Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus to pressure the FAA to respond to community complaints and actually do something about the growing problem of airport noise.
It is also essential to become familiar with the growing body of research about the effects of that airport noise on the health of people in surrounding communities. That research is unequivocal: noise is much more than a quality of life problem as it causes serious health problems like heart disease, diabetes, and more.
This is serious stuff—and has been well-known since the first World Health Organization report on this subject was published in 2011.
So if you want something done to stop airport noise in your community, it’s essential to:
- Recognize that the problem is national, not local;
- Get involved with the National Quiet Skies Coalition and its Congressional members;
- Become familiar with the growing body of research; and
- Tell your local media about all of this — because clearly their reporters don’t yet get it.
