Congresswoman. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola) told area residents she is pressing the Federal Aviation Authority and the Port Authority to be accountable for aircraft noise on Long Island and called for a noise study on New York airports in Stewart Manor on Monday night.
Speaking at a meeting of the Town and Village Aircraft Safety and Noise Abatement Committee, McCarthy said a study needs to be conducted to address increasing Long Island aircraft noise.
“We need to have a study done. It’s getting worse and worse for all of us,” McCarthy said. “This is not going to get better unless we’re going to fight it.”
McCarthy said she wrote a letter to officials at the FAA and the Port Authority of New York on Aug. 2 asking them to clarify their respective agency’s jurisdiction over aircraft noise issues. In the letter, McCarthy asked each agency to write a memorandum of understanding on their aircraft-noise jurisdictions that would be a ”bilateral agreement” between the two agencies.
McCarthy said the FAA and the Port Authority have been pointing fingers at each other on the noise issue.
“I will tell you different agencies in Washington don’t talk to each other,” McCarthy said at Monday night’s meeting.
McCarthy, currently running for re-election to her seat in the newly configured 4th Congressional District, said she is trying to schedule a September meeting between U.S. Secretary of Ttransportation Ray Lahood and members of the aircraft noise commitee.
The 4th district includes New Hyde Park, Floral Park, the Willistons, Mineola, Garden City, Rockville Centre, Franklin Square, Westbury, East Meadow, Freeport, Oceanside, Long Beach, Wantagh, Bellmore and Merrick. Representatives from New Hyde Park, Floral Park, East Williston and Garden City sit on the aircraft noise committee.
Aircraft noise committee chairman Kendall Lampkin said the FAA, not the Port Authority, has resisted cooperating in reducing aircraft noise.
“There has to be a way of working it out so our citizens can have relief,” McCarthy said. “When someone says they can’t do it, I don’t take that for an answer.”
McCarthy said commercial helicopters should avoid populated areas by following shoreline routes and said Sen. Charles Schumer has introduced legislation to regulate elevation of helicopter flights.
“The FAA will do nothing unless our elected officials do something or a federal judge compels them,” Ray Gaudio, East Williston’s committee representative, told McCarthy. “We need your help desperately.”
Gaudio said the primary issue for committee members is the increased traffic landing at two runways at JFK, 22L and 22R. He said the percentage of aircraft landing on those JFK runways had risen from 14 percent to 33 percent of all JFK landings over the past several years. The paths of aircraft landing at those runways are directly over the communities represented on the noise abatement committee.
Floral Park Deputy Trustee Mary-Grace Tomecki said increased use of 22L and 22R was directly related to “concrete failure” that occurred after a $365 million repair of runway 31L at JFK two years ago.
“You can’t have efficient distribution of traffic if runways are broken,” said Tomecki.
She said the same company responsible for the concrete cracking on 31L was retained to repair it.
While McCarthy was the featured political speaker, other office seekers spoke briefly at the meeting, including Frank Scaturro, the Conservative candidate running against McCarthy.
Scaturro said a 25 percent traffic landing limit should be imposed on JFK runways 22L and 22R, and suggested McCarthy hasn’t been vigilant about the noise issue.
“We need congressional oversight very badly. We are not getting it,” Scaturro said after McCarthy left the meeting.
Stephen Labate, a Republican candidate running against Democrat Steve Israel in the new 2nd Congressional District, called the non-communications between the FAA and the Port Authority “a horror show.”
Republican state Assemblyman Brian Curran (R-Lynbrook) said he, state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and state Sen.Jack Martins (R-Mineola) have been “applying pressure” for the Port Authority to conduct a noise study on the area airports.
“If you can get away with doing nothing, that’s the cheapest solution,” said Henry Young, an independent consultant on aircraft noise.
Young, the meeting’s non-political featured speaker, said the committee should join forces with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, which called for a Port Authority noise study on New York airports in 2010. But he warned that the noise study would not mandate solutions.
“It’s not enough to leave it in the hands of the airport or the FAA,” Young said. “The goals have to come from the people involved.”
He said solutions should include mandating insulation of buildings under heavily trafficked routes and limiting night-time landings over heavily trafficked routes.
“Our schools should be insulated. Our churches should be insulated,” said Kurt Langjahr, New Hyde Park’s representative on the aircraft noise committee.
