STOP THENOISE

Courts rule Nuisance is a State Matter
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Airport Expansion

FAA's Insatiable Desire to Expand

We are contacted regularly by people seeking help with reining in their local airport. Sometimes this is due to the start of new activities at the airport such as a new flight school or an aerobatic pilot setting up shop overhead. Sometimes it is because the small airport is planning to expand and the citizens are finding that the public participation phase of such planning is inadequate or often an outright sham.

We have historically stayed out of the airport expansion battles, not because we do not support your efforts but because the problem is so widespread that it would consume all of our time and resources thereby changing the scope of our mission. At the same time, we recognize that in the end it is the same fight we fight - against the same foe that has betrayed us all - the FAA. 

There are areas where we can help each other now. There will certainly be ways to work together in the future once we have sufficient political mass and have exposed FAA's betrayal of the American people.

We have found that there are many battles underway at many small airports around the country. Citizens are fighting to save their homesteads from the ravages of aviation noise and pollution. Citizens are attending airport master plan meetings and letting their voices be heard. More importantly, they are demanding seats on the committees making such plans so that they can influence the decisions and ensure that their fellow citizens are kept aware of the goings on. These groups often have impressive numbers of members. Elected officials are starting to hear them.  Unfortunately too many politicians are too easily swayed by the contributions of the big-moneyed aviation lobbies and FAA's Airport Improvement Program grants, which to most politicians, look like free money.

What we have also observed is that each of these groups tends to be fighting its battle alone.  FAA has been most successful at dividing and conquering. In some places FAA pits one community against another, telling community A that its best defense against expansion of its own local airport is to support the expansion of community B's airport. When one considers that the total number of people engaged in these battles is a considerable political force, the question arises "Why aren't all these people organized?" Pretty good question, don't you think?

Part of the answer is that many see the battle as a local one. They see it as a NIMBY issue, a battle to be won or lost on local turf. While it certainly is about what is happening in your own back yard, in reality it is much larger than that. While there are a few local victories, the only true solution is to dismember the system of federal grants that binds a community into perpetual servitude to the aviation interests. This battle will be fought and won in state capitols and in Washington. Only then will local communities and individuals be able to assert their right to control their own lands.

STOP the NOISE has worked to bring such groups into contact with each other. We will help such groups organize as best we can. We hope to see a grass-roots, national leadership emerge from among the members of these many groups of citizens.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, contact us.  Then join us. We at STN  welcome your interest and will assist in putting you in touch with the other groups.