According to Robert Belzer, of NJCAAN, a volunteer citizens group working to address airport and airplane noise pollution, there are going to be more and more planes landing and departing from New York area airports and the consequences in terms of noise pollution are, well, obvious. He sent diagrams of the JFK departure backbone tracks that the FAA intends to implement later in 2008. He sent this to me on Saturday:

New JFK/Long Island Airport Departure Procedures Impact Nassau County, NYC And New Jersey Communities To The West Of Newark Airport
As the diagram illustrates, the departure traffic is shifted north over the new departure gate to the areas currently the most heavily impacted by Newark Airport traffic. This is the area to the west of Newark Airport.

The traffic would first over fly Nassau County and then New York City . It currently goes out over the Atlantic Ocean and then Monmouth County , NJ south of Newark Airport.

The New Jersey Coalition Against Aircraft Noise (NJCAAN) is very concerned that the public remains unaware about the FAA intention to shift all of this traffic over densely populated residential communities due to the agency’s inadequate disclosure in its reports for the metro Airspace Redesign.

In addition, we are questioning whether this shift in traffic would be necessary if the military would have provided access to the offshore airspace that it currently uses for training purposes. The unfortunate consequence of the military blocking access to this airspace is to require commercial aircraft to over fly densely populated residential communities instead of the Atlantic Ocean . Finally, the FAA intends to shift all of this traffic over New York City .

Is this a good idea in terms of security and safety?

Robert Belzer
President, NJCAAN
www.njcaan.org