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Whatcom Watch Online
Local Group Formed to Reduce Jet Noise


September 2012

Dear Watchers

Local Group Formed to Reduce Jet Noise

by Lisa Neulicht

Thank you Matt Paskus for the informative article (Whatcom Watch, August 2012, pages 12/13) about the port’s headlong push toward expansion of the Bellingham airport. Reduce Jet Noise (www.ReduceJetNoise.wordpress.com) is a group of concerned citizens in Whatcom County joining together to question the need for an ever increasing amount of jet traffic. How do you feel about the roar of jets overhead? Can you imagine living in a place where a plane takes off or lands every 28 minutes seven days a week?

The Port of Bellingham is now planning for this extreme level of traffic at the Bellingham airport. An airport master plan update and continued airport expansion is now in process. The port is asking for public input at this time. Your property values, your outdoor recreation, your quality of life will be heavily impacted by the increased airport traffic.

If you are thinking “I’m not feeling terribly affected. Why should I care?” Think again. Flight patterns do change. At this time the device which directs the pilots using instrumentation when visibility is poor (on all those cloudy days we have around here) is about seven miles northeast of the airport. So the jets roar over my rural neighborhood and everyone else to the north as they approach the airport for landing. This is a big area and a large number of residents are being negatively affected by this noise! Since many of us from Ferndale, Lummi Island, Northwest Avenue, Birchwood Neighborhood, Marine Drive, Fairhaven, South Hill and Columbia Neighborhood, and more have been attending the port meetings and trying to get a handle on this destruction of our peace, there has recently been some discussion about adding the capability for instrumentation approaches over the bay from the south. So look out, more jet noise will be coming your way!

We are encouraging Whatcom Citizens to become informed and join this important community discussion.

For more information visit our website and join our notification list at reduce.jet.noise@hotmail.com.

Did you know?

• Allegiant Airlines flies refurbished older planes, MD80s, which are much louder than newer aircraft.

• 75-85 percent or more of passengers using the Bellingham airport are Canadians.

• The Bellingham airport is operating at a cash loss.

• The study on which the port is basing their future planning, projects 14,000 operations annually for the year 2031 at the Bellingham airport; that is a plane landing or taking off every 28 minutes seven days a week.

Lisa Neulicht

Ferndale


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