Residents blame jets for noise in neighborhood
Six months since the city enacted one of the most stringent airport noise ordinances in the country, residents living near the Santa Monica Airport still say jet noise is a problem.
And while the city has issued 19 fines, only one has been paid, officials said. The city also is still developing the process by which violators can appeal their fine, which critics believe will prove whether the city can uphold its own ordinance.
“I think we’ll see the benefits when the fines that have requested remediation get their day in court and whether the city prevails and those fines are paid,” said Kathy Knight, a Friends of Sunset Park member, which is a homeowner’s association comprised of residents who live near the airport. Homes in Sunset Park surround the airport’s runway on three sides —the south side is in West Los Angeles.
On Dec. 14 the city council enacted a noise ordinance that set a threshold of 95 decibels for aircraft taking off and landing at the airport. A Leer Jet taking off reaches about 90 decibels, according to officials.
The city has had a noise ordinance for decades, but there was no way to monitor violators. Reacting to complaints from residents who live in the area, the city council put more teeth into the ordinance and created a monitoring system.
First-time violators receive only a warning. After that, a second violation can receive a $2,000 fine, a third costs $5,000 and after that violators are fined $10,000 for each instance.
Airport officials have set up microphones 1,500 feet from either end of the runway that sit upon telephone poles. The signal is sent to a computer terminal in the airport manager’s office, which monitors the noise levels and prints out a record of each flight taking off and landing.
Airport Manager Bob Trimborn said 60 percent of the pilots violating the city’s noise ordinance are doing so for the first time. And 20 percent of the time it’s the pilot’s second violation.
“A big component of our noise ordinance is education,” he said. “The more we can get the word out the less pilots will break the rules.”
Aircraft manufacturers also have begun adding special instructions in their aircraft manuals for flying into Santa Monica Airport, so as to lessen the noise impact. Pilots can maneuver their aircraft when approaching Santa Monica Airport to lessen the noise the planes make.
But the type of aircraft using Santa Monica Airport is increasingly shifting toward jets, which account for more than 80 percent of the planes that breach the noise threshold, officials said.
About 1,300 aircraft take off and land at Santa Monica airport in a month. About 90 percent of them are propeller-driven planes. Jets constitute the other 10 percent of total airport traffic, officials said.
7A5,“Initially we have noticed a drop in the overall noise levels in the past few months,” Knight said. “But that has been coupled with an extreme increase in the number of jets flying in and out of the airport.”
“Initially we have noticed a drop in the overall noise levels in the past few months. But that has been coupled with an extreme increase in the number of jets flying in and out of the airport.” — — KATHY KNIGHT Santa Monica resident
Trimborn points out that traffic volume at the airport is down nearly 50 percent from where it was 40 years ago. In the 1960s, 370,000 aircraft took off and landed at the airport, while last year there were only 156,000.
“We’re at a more sustainable level now,” he said. “This is more like what our normal level of activity should be.”
For Arnie Foss, the decrease in noise has been remarkable. Foss and his wife, who live less than two blocks from the edge of the airport, returned at the beginning of the year from a long trip abroad and they couldn’t believe the changes.
“I thought I was going deaf,” he said. “I couldn’t explain why else I wasn’t hearing all the airplanes.”
Now the jets have filled the gap. However, he remains upbeat about the situation.
“I feel there is some real progress being made,” he said. “More is needed yet, but so far there has been some real progress — and that’s something that hasn’t been made in years.”
Further down the flight path, residents report the level of noise has tapered off a bit since the city’s ordinance was enacted. But some still report that their windows shake and the sound of jets taking off occasionally drown out the sound from their televisions, or makes conversations a little more difficult to hear.
“The jets are the real problem,” said Carol Free, a longtime Ocean Park resident. “I guess there’s no way to make them go away.
“There’s too much money behind them,” she said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 18, 2002. Read the original PDF.