Culver City leaders have joined other Westside elected officials in calling on federal transportation authorities to remedy what they say is a bump in overflights and noise pollution in their community from airplanes leaving and departing Los Angeles International Airport.
Westchester and Playa del Rey residents say they too are experiencing a higher volume of flights over their neighborhoods and according to Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin, neighborhoods farther north such as Mar Vista and Pacific Palisades are also seeing more overflights.
Culver City Mayor Micheál O’Leary contacted Rep. Karen Bass (D- Culver City) last month regarding the overflights to which he and others attribute to the implementation of a new national airspace system called the Next Generation Air Transportation System Project.
“Based upon significant resident input, it is clear Culver City is experiencing a significant impact related to overflights to and from Los Angeles International Airport, especially impacts related to noise and air quality,” O’Leary wrote.
Bass is the author of the FAA Community Accountability Act of 2015, which would allow the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration to improve the current process that is already underway to establish and revise flight paths and procedures of the federal new airspace system. The new system will be implemented gradually over a period of years, ending in 2025, according to federal aviation officials.
“While Culver City has gone on record with its comments regarding the NextGen Project, clearly [the FAA Community Accountability Act] would constitute a small first step toward the FAA addressing the significant negative impacts associated with the implementation of NextGen at LAX. Culver City residents cannot simply be asked to accept greater and greater burdens due to LAX’s increased overflights, especially at the lower altitudes implemented by NextGen,” O’Leary wrote. “Such changes result in increased noise and other environmental impacts. Unfortunately, the impacts of these increased overflights cannot be mitigated without the implementation of policy changes at the FAA.”
The FAA denies that any over flights are not connected to the Next Generation project, which they say has yet to begin.
According to the FAA, no significant changes have been made to Westside arrival flight patterns. In a letter to Bonin on Dec. 9, FAA Administrator Glen Martin noted that there were 50 “missed approaches” at the airport due to runway closures for maintenance from July through September but no change in flight patterns.
“The only change we were able to identify is in the number of [aircraft] operations at LAX, which have increased almost 17 % between 2009 and 2014,” Martin wrote.
A report from a noise and aerospace consultant hired by Culver City last year indicated that several neighborhoods had experienced an increase in overflights. Carlson Park saw the largest increase at or below 6,000 feet from 2010 through 2012. “Those flights increased from 615 in the year 2010 to 1,234 in the 2012, or a doubling of flights at or below 6,000 feet,” the report states.
Bonin, who represents Los Angeles’ Westside neighborhoods, wrote the FAA to alert them to his constituents’ grievances and the impact that noise and air pollution are having on their quality of life. Dissatisfied with their response, he recently wrote to both Bass and Rep. Ted Lieu (D- Playa del Rey) asking for their assistance. “It is my understanding that you have also received similar inquiries from your constituents, some of whom we share. I would urge you to challenge and dispute the FAA’s narrative and demand that they provide better answers to why so many people are hearing planes above their homes on a regular basis when they rarely, if ever, heard them previously,” the councilman’s letter states.
Noise complaints and the proximity of airplanes to residences are not new to Culver City residents. Last year a group of residents circulated a petition protesting a modification in the proposed flight plan of the planned national aviation system, which they claim will take airplanes over Culver City High School, Farragut Middle School, Linwood Howe elementary schools and downtown Culver City.
“Culver City residents have noticed an increased amount of aircraft noise over our Culver City neighborhoods. The sky is humming with jet noise, spaced within as little as 60 seconds of each other, plane after plane, throughout the day and night, and the jet noise is noticeably loud,” states Sunkist Park resident Laura Stuart. “The jet noise and pollution will get worse when [the Next Generation Air Transportation System] takes effect in 2016, and has the potential to negatively change the characteristics of our city and neighborhoods.”
Gary Walker contributed to this story.
