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Observers differ on effect in Parkrose
LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
The Port of Portland is looking at how to make its operations more efficient, safer and less noisy. How will that effect Mid-Multnomah county?
According to Peggy McNees of the Port, there will be no increase in noise for this area, and maybe some decrease.
Ann Bonner, a Mid-County community activist, says some of the changes could mean more frequent jet overflights for those areas that already receive them and diversion of propeller planes over new areas.
Fred Stovel, another longtime activist from the Rose City neighborhood, says there shouldn’t be a “significant” increase in noise. Carol Williams of Parkrose Heights admits she doesn’t know - but is concerned.
Federal Part 150 mandates study
The Port is examining its operations to better comply with Part 150 of Federal Aviation Administration regulations. These call for airports to identify and alleviate aircraft-related noise over residential areas, and specifically to keep them at least below 65 decibels, preferably below 55. The regulations specifically deter airports from addressing a noise problem over one community by moving it to another.
This injunction sunk Proposal 9A, championed by Vancouver, Wash. The Portland International Airport’s principal noise prevention strategy has been to keep takeoff and landing patterns over the Columbia River, and to turn aircraft over populated areas only after they have climbed high enough to have minimal impact. Washingtonians wanted to shift the flight paths slightly further south to minimize impacts to some 7,000 residents. However, as Stovel says, “The number who would gain is offset by an equal number on the Oregon side in places like East Columbia and Bridgeton, and Part 150 says you can’t do that.”
Fear of new and more overflights
Bonner warns of a proposal to concentrate the approach and departure patterns of large carrier jets into a single, more consistent flight path. “What that means is that areas that now get five overflights an hour will get 20 or more,” Bonner said. “It’s a plan the FAA likes, so it’s likely to happen.”
Stovel, a former pilot and member of the Airport Issues Roundtable, said there will be “a slight increase in flights east and south of the airport.”
Conversely, Bonner said, it appears that propeller-driven craft will be scattered over areas they haven’t been accustomed to flying over before. “Vancouver and, it looks like, Parkrose,” Bonner said.
McNees denied this, saying that if anything the approach routes for such planes will be more concentrated.
Stovel says the flight paths of prop planes will be altered somewhat to accommodate the paths of the jets. “The good news is they’ll be flying about 1500 feet higher before they make their turns,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll blend into the ambient noise levels.”
Part of the confusion, Bonner and Williams said, is due to the problem with getting good information from the Port. It has issued a map that it says shows the approach paths of different types of aircraft, but non-professionals find it difficult to read.
Monitor or public relations?
Other recommendations would relax takeoff and landing rules during low traffic times, allowing aircraft to land from both directions and take other shortcuts to reduce the amount of time maneuvering over populated areas. Others would encourage jets to glide in under low power, and discourage running the engines in reverse as a speed brake. Still another, called Fly Quiet, would publicly rate carriers based on the number of complaints made about their planes and their responsiveness to such complaints.
Of this last Stovel said, “My experience is that the aviation community in fact cares about its performance,” and to this extent Fly Quiet may have some deterrent effect. On the other hand, he added, “If a cargo jet company doesn’t care what happens when their planes fly over at 3 a.m., if they don’t break the rules, there’s not much you can do about it. To that extent this is only effective as public relations.”
The next meeting of the Part 150 Study Advisory Committee, which is considering the issues, is set for 5:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at 121 N.W. Everett St.
The bad old days
Carol Williams admits she doesn’t know for sure what is planned but she worries about it - for good reason. She remembers the bad old days. “Our house must have been in a landing pattern when we moved here in 1959 because we had cargo planes flying over regularly,” she remembered. “They flew so low the kids would wave at them expecting that people aboard would wave back. We’d get them on a regular basis in the middle of the night.”
The situation has been better for some time, Williams says, but based on what she has heard, “We figured we’d better do something about this now.”
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