Fighting the flights

Jenny Marder

Attempts by Long Beach Airport officials to placate angry Surf City

residents backfired last week and spurred hundreds to band together

to fight airport activity and expansion.

Nearly 300 people overflowed a library meeting room on Thursday,

pouring into aisles, leaning against walls and crowding every open

doorway. Airport officials proposed no changes to reduce the air

traffic and noise that has residents upset. As a result, about 100

residents put their names on a list that resident and community

activist Rex Ricks hopes to use to start an organized effort to fight

the airport.

“It’s one thing if people are going to talk, but words are

worthless without action,” Ricks said.

The biggest complaint was of noise pollution from planes that

residents said are lower and louder since the August 2001 arrival of

JetBlue Airways, which grabbed all available slots for commercial

aircraft, causing the number of daily flights to soar nearly 300%.

By December, 41 planes will be flying over Huntington daily en

route to the Long Beach Airport. Of these, three are cargo aircraft;

two are UPS, two Fed-Ex and one Airborne Express. The rest are

commercial flights.

Airport officials acknowledged an increase, but insisted that

planes were flying at or above the required altitude.

“I am not aware of altitudes going into Long Beach Airport being

different than they are now,” Chuck Hicks, an official with the

Federal Aviation Administration, said at the meeting.

That statement drew angry screams from the crowd.

Long Beach Airport spokeswoman Sharon Diggs Jackson said that

people are mistaking altitude and noise for increased activity.

“A lot of what they’re noticing can be attributed to the fact that

we’ve increased the amount of flights,” Diggs-Jackson said. “They

have to give more credence to the fact that we went from 14 to 43

[flights a day] two years ago, so the reality is they are seeing

planes flying patterns and flying over homes that they didn’t see

before. It’s not that flight paths didn’t exist before, it’s just

that we didn’t have the activity.”

Ricks agreed that the major problem is increased activity, and

that people are simply more aware of the planes now that the number

of flights is so great.

“For two years, I’ve seen [the airport] grow, grow, grow,” Ricks

said. “These slots were available for a long time and airlines

finally showed up and gobbled them up. Because it’s up to full steam

now, it makes every flight more noticeable.”

Residents, however, are still seeking solutions. Many asked if

planes flying over Huntington could approach Long Beach from a higher

altitude, but officials said options were limited because of busy air

traffic.

“The vast majority of airspace overlies densely populated areas,”

Long Beach Airport Manager Kris Kunze pointed out.

Planes are required to fly along prescribed routes to ensure they

are maintaining safe distances from one another, making it difficult

for pilots to alter the altitude levels, Hicks added.

Another resident suggestion was redirecting flights over

less-populated areas such as the Naval Weapons Station in Seal Beach.

“The problem with the Naval Weapons Station is that we find it

difficult to bring airplanes in that close to Long Beach,” said

JetBlue Airways Capt. Charles Andrews.

At the meeting was Rae Gabelich, president of a Long Beach

resident’s group that hopes to curb expansion and identify possible

health risks brought on by airport activity.

The group, HUSH 2, hopes to add Surf City residents to its roster,

Gabelich said.

“I say that the way we can control any further growth is to band

together and support one effort,” she said.

HUSH 2 is also fighting to take decisions related to large

projects -- such as the airport, the Long Beach port and the Boeing

plant -- away from the legislators and place them in the hands of

citizens, by putting them on the ballot.

“You can only be a thorn in their side or you can take the power

away from them, but it takes the interest and energy of a lot of

people,” Gabelich said.

Ricks is creating a Web site and e-mail list to bring the people

of Huntington Beach up to speed on airport issues. His plans include

working with the Long Beach group.

“[Gabelich] can rally people up in Long Beach, and I’m going to

try to rally people up in Orange County, and we’ll work together,”

Ricks said. “Now that the sleeping giant has been awakened, it needs

to stay awake and take action.”