Representatives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey presented plans to revamp a heavily used landing strip at JFK Airport for safety improvements at a meeting in Floral Park on Monday night.
Brian Simon, director of government relations for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told residents and public officials at the Town Village Aircraft Safety and Noise Abatement Committee meeting that a project set to start at JFK next spring would widen and lengthen adjacent runways 4L and 22R at JFK.
“As a result, planes will not fly lower to the runway, but will fly slightly higher,” Simon said, thereby somewhat reducing noise levels.
Simon said the runways would be widened from 150 feet to 200 feet as asphalt surfaces would be replaced with longer lasting concrete. He also said the runways would be lengthened by 728 feet to prevent planes from overshooting a landing.
He said the project will shut down the JFK runways from the spring of 2014 until the fall of 2015.
Simon said the Port Authority would be still seeking comments on the project until Nov. 18 and asked residents with input to e-mail them to JFKRWYEA@panynjgov.
Both residents and public officials pressed Port Authority representatives on the amount of air traffic over Floral Park and surrounding communities.
Floral Park Trustee Tomecki, a member of the aircraft noise committee, said according to the Environmental & Noise Programs Unit of the Port Authority’s Aviation Department there were 4,762 flights going over Floral Park in July 2012 to land on runways 22R and 22L, rising to 7,600 aircraft in that same landing pattern in July 2013.
Port Authority officials have acknowledged that use of JFK runways 22R and 22L have increased as landing strips in recent years.
Aircraft noise committee members have said those flight paths take the plane over the Willistons, Mineola, Garden City, New Hyde Park, Stewart Manor and Floral Park on their way to landing at JFK.
“We work with the FAA to make as equitable a distribution as we can on runways,” said Edward Knoesel, manager of environmental services in the Port Authority aviation department.
Floral Park resident Georgine Hartenfels said she had counted eight planes go over her house in a five-minute period just before leaving for the meeting.
“For the majority of us here, we’re just getting sick of all the planes and all the noise. My whole house vibrates every time a plane comes over,” she said. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. When are you going to stop the noise?”
Several other members of the audience of nearly 200 people filling the Floral Park Recreation Center also commented on the noise issue.
Simon said it’s a “constant struggle” to cushion communities around the airports from noise.
Knoesel said planes should be flying over Floral Park at 2,000 feet – drawing negative comments from the audience.
“If they’re flying too low, the FAA would have to take that up with the individual pilot,” Knoesel said. “The FAA can’t control the height of individual aircraft.”
In response to a question, Kurt Langjahr, New Hyde Park representative on the noise committee said runway 22L would obviously see heavy use while 22R was out of service.
Langjahr said the did not believe the Port Authority officials in attendance could address the residents’ concerns,
“The FAA should be here. The helicopter group should be here. And [Sen. Charles] Schumer and [Rep. Carolyn] McCarthy should be here,” he said. “We’re just talking to ourselves.”
Stewart Manor noise committee representative Cristina O’Keeffe, asked why the Port Authority doesn’t conduct a noise study without a state mandate.
At the outset of the meeting, state Assemblyman Ed Ra (R-Franklin Square), who was among a number of Long Island and Queens representatives to co-sponsor a bill in the state Assembly requiring the Port Authority to study noise levels surrounding the airport that is now on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s desk, said he was hopeful Cuomo would sign the bill.
Ra said members of the New Jersey Legislature he had contacted are “optimistic” about passing a similar measure needed to oblige the Port Authority to do the study.
The bill would require the Port Authority to conduct a noise and land-use compatibility study according to federal regulations.
State Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola), who co-sponsored a similar bill with state Sen. Kemp Hannon (R-Garden City) in the state Senate, said aircraft noise on Long Island is now “beyond a nuisance” and said every airport in the country has done the noise study – known as a Part 150.
“But here we sit in the one of the most populous areas in the world in New York and we haven’t done a Part 150,” he said. “Let’s do the study. And then we can figure out how to minimize the noise in our communities.”
