Rep. Steve Israel (D-Dix Hills) on Wednesday called on the Federal Aviation Administration to abide by a 14-year-old agreement to seek alternative overnight aircraft routes to John F. Kennedy International Airport that avoid flying over Nassau County and Queens and minimize airplane noise.
Israel joined several other elected officials at the East Hills Village Theater in Roslyn on Wednesday to announce a letter to FAA Administrator Michael P. Huerta requesting the administration adhere to the Sept. 1, 2000 agreement entitled “New York TRACON/Kennedy Tower Letter of Agreement,” in which he said the FAA prohibited the use of runways 22L and 22R for arrivals during overnight hours unless in circumstances of extreme weather.
“I’m not asking the FAA to design a lunar landing moduole, I’m trying to get them just to enforce their own commitments to this community,” Israel said.
Israel suggested the FAA develop an alternative landing route in which planes would cross over the Atlantic Ocean directly into JFK and avoid descending over residential areas.
Officials said numerous complaints and petitions have been filed calling on the FAA to change flight routes into JFK, but to no avail.
“I’ve had it, this community has had it and my colleagues in government have had it with the FAA’s indifference to the quality of life here,” Israel said.
East Hills Mayor Michael Koblenz, who was joined by the village’s board of trustees, other village mayors and North Hempstead and state officials, said East Hills representatives attended public meetings with the FAA last summer to complain about the aircraft noise, but no changes to flight routes were implemented.
Koblenz said he hopes Israel’s letter would “help us move forward” in alleviating overnight airplane noise.
“We’re not saying you can’t fly, we said distribute the planes evenly and don’t come so low that everybody here is afraid they might land on our ball fields,” Koblenz said.
Jana Goldenberg, an East Hills resident and member of the village’s noise abatement committee, said planes fly over her home every 60-90 seconds, and that “my house is rattled with the vibrations and sounds of jumbo jets on their approach to JFK.”
Israel’s letter comes months after Gov. Andrew Cuomo in March announced a directive to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in cooperation with the FAA, to pursue a noise study of runways 22L and 22R and hold public meetings with communities on Long Island and in Queens to curtail overnight aircraft noise.
State Assemblyman Ed Ra (R-Franklin Square) last year co-sponsored a bill last year with state Assemblywoman Michele Titus (D-Queens) to direct the Port Authority to conduct a study on aircraft noise. It was approved in the state Assembly and Senate before Cuomo vetoed it on the grounds he did not want the study slowed by a lengthy legislative process.
Ra called aircraft noise a “quality of life issue for our residents” and said assistance in alleviating the issue is needed from all levels of government in contacting the FAA.
“It takes a partnership at the federal level to deal with this agency, certainly, and we thank Congressman Israel for his help,” Ra said, “We’re going to keep in partnership in a bipartisan, all levels of government fashion to keep pushing forward and do what we can to bring relief to our communities.”
Israel added that he is prepared to use “all the tools in my toolbox” as a congressman if the FAA ignores his letter.
