SOS | SAVE OUR SKIES ALLIANCE
  • Background
    • FAQs
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  • Affected Areas
    • Arapahoe County >
      • City of Aurora
      • City of Centennial
      • City of Cherry Hills Village
      • City of Englewood
      • City of Glendale
      • City of Greenwood Village
      • City of Littleton
      • City of Sheridan
    • City and County of Broomfield
    • Boulder County >
      • City of Boulder
      • City of Erie
      • City of Gunbarrel
      • City of Lafayette
      • City of Longmont
      • City of Louisville
      • Town of Superior
      • Unincorporated Boulder County
    • Jefferson County >
      • City of Arvada
      • City of Edgewater
      • City of Golden
      • City of Lakewood
      • City of Westminster
      • City of Wheat Ridge
  • Front Range Airports
    • Boulder Municipal Airport | BDU
    • Centennial Airport | APA
    • Colorado Springs Municipal Airport | COS
    • Denver International Airport | DIA
    • Erie Municipal Airport | EIK
    • Front Range Airport | CFO
    • Greely-Weld County Airport | GXY
    • Meadow Lake Airport | FLY
    • Northern Colorado Regional Airport | FNL
    • Parkland Estates Airpark
    • Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport | BJC
    • Van Aire Skyport |
    • Vance Brand Municipal Airport | LMO
  • Issues
    • Plane Crashes
    • Lead Exposure
    • Health Impacts
    • Noise Pollution
    • Economic Impact
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    • Security Issues
    • Proposed Solutions
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Noise Pollution

Noise pollution is a very real health issue to our communities. Not just the humans in them, but the other animals and wildlife that call these places home.
Per the Colorado Department of Transportation:
Noise is considered unwanted sound that can disturb routine activities (e.g., sleep, conversation, student learning) and can cause annoyance.

Aviation Noise

The Colorado Department of Transportation has published guidelines on noise and compatible land use planning. These guidelines state that "Aviation noise primarily results from the operation of fixed and rotary wing aircraft, such as departures, arrivals, overflights, taxiing, and engine run-ups. Noise is often the predominant aviation environmental concern of the public. Aircraft noise in communities around airports historically generated most of the noise issues. There are increasing concerns in suburban and rural areas farther from airports where ambient noise is lower than it is in the more urbanized areas that tend to surround many commercial service airports...The compatibility of existing and planned land uses with proposed aviation actions is usually determined in relation to the level of aircraft noise. "
Recently, a federal judge in Colorado issued a finding that using noise modeling was not a sufficient substitute for noise monitoring, and that the noise modeling greatly underestimated the actual noise impact on communities surrounding the airport. As proof, the Department of Transportation publishes a national transportation noise map, in which you can see the noise impacts associated with highways, train lines, and airports. As you can see, aviation has a significant impact on the noise pollution for areas surrounding airport operations (and not just in the immediate half-mile vicinity).

FAA Noise Research Program Neighborhood Environmental Survey On Aircraft Noise

Executive Summary"The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has undertaken a multi-year research effort to quantify the impacts of aircraft noise exposure on communities around commercial service airports in the United States (US). Community annoyance is the impact of interest covered by this report. Researchers typically determine an individual’s annoyance to noise through sociological surveys that measure subjective reactions to cumulative noise exposure."

"Research published in the two decades since the release of the FICON report suggests the FICON curve might under-estimate annoyance due to aircraft noise exposure. More recent dose-response curves from data collected outside the US have shown increased levels of annoyance at a given noise exposure level; further, the FICON curve included multiple modes of transportation, not just aircraft."
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“The result of this effort is an update to the scientific evidence on the relationship between aircraft noise exposure and the annoyance of individuals living in airport communities.”
“Noise is not always just about decibels; the pitch, vibration, variation in intensity and the length of exposure time can have impacts too.”
“The level of annoyance also varies owing to factors such as the length of time a person lives in an area affected by aircraft noise, personal sensitivity, the impact of outside influences and the activity the individual is engaged in at the time e.g. sleeping, working, watching TV.”
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It's Not Just Aircraft - Drones are Coming Soon

There has been talk at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, among others, about bringing a drone port to the airport to support drone operations for package deliveries and the like. This would mean a substantial impact to the noise levels in the communities surrounded by and delivered to from the airport. 
By amending 14 C.F.R. Part 107 to allow previously prohibited operation over unrelated populations and moving vehicles, both during the day and at night, FAA may have opened the flood gates to UA without adequate consideration of their impacts on underlying populations.
Incessant mechanical buzzing doesn’t fit with anyone’s idea of a pleasant community. That’s what drones will bring, though. Even domestic drones can raise baseline sound pressure levels by at least 20 decibels; when each 6dB increase means loudness doubles, that means a single drone can make an area 8 to 12 times louder than it is now.
     -
Garth Paine, Associate Professor of Digital Sound and Interactive Media, Arizona State University     

The Economic Costs of Noise Pollution

There is another economic issue, and that is of the price that the community pays for airports. In the case of Rocky Mountain Metro Airport, this cost alone exceeds the rosy $700M annual “economic impact” that CDOT claims this facility brings to the region. That is the additional cost of health care paid by the community because of the microparticulate poisons of lead and other pollutants, adding to the ozone crisis, and, most negative of all, the damage to human health brought by noise. There is a wealth of data on this topic assembled over many decades.

Noticed or not, noise is much more than an annoyance. Research clearly shows that our nervous systems cannot simply “tune out” the noise. That means that the harm to our health takes place while we sleep or are distracted by other activities. Health care costs associated with this harm are equal to or greater than the costs for lead exposure to children.

In the instance of Rocky Mountain Metro Airport, the research and accompanying information has been used to determine the annual cost of health care to communities impacted by aviation noise and lead on a per person basis. These numbers are very conservative (because much
of this data used health care costs that are more than a decade old and none of it includes the compounding effects of the microfine air pollutants caused by aviation traffic). An estimate of these costs is as follows:
  • Overall costs were about $1400 per person per year;
  • Annual cost for lead exposure was $633 per person for those under 18;
  • Annual cost for increased cases of dementia for those over 65 was $1,689 per person.

Maps for the flight paths for flights originating from or landing at RMMA clearly indicate that it affects at least 500,000 people. That means that the health care cost of this airport is $736M, far in excess of its supposed economic impact. And this is only part of the cost equation for us. It does not consider the victimization of new
residents as new homes are built in these areas or as existing homes are sold (by owners seeking to escape the noise) and others move in. More importantly, it does not include the loss of property value, nor the subsidy costs of FAA grants. Please see the spreadsheet below for a more detailed breakdown.

Further Reading

Aircraft Noise is a Public Health Problem, Not Just an Annoyance
Traffic noise slows children’s memory development, study finds: Pupils’ vital attention skills stunted by ‘toxic’ peaks of road noise heard from the classroom
Aircraft noise and incidence of hypertension.
FAA Continuous Lower Energy, Emissions, and Noise (CLEEN) Program
Drones to deliver incessant buzzing noise, and packages
Neighborhood Environmental Survey and Noise Research Portfolio Webinar | February 22, 2021
FAA Aviation Noise
FAA Fundamentals of Noise and Sound
DOT National Transportation Noise Map
With Sensors on Streets, France Takes Aim at ‘Noise From Hell’ | The French authorities are installing “sound radars” in some cities to detect and photograph vehicles making excessive noise, which they say is a public health hazard.
Residents win $1.5M lawsuit against the city for noise coming from planes
Government Accountability Office | Aircraft Noise: FAA Should Improve Efforts to Address Community Concerns
FAA Neighborhood Environmental Survey
FAA Analysis of the Neighborhood Environmental Survey
FAA Loosens Restrictions on Drone Flights Over People, Automobiles, and at Night
Aircraft Noise Regulation in the European Union: The Hushkit Problem
Brought to you by concerned citizens from all across the Front Range and beyond.
  • Background
    • FAQs
    • News + Updates
  • Affected Areas
    • Arapahoe County >
      • City of Aurora
      • City of Centennial
      • City of Cherry Hills Village
      • City of Englewood
      • City of Glendale
      • City of Greenwood Village
      • City of Littleton
      • City of Sheridan
    • City and County of Broomfield
    • Boulder County >
      • City of Boulder
      • City of Erie
      • City of Gunbarrel
      • City of Lafayette
      • City of Longmont
      • City of Louisville
      • Town of Superior
      • Unincorporated Boulder County
    • Jefferson County >
      • City of Arvada
      • City of Edgewater
      • City of Golden
      • City of Lakewood
      • City of Westminster
      • City of Wheat Ridge
  • Front Range Airports
    • Boulder Municipal Airport | BDU
    • Centennial Airport | APA
    • Colorado Springs Municipal Airport | COS
    • Denver International Airport | DIA
    • Erie Municipal Airport | EIK
    • Front Range Airport | CFO
    • Greely-Weld County Airport | GXY
    • Meadow Lake Airport | FLY
    • Northern Colorado Regional Airport | FNL
    • Parkland Estates Airpark
    • Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport | BJC
    • Van Aire Skyport |
    • Vance Brand Municipal Airport | LMO
  • Issues
    • Plane Crashes
    • Lead Exposure
    • Health Impacts
    • Noise Pollution
    • Economic Impact
    • Environmental Impact
    • Security Issues
    • Proposed Solutions
  • Press
    • Plane Crashes
    • Media Coverage
    • aviation perspectives >
      • NBAA Guidance
      • Unleaded Fuels
      • 1500 Hour Rule
      • Aviation Safety
      • Pilot Shortage
      • Federal Oversight
      • Fly Neighborly
  • Contact
    • Get Involved