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 Stage 4 Aircraft Update

Friends:

We're faced with two critical dates regarding airport issues and could use your help! If you write one letter, you can email to several persons and it would be an enormous help. First, comments to a supplemental EIR regarding airport noise studies are due next week. Airport did not study what we would experience without a curfew (a real possibility) and they should have. These same consultants and planners underestimated the noise we experience by 86% just 5 years ago! Plans for the Automated People Mover include people finding parking in the Rosemary Gardens Neighborhood. It's expensive and poorly planned - not at all like the direct rail link to the airport that we envisioned with the Airport Traffic Relief Act.

Second, the mayor surprised us all this week when he announced his plan to call a special election in an attempt to dismantle the Airport Traffic Relief Act and go full speed ahead on airport expansion. We don't even know all the details of what he's planning but any expansion before we know if we're going to have a valid curfew is irresponsible. The mayor and council need to hear from you right now. The neighborhoods have been totally forgotten in the plans to grow at any cost. Odd isn't it...they can find $1 million+ to hold a special election but they can't afford to noise insulate the neighborhood most impacted by airport noise...

I've prepared a summary of the high points on both issues and addresses of where to direct your comments. It is crucial that comments be made on both of these issues within the next week. It would also be very helpful to attend the council meeting on November 26 if at all possible.

If you need help or have questions, let me know!

Lenora Porcella

STEERING COMMITTEE:

  Dr. Kenneth Hayes, M.D.
  Co-Chair
  Physician

  Dr. Walter Bowman, M.D.
  Co-Chair
  Physician

  Robert Harmssen, 
  Co-Vice Chair
  Attorney at Law

  Lenora Porcella, 
  Co-Vice Chair
  Travel Agent

  Lilian Dennis,
  Secretary
  Small Business Owner

  Sharen Dains,
  Treasurer
  Freelance Court Reporter

  Lyle Johnson,
  Santa Clara Advisor
  Attorney at Law
 

TASKFORCE:

  Lenora Porcella,
  Newsletter Editor
  Travel Agent

   Sandy Bauer,
  Webmistress 

Two Critical Airport Dates

Your letters on these issues are urgently needed!

1. Comments to the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report for the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport Master Plan Update
   (File No. PP02-08-226) (SCH #1995073066)

2. Comments regarding Mayor's proposed ballot measure dismantling the Airport Traffic Relief Act

Comments to the Draft Supplemental EIR are due November 22:
Comments to the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report for the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport Master Plan Update
(File No. PP02-08-226) (SCH #1995073066)

Janis Moore
Co/ San Jose City Hall
801 North First Street, Room 400
Department of Planning, Building, & Code Enforcement
San Jose, CA 95110
277-4576

Tentative Date for Public Hearing is January 22, 2003

The draft EIR covers the previously inadequate noise studies from the 1997 Master Plan Update and the promised Automated People Mover

Please write requesting/suggesting:

Noise: Evaluate with and without curfew in place (this was not done). No single event noise levels were done.  No description of low pitched noise (outside dBA range) and vibration effects.  No recognition that above 55 CNEL health effects do occur (studying, teaching, sleeping).  Long delay in sound-proofing Rosemary Gardens. Unreliability of sound consultants Brown-Buntin work (underestimated acres within 65 CNEL by 86% in the 1997 Master Plan). Need to reserve judgment on noise estimates until FAA decides how our noise control program will work.  Disturbance to neighbors and animals and fish with pile driving, tree removal (to substitute potted plants), plus stream disturbance and dust.

Automated People Mover (APM): unrealistic ($100 million) to transport 2500 people daily (prediction for 48,000 people per day to airport in 2010).  Light rail a better option. No estimates for needed parking and transfers if ridership increases to 5000 or 10000 daily.  Unrealistic expectation for families with bags and children to park in the surrounding neighborhood and walk to APM.  No description of impact at intersections if passenger loads double or triple.  No provisions for buffering the neighborhood (Rosemary Gardens) from noise.

Mayor's Proposed Ballot Measure

We need the mayor and council to see the public outrage about his end-run around ATRA and the neighborhoods and we need it this week! Please write your letter to Cindy Chavez, Ken Yeager, and the San Jose Mercury - send to:

letters@sjmercury.com
Cindy.Chavez@ci.sj.ca.us
ken.yeager@ci.sj.ca.us
mayoremail@ci.sj.ca.us
http://www.ci.san-jose.ca.us/council.html (council email addresses)

New Ballot Measure to Council Vote on Tuesday, November 26, 2003 (afternoon session)

The Mayor's press release does not say what the new ballot measure will actually contain -- only his description suggesting that roadway improvements be extended to within 3 years of completion and *other things*.  It comes abruptly to both Council and citizens with no input from anyone except the Chamber of Commerce and the airlines -- there is no consensus from Airport Traffic Relief Alliance (ATRA), airlines, airport staff and "key stakeholders".  It is a betrayal of an agreement with ATRA, who junked their Measure O to support the mayor's compromise ordinance which constrains gates to 31 and no terminal building until traffic and Automated People Mover (APM) is within 2 years of completion.  The decision on the ballot measure changing traffic improvements from 2 to 3 years up to Council. The APM will be built sometime (funding availability is in question).  There is no evidence that a centralized baggage screening will be more effective than separate (in each terminal) screening.  Number of units has been cut by Boeing from 10 and 11 to 4 and 5.  The public has had no opportunity for input and deserves to be part of the process. The mayor and council should take public input prior to making the decision to alter a popular ballot measure. The rush to do this in less than two weeks will not serve the public well.

The city finds themselves strapped by ATRA restrictions for roadway improvements at a time when they want to move forward. They find it more convenient to build their expansion NOW, rather than to implement required security measures now, and then to have to redo them for new airport design a few years from now. The loser will be the public (airport users) and the neighborhoods who have no voice in the backdoor dealings that are going on at this very moment.

Any new ballot measure should be a compromise and would need to include the following:

The city should require an enforceable noise-based night-time curfew prior to further airport expansion. At the present time, our curfew is being reviewed by the FAA with an eye towards modifying it. We should know to what extent, changes will be made, prior to ANY expansion.

Any new ballot measure should include a Hush House to protect against night-time engine runups

No expansion of air cargo should be before roadway improvements are complete

Noise insulation for Rosemary Gardens and Guadalupe/Washington should be completed prior to construction of new terminals/concourses

Installation of an air quality monitor at the airport that includes measurement for carcinogens. We deserve to know what the price of expansion will be to our health.

Forget the APM - save $100 million! It's poorly planned and expensive serving few while impacting a neighborhood. The airport should do better and go back to the original ATRA plan and agree to a direct light rail or BART link from North First Street or Cahill Station.

Airport Noise Report Line - (408) 452-0707

The city of San Jose has a new Info line that is a 24/7 fax. The number is 408-277-8500 with four digit codes for the following:

• 1103 - Airport Acoustical Treatment Program
• 1106 - Airport Noise Monitoring Center
• 1109 - General Information

South Bay residents are encouraged to report intrusive aircraft overflight noise on San Francisco Airport's toll free citizen complaint number. Callers with a complaint should state the time, date, duration.

The toll free number is 1 (877) 206-8290

Do you Smell Noxious Aircraft Fumes?

Do the Fumes make you close your windows or run into your House?

Do you keep your kids from playing outside or stop working in your Yard  when the fumes are thick?  Are you or your children having any problems with Asthma?

Has Bay Area Air Quality Management (1-800-334-6367) told you that they have no "jurisdiction" over Air Craft Fumes? Have you been told by the Airport staff that these fumes are not Airport related; or that the Airport never receives any fume complaints?

We now have a  "Fumes" Complaint Line!

As a result of resident concerns, Jerry Hetnar, Environmental Department, of the San Jose Airport is logging dates, times, and addresses of people who are smelling Aircraft fumes.  His phone number is 408-501-7706.  You can even leave a message after working hours with your fumes complaint
date and time.

Don't hesitate to call and log your fume concern!  It is only by speaking up and raising our voices that we will get heard!  Many people calling will lead to some kind of investigation of those pungent fumes and perhaps something to monitor our most precious resource --- OUR AIR!!

Live Radar Flight Tracksallows you to watch the movement of flights and air traffic patterns currently in use within the Bay Area. This map will show flight tracks of aircraft arriving and departing from SFO, Oakland, and San Jose Airport and other nearby general aviation airports. Red plane icons are arrivals, green are departures, black are General Aviation or small propeller aircraft and helicopters. The white icons are aircraft   transiting the area and bypassing local airports. The icon sizes are uniform regardless of the actual size of the aircraft. 

Map showing the cummulative effect of 17 of Santa Clara County's leading 'High Tech' Hazardous Air Pollutants identified by SVTC that are contained in the CEP database and have an EPA Benchmark for cancer. The risk for cancer is much higher than the Clean Air Act goal of 1 in 1 million individualsanywhere in Santa Clara County. The cancer risk ranges from 18 to 876 additional cancer cases - a high of over 800 additional cancer cases per million individuals - resulting from exposure to the subset of High Tech chemicals that SVTC has identified.