Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 14:39:50 +1100
From: Janette Barros <jbarros@loom.com.au>
To: webmaster@caap.org
Subject: Message of Support from Sydney, Australia

Hi,

I have just discovered your page. I have a great deal of empathy with you and all citizens who are currently impacted or at risk of being impacted by your airport.

We are experiencing very similar problems here in Sydney. Sydney airport (curfew 11pm-6am, with shoulder periods 11-12midnight and 5-6am) is currently moving about 22 million pax per year (280,000 aircraft movements and it is growing about 8-9% this year. The FAC have been consistenly predicting aircraft movement growth rates of 2.5% per year even though the real growth rates over the past ten years has averaged at least twice that. The Dept of Transport (DoT) now predicts 4.5% and the FAC has said they will now follow the DoT. It isn't good enough.

In November 1994, the airport commenced parallel operations on the commissioning of the third runway (Runway 16L/34R). It was a major urban environmental disaster, which very few residents expected it would be given the many reassurances they were given that it would halve the impact. The flight frequency almost quadrupled overnight, in concentrated form. The government and aviation bureaucracy (and a number of academics) lied about the predicted impact, and lied big.

Currently, we are going through a government ordered re-organisation of flight paths to "share the noise" as if this will "fix" the noise problem for the long term. It won't! The next change of government will change it back to parallels again. The flight paths tend to be organised for maximum electorate benefit. People can't plan anymore where to live. About 2 million people are affected in some way by aircraft noise by this plan. And that is without the planned second airport. Residents are calling for a full replacement airport outside the basin, not a twin-hub option.

The plan is to expand Sydney airport and to build a "second", split-hub airport nearby, with a capacity of 360,000 movements per year (30 million pax/year).

Apart from the understated forecasts, we have been hit with EIS's which are not worth the paper they are written on, deal-making with big business mates instead of proper planning, neglect of duty of care to the public, contempt for public consultation, underestimations of impacts, etc. We have even been subjected to government-commissioned PR campaigns to pull the wool over the public's eyes about the true impact of the latest expansion of Sydney airport (they can't pull the wool over our ears however!). Economic rationalism seems to be driving it all along. It's so easy for political and corporate corruption to flourish within the protection and cover provided by this particular economic ideology.

I will be launching my own home page here soon, meanwhile there are already some set up across this city. We, the community, have linked up across the city to try to stop the latest scam, a proposed twin-hub airport system.

There are two proposed "second airport" sites under EIS at the moment. Both proposed sites are within the city, and both are adjacent to the fastest growing urban-planned areas in the Sydney basin region. Sydney is located in a classic geographical river basin. It is a stable air basin, and the already critical air pollution gets flushed out only during fairly strong winds.

There are a number of potential (and much better) sites outside the Sydney basin. There is a proposed high speed train (TGV, MagLev, plus 3 tilt-trains are bidding for it) to link Sydney with the capital city, Canberra, which is located to the SW of Sydney. Two of the possible new airport sites are located along the route of the high speed train, one is 40 minutes by the TGV, the other about 55 minutes, from the Sydney city centre.

At least one state-government-commissioned report -- which is understood to have recommened strongly against current air/road transport infrastructure development proposals -- has been deliberately locked away from public access.

What the government and proponents are doing is planning major new tollways to service these two major within-the-city airports, and fiddling the forecasts to "justify" what they are doing, financially and otherwise (surprise, surprise).

When you hear Sydney being touted as the "Green Olympic Games" site for the 2000 Olympic Games, you'll know better!

All the best of luck,
Janette Barros
Chair, Leichhardt Airport Working Group and Network Manager for
Coalition of Airport Working Groups, Sydney