Thursday, January 4, 1996 · Page A18
Editor -- I am concerned about the ``teardrop'' flight approach to SFOcurrently being tested over Montara Mountain. The Airport Roundtable proposedit to eliminate noise problems experienced by Woodside and Atherton fromfour flights a day flying at 4,000 to 6,000 feet, occurring between thehours of 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. It is suggested that bringing these planes overPacifica at 11,000 feet will have no adverse impact.
I strongly disagree. If some pilots failed to adhere to established ``poweringdown'' procedures in the past, how can we expect future compliance? Besides,Pacifica has a bowl-like topography that significantly amplifies any noise.Flight delays will invariably bring some flights over our neighborhoodsoutside the scheduled ``flight window.'' And, the ongoing major expansionof SFO capacity could very well worsen the problem over time, so why opena proverbial ``Pandora's box''?
I find it interesting that in their first months of Airport Roundtablemembership, the affluent communities of Woodside and Atherton are on theverge of successfully shifting their problems onto us, a longtime Airport Roundtable member. This isn't a case of NIMBY syndrome. It's a matter of fairness. Arbitrary degradation of one community's quiet, even by one decibel, for the benefit of another community, is unacceptable on principle alone.
Pacifica already shoulders its fair burden of SFO activities as evidencedby the mandatory ``plane noise footprint'' disclosure affecting property transactions in a number of our neighborhoods. Clearly, Pacifica will deriveno benefit from this proposed flight path. What solitude and quality oflife we do presently enjoy is only being compromised.
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