Long-awaited sound maps released last Tuesday contained bad news for Winooski: Half the city now lies within the expanded area that will experience high noise levels from the F-35 jets to be based at Burlington International Airport starting in September.
The following day, four Utah-based F-35s coincidentally made an unscheduled stop at BTV, and city residents got a preview of what’s to come. Shortly after 8 a.m. on Friday, the military fighter planes left — the first time the next-gen jets have roared off from the airport.
Community reaction was as swift as the planes.
“I was pretty astounded by the sound level at my house,” said Carl Severance, who lives on Thornton Street, just outside the high-noise zone — defined as the area that will be subjected to sound in excess of 65 decibels.
On nearby West Canal Street, inside the zone, retiree Marguerite Adelman found the jets to be much louder than the F-16s that they are replacing at the Vermont Air National Guard.
“Let’s just say I’m partially deaf, and I’ve been partially deaf from birth,” she said, “and I wasn’t wearing hearing aids. And for me, they were deafening.”
Matthew Ennis was waking up in his apartment at Hood and Lafountain streets when the jets took off, and he covered his ears. “I don’t know if I can hack staying in Winooski,” said Ennis, who has protested the F-35 basing.
Eli Harrington, who lives on Main Street, grew up listening to the F-16s. This was different, he said: “My first reaction was like, Wow, I get what all the push-back was about.”
The sentiment was not confined to Winooski. Joanna Rankin, a University of Vermont physics and astronomy professor, was awakened by the F-35s at her Burlington Co-housing residence off East Avenue. “They were just appalling,” Rankin said.
And in South Burlington, a block from the airport, “It was like a thundering,” said Logwood Street resident Stefani Us.
Hundreds of people attended two open houses last week about the new map, at the airport and at Winooski’s O’Brien Community Center. The forecasts show that the number of dwelling units affected by high noise will nearly triple, to 2,640, by 2023. The number of people in the zone will rise to about 6,125. More than half of those — 3,113 — live in densely populated Winooski, which is one square mile in size and directly in the flight path. The new maps added chunks of the city, including the Catholic St. Francis Xavier School, to the high-noise area.
In South Burlington, an estimated 1,909 people will be in that zone.
Protesters at the open houses distributed fliers with illustrations showing a little girl plugging her ears and grimacing, a frightened infant wearing ear protectors and a dejected homeowner next to a real estate sign that said “still for sale.”
“If property values drop even 10 percent or, God forbid, 20 percent, that’s a big deal,” said Winooski homeowner Severance, who also owns a rental property in the city.
At the airport, a throng of opponents crowded around a table questioning three Vermont Air National Guard representatives: Col. David Smith, commander of the 158th Fighter Wing; Col. David Shevchik, commander of the 158th Operations Group; and Lt. Chelsea Clark, public affairs officer. They defended the F-35 basing as critics peppered them with questions about the noise impact on children at nearby schools.
In addition to St. Francis Xavier, the public elementary Chamberlin School in South Burlington is in the high-noise zone.
Critics at the airport also alleged the planes make Burlington a target. F-35s can be equipped to carry nuclear bombs, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Vermont Guard officials have said repeatedly that the planes coming to Burlington will not be “nuclear capable,” and officers at the open house reiterated that. Still, critics said such assurances were not comforting as the planes could be altered at any time, and such a move would likely be classified.
Defenders of the F-35 weighed in, too. Some suggested the new plane might not be dramatically louder than previous military aircraft that used the airport. At one point a man at the back of the throng shouted to the Air Guard officers: “I’m sorry you have to receive all this crap. Keep up the good work!”
The maps were drawn so BTV officials can tap an estimated $100 million in Federal Aviation Administration sound-mitigation grants for properties in the 65-decibel-or-higher zones. The airport plans to apply for grants to cover new sound-insulating doors and windows; to reimburse homeowners who lose money on a sale due to noise; and to allow the airport to purchase, soundproof and resell houses.
Distributing the funds could take 20 years, according to BTV director of aviation Gene Richards.
“I’m 70 years old,” said Us. “By the time they get around to it, I’ll be dead.”
The officials who tried to reassure residents didn’t offer much comfort, said Harold Skorstad, who lives close to the airport but just outside the high-noise zone.
“It’s all lip service, to be honest with you,” said Skorstad, who is “absolutely” convinced he will endure more noise from the F-35s, even though he’s not within the redlines to qualify for a grant.
Organized jet opponents are focusing their efforts on Vermont’s congressional delegation, which supported bringing the F-35s to the state. Protesters have vowed to continue their campaign with regular weekly protests at the office of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). They’re targeting Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) with letters, emails and phone calls.
Similarly, Winooski City Councilor Mike Myers is getting heat from unhappy constituents, but he has not changed his opinion about the jets.
“I’m for the F-35s. I think they pump a lot of money into the economy,” Myers said, as he looked at the maps along with other city residents. He supports the guard’s mission and said being inconvenienced by “five minutes” of noise a day is “well worth it.”
Not for Hillary Gombar, a Winooski mother of two who says she got an “instant headache” after the F-35s flew over her city, which hosts a disproportionate number of low-income people and refugee families from Africa, East Asia and other parts of the world.
“This is environmental racism,” Gombar charged. “The government allowed this to happen, saying, we don’t actually care about poor people, people of color.”
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This article appears in Jun 5-11, 2019.
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https://vimeo.com/311077348
Here is video documentary/investigation from someone in Denmark. F35’s going to Skrydstrup Air Base. They went to Hill Air Force Base in Utah as part of investigation. Recorded 118 decibels in residential neighborhood in Utah, with F35 flying overhead. Multiple readings of 115, 116, 117 decibels. As loud or louder than live rock concert. Most is in Danish & would be great to get translated, to add English subtitles. Some is in English, when they interview Americans in Utah.
A representative for Hill Air Force Base states: “It is louder. I mean, there’s no denying. The aircraft is louder because it’s a different type of aircraft. But, again, a lot of it is perception.”
“I look at it like playing a piano. An F-16 is more like playing the top keys. It’s a shorter, higher pitched sound. Versus with the F-35 it’s a lower, I say more ‘grumbly’ type sound. So it reverberates longer. You feel it a little different. So how you hear it, it does come off as that louder perception too.”
She seems to get defensive later in the video when he asks her about the F-35 being 4X louder than the F-16.
A pilot says: “It’s similar to the F-16 engine. It’s just bigger and more powerful. As you’ve seen, the F-35 is bigger so it needs a bigger engine as well.”
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local…
“Jim Palmer wore earplugs to bed on Tuesday. The night prior, noise from military jets flying overhead kept the Goodyear resident up until after midnight. He called Luke Air Force Base in the morning to complain. The base’s response, summarized by Palmer, wasn’t comforting: Get used to it.”
Some Didn’t Know Skies Would Get Louder
Luke Air Force Base still trains F-16 pilots, along with F-35 pilots. The base is phasing out its F-16 program, while its F-35 program is growing. F-35s are considerably louder than F-16s, and there are dozens of flights a day. . .
The most common response residents who complain about the noise get from others is that they should have known when they bought their house. Arizona law requires sellers to disclose when a property is located around a military airport. But some long-term residents say they didn’t know the F-35s were coming when they bought their house, and they didn’t know the noise would get louder, more frequent, and later at night.
Palmer bought his house in PebbleCreek in 2013, before the F-35 program came to Luke in 2014. The community is a couple miles from the base, close to the runway. PebbleCreek is an age-restricted, 55 and older community, and Palmer says a wonderful place to live. Except for the noise. “It’s become very difficult to live here, with the planes,” he said.
VTANG estimating 4-8 flights per day, 4 days per week, 288 days per year.
Just another long example of the government evading issues they knew the answers to years ago….we’ve seen this unfold so many times throughout history. Spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers money on remediation that didn’t have to happen, etc. There are more appropriate basings for the F35 than here. And I agree with Hillary Gombar, this is another example of environmental racism. I know the response will be, if you don’t like it move….well that’s fine for people who can move….environmental racism is about people who CAN’T move. Fly the F35’s over the Hill Section in Burlington and the responses would be very different.
I cant wait for housing prices to drop. Anyone looking to sell a house thats too lound give me a shout. All the rich yuppies/flatlander transplans wont be pricing out locals for once because they are to picky. Love it. I have been living next to F35s for years and could not care less about the noise, its not that bad.
Exposure to this type of noise raises your cortisol levels..
as if there werent enough stressors and anxieties.
The comment:
“The most common response residents who complain about the noise get from others is that they should have known when they bought their house. Arizona law requires sellers to disclose when a property is located around a military airport. But some long-term residents say they didn’t know the F-35s were coming when they bought their house, and they didn’t know the noise would get louder, more frequent, and later at night.” is a typical NIMBY ism. It is a military air base. Did they think there would be no changes or airplanes would not get upgraded? It is the same as people who buy homes near gun clubs or farms and then complain they did not know it would be noisy or smelly.
@justahuman and @ConcernedVter, I understand these arguments and think these are some valid points. Especially about living next to Air Force Base or if you join Navy & serve on air craft carrier, what do you expect. As to yuppy transplants, that is part of it but negative impacts to many native Vermonters as well, life-long residents of Winooski, South Burlington, etc.
Reporting about Luke Air Force Base was interesting as much because it apparently goes without saying to everyone who lives there that, yes, F-35 is much louder than F-16. Very different from what politicians like Shumlin been saying for years. In December, 2012, Leahy’s cousin-in-law, developer Ernie Pomerleau, paid for an all-expenses paid trip to Florida so Weinberger and Shumlin could listen to F35 take off. While wearing enormous noise-muffling earphones, Shumlin then remarked: “Volume, seems to me, is about the same,” Shumlin observed [in comparison to F16]. “Listening to this has been a real eye opener,” he said. “Its a different sound, but its surprising how quiet the F-35 is.” VTANG Major General Cray also tried to obscure dramatic noise difference by saying, “Noise is a difficult subject for anyone to understand,” as if Air Force scientists and FAA experts who rated Burlington last because of noise impact have no idea what they are doing.
Difference with Luke Air Force Base or Hill Air Force Base is Burlington International Airport is commercial airport for civilians. Not Air Force Base. Basing could have been a win-win for state, civilians and Guard if Shumlin and Leahy had cooperated to build new 9,000 foot runway and VTANG exclusive base in Franklin County or Northeast Kingdom. Instead, Shumlin threw away $100 million plus of real tax dollars on ill-fated pursuit of universal health care that everyone knew was not workable.