Opponents of the decision to base F-35 fighter jets in Burlington say newly obtained documents suggest the aircraft will likely be far louder than the U.S. Air Force and Vermont Air National Guard have previously acknowledged.
With the arrival of the next generation fighters just weeks away, critics led by Rosanne Greco, a retired Air Force colonel, are demanding the secretary of the Air Force block the basing of the plane at Burlington International Airport until new sound studies can be conducted.
They argue that sound studies predicting how the fighter would affect the area assumed that the jets would use their afterburners less than 5 percent of time. New documents, however, suggest afterburner usage might be 10 times that much — or more, Greco said.
“The Air Force finally had to admit to the public what they knew for a long time — that at the large Air Force bases where the F-35 is currently flying … they are taking off in afterburner 50 to 100 percent of the time,” Greco said at a press conference Thursday outside Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) Burlington office.
Greco said the higher use of afterburners at other bases is “well known,” but she could not provide any documentation to support her claim. Instead, she and attorney James Dumont pointed to an email Greco said she received last week from a source.
The message, a copy of which she provided to Seven Days, appears to be from a civilian engineer who works for the Air Force in Tucson, Ariz.
The jargon-laden email says “the (Air Force) has decided to delay” a new round of environmental studies for a base in Fort Worth, Texas, citing “discrepancies and concerns over F-35 flight elevations and afterburner usage.”
Instead of assuming a 5 percent afterburner usage, new studies would examine different use levels of up to 50 percent, according to the email, a decision that would delay the process by four to six months. The author of the email, according to Greco, uses a profane military phrase in the message that starts with the word “cluster.”
“It’s all just a big Charlie Foxtrot that could have been addressed over a year ago when we all questioned the validity of using only 5 percent afterburners,” the email reads.
The author of the email, Christopher Brewster, did not return an email and phone call requesting comment.
Dumont argued that even a slight increase in the use of afterburners represents a significant change in findings of the Vermont study and could open it up to new legal challenges.
“The use of afterburners during takeoff terrifically increases the noise impacts,” Dumont said.
He noted that U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford, in rejecting opponents’ legal challenge to the study, specifically referred to VTANG’s operational plan as a “prohibition on the use of afterburners at takeoff.”
Maps released in May showed that the number of dwelling units around the airport 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.
Mikel Arcovitch, public affairs officer for the Vermont National Guard, said he couldn’t speak for other bases, but he said that “nothing has changed for Vermont.”
“We will use military power 95 percent of the time and afterburner 5 percent,” Arcovitch wrote in an email.
Leahy spokesperson David Carle said opponents have a “fixation” on the notion that the environmental study for Burlington was rigged. He said it is far from clear if the civilian engineer who wrote the email is correct that environmental studies for Fort Worth were being delayed and revamped.
But even if it is delayed, Carle said it doesn’t mean much.
“Vermonters should know that [the Texas base] is a much larger, and different, base than Burlington, and that Vermont has a Guard willing to adjust their flying operations to be better neighbors,” Carle wrote in an email.
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When the planes get here in a few weeks you can do your own study. I look forward to national defense and plan on attending the open house in October. If these planes are so bad as everyone wants to claim then all the military and people who work at the terminals would be deaf, and that is PROVEN to not be the case.
Planes will make one deaf? Funny, cuz some people in Burlington voluntarily stopped hearing anything new a long time ago.
Donna –
If you watch these planes (F-35s) take off, and you are in the vicinity (anywhere near the runway), you do not have excellent hearing – or soon you will not. These jets will make you deaf. It’s a scientific fact – it’s not anti-military theory.
I worked out behind the airbase for yrs, the building I worked at you can watch the jets fire up ready to take off. I would go out and watch them take off.. what an amazing thing to watch.!! Guess what, my hearing is excellent .!! No damage at all didn’t affect my job (office manager) at all. To bad so many are against our Military.
The “crowd” was about what 30 people if that.
Does the use of the afterburner for 5% of the takeoffs admitted by the Vermont Air Guard spokesman damage hearing?
The US Air Force Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) declares that a single exposure to a peak sound level of 130 decibels can cause “immediate and permanent hearing damage.” The Air Force EIS also says that people on the ground below will be exposed to 115 decibels when the F-35 takes off under ordinary military power and is 1000 feet above them. VTDigger reported yesterday that “If afterburners are employed on the F-35, decibels will skyrocket.”
Will Seven Days report on whether even the admitted 5% of takeoffs with afterburner is enough to expose airport passengers and thousands of people living in the Chamberlin School neighborhood to the immediate and permanent hearing damage of 130 decibels?
So, so tired or Roseanne Greco. Not sure why this is so important to her, as her own expensive home (paid for by her military salary of many years) is quite far from the airport. I guess she knew enough to buy a home not affected by airport noise. Sounds like she has an enormous grudge against her former employer.
complain, complain. a lot of bafflegab… they are acting like Cloward-Piven and trying to ostentatious
Bring on the F-35 .. They will be protecting our skies..
I assume the takeoff after the emergency landing earlier this year involved afterburners (if not then god help us!). that noise is ridiculously loud, much louder than the f16s and should not be legal within several miles of residential areas. 5% is too much. with that said I’ve never felt too strongly one way or the other on this issue, having lived with the f16s, and acknowledging that the state must receive some benefit by basing them here (though it would be nice to know exactly what that benefit was). i want to support the military and i don’t mind living near a busy airport and hearing normal airport noises. but this noise is new and not normal. frankly it’s harmful. if this claim is true and we were lied to about the frequency of afterburner, well then I’ll be marching in the streets with the rest of these folks and hopefully many more of you until something gives. I will nimby the hell out of this. f35 afterburners shouldn’t be in anyone’s backyard.
Too bad the author fails to challenge Leahy’s spin doctor by referencing the damning reporting by the Boston Globe which details the lengths to which Leahy interferred in the original basing evaluation by using his powerful position on the Senate Appropriations Committe to force a corrupt decision in Vermont’s favor. How quickly they forget….
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/20…
This is the issue why I stopped voting for Patrick Leahy and virtually all Vermont Democrats. Of course PR spin-meister David Carle will do what he is paid to do on behalf of Leahy but it does not change the facts, including those reported in Boston Globe by national security correspondent Bryan Bender, about how Leahy’s office specifically corrupted the process and forced the Air Force into this basing, against their own objective criteria. Conveniently Patrick Leahy, Peter Shumlin, Shap Smith and the rest of the corrupt Vermont Democrats who did everything in their power to force this do not live in Winooski; South Burlington; parts of Burlington north of main street, etc. Typical politicians.
At least the Republicans do not pretend to care about anything other than the military-industrial complex and cutting taxes. Better honesty than Democratic Party hypocrisy. Democrats talk a big game about science, public health, community, “diversity,” etc. and then ignore all of same except for their cheap sound-bites and photo-ops. Patrick Leahy and David Carle: see no evil; hear no evil; speak no evil, especially when it emanates from our senior senator’s own office!