Feds plan noisier skies for Pike

New York, N.Y. - If a federal plan to revise flight patterns for the metropolitan airports is approved, the skies above Matamoras and Milford will be noisier next fall. How much more noisy depends on how you measure it. For the past nine years, the Federal Aviation Administration has been working on a plan to better use airspace in the increasingly congested corridor between Delaware and Connecticut. The New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Airspace Redesign Project would reroute incoming and outgoing patterns. It would be the first change since the 1960s. FAA spokesman Jim Peters said several alternatives have been considered but no prime alternative has been chosen. Sussex County, N.J. aircraft noise activist Robert Belzer said the agency is likely to choose an “integrated airspace alternative” that will mean big increases in the air traffic and aircraft noise over northern N.J., Pike County and portions of Orange County, N.Y. FAA projections of day-night average sound levels by 2011 project a 92% increase over Matamoras, 65% over Milford and 30% over Gold Key Lake. Those increases are straight increases in the decibel levels, but Belzer said, “vibrational noise energy” emitted by planes over Pike would be even more dramatic, with increases ranging from 250% in Gold Key to 1800% in Matamoras. Peters said the integrated airspace alternative, with modern tracking and communications would allow more efficient, safer handling of air traffic and help reduce increasing delays at the major airports. He said the agency did not discriminate for or against any areas in planning the routes and that the plan would reduce aircraft noise in many areas that have absorbed higher levels for decades. The FAA is planning public hearings for the various proposals, probably in late March or April, with enactment by late summer. Belzer said opponents will mount a legal battle against the FAA plan. To view the plan on the Web, visit http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/air_traffic/nas_redesign/regional_guidance/eastern_reg/nynjphl_redesign/. Aircraft noise in Dingmans Ferry Locally, Dingmans Ferry area residents continue to report late night, early morning aircraft noise. Judy Faretra of Conashaugh Lakes said, “I’m ready to put my house up for sale,” after nightly disturbances since January. “It wakes the baby ... and I’m afraid,” she admitted. Eleanor Pschar of Sunrise Lakes agreed, “It is loud. It does not prevent me from sleeping, but soon we will be opening the windows and then it will be a different story.” But John Wells of Dingmans Ferry said, “There ain’t no jets flying over here, just a Piper Cub at five in the morning.” To report aircraft noise, call the FAA hotline at 610-264-2888.