By Mark J. Schulte
Cinema enthusiasts may recall that point in the movie “Jaws” when the protagonists finally realized they were not dealing with any ordinary member of the species Carcharodon carcharias, and the enormity of the aquatic creature — and of the situation — was summarized by that famous line: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat!”
That was the response, generally speaking, from the attendees at the recent Airport Advisory Group convened last week at Suffolk County Community College, at the behest of Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming. After listening to a score of residents complain about the increasing noise pollution produced by Gabreski Airport’s commercial users (mostly air taxi companies like NetJets, etc.) and then listening to the response of the Gabreski Airport manager, it became patently and painfully obvious that neither the airport manager nor Ms. Fleming can be considered the éminence grise in this situation.
The prime mover of everything is the Federal Aviation Administration. Everyone else — the airport manager, the town legislators, the county, the advisory group — are all just a civic form of symbiotic pilot fish following the “great white” FAA.
A thoughtful citizen might ask: How can that be? How can we in the Westhampton-Quogue-Remsenburg-East Quogue-Hampton Bays locale have lost all ability to control our noise environment future?
Answer: Federal laws trump local concerns, always and everywhere.
This discussion has nothing to do with the National Guard’s 106th Air Wing, located at the airport; everyone in the community supports that. But it turns out, after some detailed study, that the FAA is a two-headed beast: On one hand, it is charged with regulating aviation safety, and in that regard it has done an exemplary job throughout the country.
But the FAA’s other (poorly understood) mandate is, broadly speaking, to promote the advancement of commercial aviation in America. In that regard, it has been nothing less than prolific by making grants and loans to airports, large and small, across the country. Typical projects might be for infrastructure (a new air traffic control tower), for runway improvements (new lights or new electronics for instrument landings), or “softer” projects, for land use studies.
And, like a large octopus whose tentacles envelope everything, when the FAA starts granting or lending money to an airport, it executes agreements that bind the airport to FAA operating principles. (Not safety statutes, mind you — business covenants.) And, like the cognitive bias represented by Maslow’s proverbial hammer, the FAA only sees one thing: aviation development.
It is constitutionally incapable of making any nuanced trade-offs between aviation development and community noise pollution protection. When queried by an outraged citizen as to what procedures the FAA could or would embark upon to cap the traffic at Gabreski and thus reduce or stabilize the noise problem, the answer came back from the podium that the FAA’s primary noise mitigation recommendation is for people to check their noise-proofed window and door seals. (If you are concerned about civic impotency and powerlessness, stop and let that sink in.)
So, if you’re now concluding that we’ve got a big problem and we’re in a small boat, keep reading. Not only do we have a constitutional conundrum represented by the FAA, we’ve got other dangers lurking in the waters just below the surface.
Our friends in East Hampton reached these distressing conclusions a decade ago and started to take action to control their noise-related future. They are now embarked upon a process designed to shut down or materially reduce the aviation activity at East Hampton Airport. If they are successful, an inquiring mind might ask the question: Where will all those flights go? Answer: to Gabreski.
There are no other big airports on the eastern end of Long Island. Recall, Gabreski handles about 55,000 to 60,000 movements annually; East Hampton handles about 25,000 to 30,000 movements annually. (A “movement” is either a takeoff or a landing.) If East Hampton Airport is significantly curtailed and 75 percent of those movements migrate to Gabreski, that could mean an additional 16,500 movements at Gabreski, or an increase in flight activity of almost 30 percent.
That will put immense strain on the “main” runway of Gabreski and require increasing use of the secondary runway, which happens to run northwest to southeast. Right over Quogue.
Oh, and did I mention that the airport is currently engaged in an FAA development program to equip such secondary runway with instrument-landing technology?
Whether or not East Hampton hands us a poison-pill packet of flights, we in Quogue are likely to feel the effect in the 2024-25 time frame. As the old Irish joke goes: “Maggie, brace yourself!”
But back to the fundamental problem at Gabreski: When you step back from the “noise” of the present discussion and debate, you realize that the only way our local area will be able to have any control in the situation is to stop Gabreski from accepting more FAA grants and loans. This is what East Hampton successfully did as a precondition to demanding control over its noise pollution future.
But you may ask: Who will step into the breach? Answer: the county and the town. I have estimated that the amount of FAA assistance Gabreski has received is somewhere in the $25 million range. Admittedly, a sizable number, but not something that cannot be handled.
But wait. That local funding scenario might produce less cash and less development. Yes, it might — but is that a bad thing? And, in that scenario, we, the people of the county and the town, would have an important say in the Orwellian future noise profile that is currently being foisted upon us. Presently, we have absolutely no control, and no prospects.
As the FAA pursues its inevitable growth-oriented program assistance, in tacit cooperation with the town and county officials, we can expect more noise, in all directions, particularly Quogue and points southeast. As several real estate people alluded to at the meeting, our property values are beginning to be impacted by the elevated noise profile. Real estate values in this 20-mile radius probably exceed $25 billion. If values are impacted only 1 percent, that is $250 million in reduced value — far exceeding the utility of local NetJets customers flying in. From a social accounting perspective, a bad deal.
Like at East Hampton, embarking upon the defunding of the FAA at Gabreski will be a long-term commitment. It will require a bigger boat: citizen mobilization, cooperation and support (not indifference) from your village, town and county officials, and probably their commitment to involve your national legislators, like your congressman and senator.
But we have to start sometime if we have any hope of seizing control of our noise profile future. There is no better time to start than now.
Mark J. Schulte of Quogue is an investment banker who has been involved with aviation — locally, nationally and internationally — for over 40 years.
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