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Photographs by Skye Dunlap and Christopher Gardner. Photo illustration by Robin Mendez
Plane Truth: Our skies may soon be as crowded as our streets if the FAA gets its way.
FAA sends San Francisco-bound air traffic over Santa Clara Valley
Angry Mayor Gonzales and council members vow to 'do everything we can' to stop plan
By Chantal Lamers
The muffled buzz of airplane engines came from the blue sky on April 26, as San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales spoke in the Rose Garden about the Federal Aviation Administration's plan to reroute thousands of San Francisco-bound airplanes over San Jose and surrounding cities.
Gonzales gripped the sides of the podium as he expressed his disgust with FAA officials who kept the plan under wraps for the past six months and never consulted San Jose officials. The mayor bowed his head for a moment before admitting to the crowd that no one had directly informed San Jose city officials of the plan.
City officials said they accidentally learned of the FAA's plan while attending a meeting in San Francisco in early April. The mayor's office said they were not officially notified by the FAA about the plan.
The idea to reroute about 200,000 airplane approaches per year is the FAA's solution to trimming the climbing number of late and delayed flights in and out of SFO during poor weather conditions. Under the plan, San Francisco approaches will shift southward and planes will roar over south, east and west San Jose.
If the FAA's plan is put into operation, San Joseans can expect an increase of 300 to 600 flights daily over their homes and offices. But if Gonzales has his way, the plan will go down in flames.
"We will do everything we can to protect the residents in our neighborhoods from additional air traffic noise that would result from the proposed plan," Gonzales said.
Looking into the television cameras, the mayor asked "Administrator Garvey, how can you say this will have no impact?"
FAA administrator Jane Garvey is the woman Gonzales has unsuccessfully attempted to sway into halting hundreds of planes from flying overhead. But Kristi Dunn, a regional FAA spokesperson in Seattle, said that San Jose officials were notified of the proposal in a letter sent to City Hall on Dec. 21. Dunn said a copy of an environmental assessment draft was sent to City Hall on March 20.
The FAA held public hearings on April 19 and 20, in San Mateo County and scheduled an additional meeting for May 2, in the Isaac Newton Center boardroom at the Santa Clara County Government Center. Because the proposal is still in the public comment period, Dunn said, there's no timeline as to when SFO-bound flights may cross San Jose skies.
Dave Vossbrink, communications director for the mayor, said the letters and drafts of the assessment were sent to the city's planning department and the public libraries. None of them reached the mayor's office. But the language of the documents was so complex that the impact of the proposal wasn't clear until early April. What upset the mayor was the lack of communications by FAA officials to communities throughout the South Bay.
Vossbrink said that once staff began to understand the potential impact of the proposal, the FAA extended the public comment period at the mayor's request from the original date of April 24, until May 5. Now the mayor is requesting that FAA officials go back to the drawing board, and work with South Bay community officials on a fair solution to SFO's frequent delays. Vossbrink said the mayor wants to ensure that a solution for one problem doesn't create a problem for someone else.
Gonzales called the FAA's plan outrageous, an attack on San Jose's quality of life. He cited the tremendous environmental impact it could have on the city and the never-ending airplane traffic and noise that has the potential to keep San Jose residents awake all night.
Unlike San Jose International Airport, SFO has no curfew. The estimated 300 to 600 planes expected to fly over San Jose will be flying 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Gonzales added those numbers to the estimated 370 arrivals coming into SJC daily and believes there is no justification in them.
Gonzales added that while the new flight courses will help alleviate delays at SFO while weather conditions are bad, about 7.5 percent of the year, the rerouting over San Jose would take place 100 percent of the year.
"We support the cooperation for airport planning and operation to improve service that benefits the people, the economy, and the environment of the entire bay region," Gonzales said. "We cannot support FAA's plan that would damage the daily quality of life for more than a million people in San Jose and Silicon Valley merely to achieve a marginal improvement at San Francisco Airport only some of the time."
Furthermore, Gonzales said, the FAA hasn't completed an environmental impact report that would measure the expected effect on the local environment. According to the mayor's office, the preliminary environmental assessment dealt mostly with impacts surrounding San Francisco. Only a formula study, rather than a full analysis, was conducted that determined there would no noise, safety or environmental impacts around San Jose.
Gonzales was backed at the podium by a handful of San Jose City Council members, including District 6 representative Frank Fiscalini, who supports the mayor's efforts to shoot the project down. Fiscalini said his district is already affected by air traffic noise, and council members won't rest until they've defeated the attempt to reroute.
Gonzales said he spoke to San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who was surprised by the FAA's plan to reroute planes. Gonzales said it's not important whether he believes Brown knew of the proposal, what is important is that San Jose officials get the plan scrapped. "We will go to every extent possible," said Gonzales, who did not rule out the possibility of legal action.
Meanwhile, up in San Francisco skies, pilots are testing out a new flight approach recently approved by the FAA. It allows them to fly 1,000 feet higher, at 5,000 feet, and was approved in an effort to quiet the skies for residents who live under a constant stream of airplane traffic. According to FAA officials, residents in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Daly City and other surrounding towns should experience a 41 percent noise reduction.
And while FAA spokeswoman Dunn isn't sure of the impact SFO-bound flights would have on SJC, she said planes will probably fly over at 8,000 feet and approach the bay at 6,000 feet.
In San Jose, board members of the city's Airport Curfew Monitoring committee wonder whether a year's worth of hard work will go to waste.
Ken Yeager, chairman of the mayor-appointed task-force, said that over the last year the committee persuaded four airlines to change their flight schedules so roaring engines wouldn't violate the 11:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. curfew. Delta, American, United and Southwest Airlines each have schedules that comply with the committee's request.
Although the proposal is at hand, Yeager said, San Joseans could be in store for something far worse then they've had to deal with already. "We're just concerned that all this work could go for naught," he said.
And despite the proposed plan to reroute up to 600 SFO flights over the valley, Yeager says, the committee will continue to pursue commitments this May from the remaining five commercial airlines at SJC who haven't changed their schedules to comply with the curfew.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
