The Burlingame Voice

SFO Runway Noise: Winning at Appeal, On to Round 2

Here are a couple of updates on the on-going claims against the City of SF and SFO regarding runway noise.  When the city lost the decision for some of the plaintiffs to recover damages because they have owned their homes since before 1980 (see the original decision here), it appealed that ruling.  The appeal wound its way through court and the appeals judge, Judge Novak, sided with the plaintiffs, so seven people are entitled to damages.  Finally.  Readers who have owned their homes since 1980 should think about joining Round 3.

We wrapped up the second round of complaints in court on January 21st with the original judge, Judge Mazzei, again hearing the cases.  Just as that day in court arrived, the city made an appeal to dismiss Round 2 complaints as being the same as Round 1.  The plaintiffs presented information indicating that plaintiffs who are continually sustaining damages can continually file complaints in Small Claims court.  The judge allowed another two weeks for plaintiffs to present more information.  I have done that myself using the fact that I have new data from my personal monitoring station report for Round 2.  You can read about that report here.  We also presented more information disputing the applicability of the case law that limits damages to pre-1980 owners.  We do not have a date for the decision on dismissal nor the base Round 2 decision.

Lastly, under my questioning, the aircraft noise expert witness that the City has been using from the beginning, Steve Alverson from Environmental Sciences Associates, confirmed my suspicion that trees and vegetation don't have any impact in blocking noise.  This is interesting because the SFO Community Roundtable is spending time and money to investigate "vegetative attenuation" as I noted here when I went to the last Runway Noise subcommitte meeting.  I understand that in sprawling organizations (really two organizations here-- the airport and its owner, the City)-- things can get lost, but when one expert says something is irrelevant one would hope the other experts would take note and not waste effort investigating it.  The time would be much better spent figuring out what else has changed and what they can do about it.

SFO Runway Noise: Speier Jumps in With Legislation

My take on Rep. Jackie Speier's townhall meeting on airport noise back in October 2018 is here.  In the interim 14 months we have been pursuing legal, small claims recourse in hopes of getting the City of SF's attention (you can read all about it using the SFO Airport link on the lower right hand side).  We will hear the City and the airport's latest defense on January 21st.  The parallel effort on governmental action occurs at the Airport Roundtable "Ground-based noise" subcommittee.  In my post about that meeting, I noted that we need a greater sense of urgency on the issue of engine back blast.  Right on cue, Jackie Speier has authored proposed legislation described by a member of our SFOrunwaynoise.com group who attended the last Airport Roundtable meeting like this:

• The most important point at this meeting was that Kathleen Wentworth (retired United Pilot working with Jackie Speier’s office) surprised us by announcing that Congresswoman Speier has introduced EIGHT pieces of legislation aimed at helping communities address AND CHANGE noise issues that affect them. Currently, curfews, flight paths, number of flights, etc. are all under the control of the FAA and there is no way for an impacted community to bring about change or force SFO or the FAA to negotiate policies that affect surrounding neighborhoods.

• Passage of any of these bills would be beneficial for all of us, as well as for the thousands of Americans across the country who are fighting similar issues with their airports. If passed, this legislation would give the public the ‘teeth’ to get something done. Please let Congresswoman Speier know that you appreciate her efforts on our behalf by contacting her office. While there are 8 bills, HR 5112, the LEAVE Act, specifically addresses GBN:

"As an airplane leaves from an airport, its takeoff generates significant amounts of ground based low-frequency noise and vibration impacting residents in the vicinity. While measurement, standards, and mitigation of airborne flight noise is well defined, low frequency noise and vibration caused by an airplane on the runway at high thrust levels accelerating for take-off is not yet established. The bill would lead to the establishment of standards and remedies related to ground-based noise (GBN).

If enacted, the bill would permit a state cause of action for GBN if a state has undertaken a study of GBN at an airport, determined the amount of GBN, and identified a level of substantial negative impact and any diminution in real property values caused by such GBN. Before a cause of action would be permissible:

a. the state must complete a study of ground-based noise at the airport in question
b. the state must set a limit for ground-based noise emanating from the airport
c. the airport would have to be shown to have exceeded that limit"

Rep. Speier and her colleague to our south, Anna Eshoo, held a press conference on Friday that the Daily Journal is reporting included these comments:

San Mateo County Supervisor David Pine said years of work by local officials about the problem have left them frustrated.  “We haven’t moved the needle,” Pine said. “The FAA cares very little about noise.”   Burlingame Councilman Ricardo Ortiz, who along with Goethals and Pine serves on the San Francisco International Airport Community Roundtable, said he welcomes Speier’s proposed legislation.  “We can recommend little changes,” Ortiz said of local officials — who he said don’t really have any power over airport traffic.

And in the "This Should Get Their Attention" file:

SFO spokesman Doug Yakel said of the proposed legislation that, “We are reviewing the impact of the proposals and look forward to working with Congresswoman Speier to appropriately address the issues.”

I will follow-up with more details as they come available, but this is clearly progress!  I'm looking forward to ensuring the judge is fully aware of this legislation since it buttresses our point about the continuing nuisance--a legal term that understates the problem.

SFO Noise: Will Development Make It Worse?

I attended my first Airport Roundtable Ground Based Noise subcommittee meeting today.  The group is composed of council members representing B'game, Millbrae and H'borough along with SFO employees, consultants, a County of San Mateo facilitator, a staff member from Supe Dave Pine's office and the ex-United pilot who is advising Jackie Speier on the problems we are having with horrid SFO take-off noise.  Things move slowly in government and this subcommittee is no exception--and when (if) they come up with any recommendations those will still need to slog through the full Airport Roundtable and eventually to some conclusion directed to SFO.

The discussion wended its way through the various noise measurements that are already recorded and how to add analysis of the low-frequency rumbling take-off noise that is keeping people awake starting at 10:30 pm and extending to 3 am on some nights.  Let's be clear--this is a community health threat that is much more immediate than much of what passes for environmental concerns in politics today.  I was encouraged by our rep, councilman Ricardo Ortiz, who has heard from locals that are clearly impacted.  And by Millbrae council woman Ann Schneider who is hearing back-blast noise in her kitchen which looks out directly on the new SFO hotel.  This latest addition to the SFO monolith may be a contributing factor to our discomfort.

SFO consultants HMMH have been tasked with assessing the recorded noise history from April 2013 and April and September 2014 since those are key dates when runways were reconfigured--another possible contributing factor to our discomfort.  The firm is also using a noise profiling application called SoundPLAN to try to figure out the give and take--the inputs and outputs-- of the noise that is degrading our quality of life in the mid-Peninsula.  It involves profiling the jet engine back blast, the terrain in our towns, the buildings that may be reflecting the noise and even the possibility that groves of trees might attenuate the noise.  Councilwoman Schneider provided a laundry list of the future construction in Millbrae around the BART station and that is when the light-bulb when on for councilman Al Royse from Hillsborough.  I'm paraphrasing, but Al's fresh insight was essentially "you mean to say that all of these new, high-rise, transit-oriented-development buildings might actually increase the diffusion of runway noise in our communities?"  Bingo.  Al gets today's prize for putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 4.

What we really need is a greater sense of urgency from everyone involved.  As I type this at 11:35 pm the low-frequency back blast noise is bad.  I could pull out the thesaurus and find a stronger synonym, but I'm sticking with "bad".  Here is today's subcommittee meeting.

 

Two New Apps: SFO Noise and Earthquakes

Notices of two new, potentially useful apps arrived today courtesy of SFO airport and the CalTech/Berkeley/USGS consortium working on the earthquake alert system.

At www.flysfo.com/noise you can now see the permanent noise monitor readings and view the air traffic around SFO.  The noise abatement page has always been where you can file a noise complaint--for what that's worth.  The permanent noise monitors look like the one I had at my house for a couple of weeks.  The web page is updated in real time, but there is no indication of which noise level is being reported.  I have bookmarked the page and will be monitoring the monitors when it gets loud as it did two evenings ago.  Watching it for just a few minutes, it appears that the Hillsborough monitor consistently reports in at 2-5 points higher than the southern Burlingame site.

On the shaking front, the state has opened up the MyShake app to the public.  It arrived in the Apple App store yesterday and I have downloaded it.  The Chronicle article notes a Google Play version is also available and reports

Cell-phone alerts will be issued only when the system’s sensors detect a quake with a magnitude greater than 5.0 and a complex set of algorithms projects the shaking will cause significant damage. Just a couple such temblors hit California each year.

Alerts via the MyShake app will go out for earthquakes that exceed 4.5 magnitude and to areas projected to have minor shaking, about what would be felt in a building struck by a truck, said Richard Allen, director of UC Berkeley’s Seismological Laboratory and one of the architects of the warning system.

After the three reminders about earthquakes we have had in the last two weeks, it is a timely addition to your phone.

SFO Runway Noise: My Recording Results Are In

The results from the airport noise monitoring station that SFO installed in my very own yard for two weeks have come back.  You can see the equipment and some of the background here.  The monitoring was continuous around-the-clock, but I also kept track of 15 incidents that I found to be disturbing and gave them to the Airport Noise Abatement Office (ANAO).  They kindly correlated these incidents with specific flights and their parameters.

Without getting into too much technical detail about A-weighted vs C-weighted (for low frequency sound) or the peak noise level of an event (Lmax) or the Sound Exposure Level that compresses the noise energy into one second, the measurements show:

The monitoring site at the Burlingame Park Neighborhood is relatively quiet with ambient noise levels of 48dBA, considering that most of the neighborhood is in an urban community setting. On an average day, there were 229 overflights, out of which 65 exceeded the noise monitor threshold and recorded a noise event. These events included departing aircraft engine start, ground idling, take-off thrust and initial climb thrust. Runways 01-Left and 01-Right departing aircraft accounted for the vast majority of the noise events recorded by the monitor.

The majority of SFO Aircraft noise events occurred between 12:00 am and 2:00 am, 5:00 am and 8:00 am and 5:00 pm through 11:59 pm. On average, there were 26 nighttime noise events during the duration of the monitoring session.

For this measurement the average aircraft generated Maximum Noise Level (LCmax) was 73dBC and the average Sound Exposure Level (LCE) was 83dBC.

The 15 events I flagged to the ANAO were mostly between 11 pm and 1:30 am since rousing myself to send myself a text to capture the exact time wasn't advisable around 3 am when some really bad events occur.  Two examples of the correlation are:

11:02 pm: A Qantas Airways’ Boeing 747-400, Flight QFA074 to Sydney, Australia, started its takeoff roll on runway 28L at 11:01:35 pm. The LMax was 68.7 dB, the SEL was 76.2 dB and the event was 42 seconds long.   (28L is one of the two the long runways that takes planes over Brisbane).

11:50 pm: An American Airlines’ Airbus A321, Flight AAL2902 to Charlotte started its takeoff roll on Runway 1R at 11:50 pm. The LMax was 65.1 dB, the SEL was 77.1 dB and the event was 40 seconds long.  (Runway 1R is the southern short runway that is closest to Burlingame at its origin).

As part of our on-going legal action that has yielded a partial "win" as described here, one of the challenges we have is convincing a judge that "substantial changes" in airport operations have occurred.  If that can be shown, then the idea that only people who have owned their homes since before 1980 can claim damages becomes invalid.  So I read with some interest the SF Chronicle article from Sept. 13 about pilots transposing the runway numbers that they punch into their computers that then determine from the runway length how fast to get airborne.  It's a fascinating and somewhat scary read, but the part that might shed some light on our run-up and back-blast concerns is

By registering runway 10L instead of 01L, the pilot made the computer system think it had 4,220 feet more runway than it actually had, investigators found. Runway 10L is 11,870 feet long; 01L is 7,650 feet. The computer alerted the captain to use the lowest thrust and flap settings, common for longer runways to reduce impact and wear on engines, the memo stated.

It resulted in a “takeoff with 400 feet of usable takeoff distance remaining,” the FAA memo concluded. A typical commercial airliner is traveling at 184 mph at liftoff, meaning the plane had about 1.5 seconds before reaching the end of the SFO runway.

After the incident, the airline reconfigured its planes’ computer systems, such as removing the slowest takeoff speed as an option at SFO.

That seems like a relevant change to highlight to the judge--which we will do as Round 2 of the complaints take place in Redwood City on November 5th.

SFO Legal Action: Part 4 - A Split Decision

Many of the remaining 39 plaintiffs gathered in Small Claims court in Redwood City this morning to hear Judge Cristina Mazzei's ruling on our claims against SFO for runway noise.  You can read the background here.  The judge went the extra mile to render her decision live instead of the usual notice-by-mail.  We will have the full text of her ruling later, but I was scribbling madly so I could give you the main points.  I'll update it when I have all of the details.

As she started to speak about how the runway, back blast noise was "clearly bothersome" but also "known at the time of the purchase of the homes" I prepared for a denial of our claims.  When she noted that the airport operations were mostly the same over time (i.e. no new runways or flight patterns) that sense was heightened.  She noted that we had not provided expert testimony that operations had changed which is true.  She then reviewed the results of several prior lawsuits at other airports concluding that Civil Code 3482 was "not a total defense" for the City of San Francisco and SFO.  Her review of 49 USC 47506 "Limitations on recovering damages for noise" reminded everyone of the city's defense that anyone who purchased their home after 1980 was precluded from collecting damages unless certain conditions are met.  Many of us have thought at least a couple of the conditions had been met, but she apparently disagreed.

In a split decision, the judge awarded damages as requested ($2,500 each) to nine plaintiffs who bought their houses before 1980 and denied the rest.  It took awhile to digest the split decision as the team met afterwards.  It seems a bit contradictory to me (and the team) as the judge appears to say that there is a continuing nuisance, it's damaging to the enjoyment of people's property, SFO is liable for this damage, but only if someone has owned their home for 40 years or more.  As I said, many of us thought conditions had changed to obviate the 1980 limit.  Once we have the full text and get some legal advice (something we have not done, but the City of SF clearly has done), we will hopefully be better positioned for Round 2 of claims.  That will start soon.  In the meantime, we wait to see if SF appeals the decision or decides that $22,500 is a small enough amount to let the sleepless dogs lie.  I will also have more detailed information from the monitor I had for three weeks.

SFO Runway Noise: My Own Monitor

For the next two weeks I have my very own SFO-provided noise monitor in my yard.  You will recall that I accepted the offer during my meeting with the team at the Noise Abatement office.  The team installed it last Friday and I am looking forward to the specific measurements and the human correlation with flights that this stream of data enables.  This past Tuesday night was particularly bad and, lo and behold, last night was pretty quiet.  The noise abatement team attributes the differences to the weather - warm temps and clear skies are good, colder temps or cloudy skies are bad for noise.  If that proves true then the question becomes how to modify airport operations accordingly.  Operations change due to weather all the time, so perhaps this input can be accommodated as well.

Here is the microphone and the computer case that is recording a steady stream of noise data.  The thresholds to filter what to analyze have been set at 57 dB from 7am to 10pm and 52 dB in the nighttime.  In the meantime, the waiting for the verdict continues.

I also got a great tip from the SFO team about a free app called Flightradar24 that quickly pinpoints your location, maps all of the planes (on the ground and in the air) and allows you to see the flight information for each icon.  It's very cool to know where the plane over your house came from or is going.


 

Time for a Sit-down With Uber and Lyft

CBS Local News has a piece about Uber and Lyft drivers jamming our streets in B'game and Millbrae. The two mayors are asking for a sit-down "to resolve it".  I'm not sure how one goes about that but it's a great idea.  If you have seen the line-up near Millbrae Ave. on any mid-morning it's long--more than 50 cars when I went over last week to meet with SFO noise officials (two posts down).  It's also odd that EssEff hasn't objected since they have disallowed local cabs from queuing up with city cabs for years.  So short of disallowing Uber and Lyft I'm not sure what can be done.   I'm also not sure what can be done about them parking all over downtown and side streets idling while they wait for the next hail.

SFO Legal Action - Gathering Data and Ideas

I spent two and a half hours at the SFO Noise Abatement Office as a follow-up to the questions I asked at the last Court session about noise data.  My host, David Ong, was very helpful-- cordial, informative and curious to hear about my concerns.  One couldn't ask for more at this point in the proceedings.  We discussed the arrival and departure routes at length, using their system to graph sets of data for specific dates and windows of time including my least favorite-12 am to 4 am.  It turns out that late night departures are not predominantly Asian flights or cargo, but often head to Chicago, Detroit, etc to make early morning connections.  We reviewed the timing around the Runway Safety project that added a new runway surface at the ends of the north-south runways and noted when they reopened August 10, 2014 as you can see from the graph below with the green V-shaped departures reappearing on 1L and 1R.  One theory is after a summer without traffic on those runways the reopening may have sounded louder to residents.  I can't really agree with as a cause of our distress now simply because it was five years ago, but I'm sure it had some short-term effect in 2014.

We also discussed how the international terminal Gate G which has a lot of Boeing 777 "heavy" traffic is situated such that engine-start-up is pointed towards B'game.  If it is determined that 777 start-up is a notable cause of noise, there might be other locations that would work.  I was particularly interested in the noise we experienced on Mother's Day this year.  It was quite bad in my yard, but the peak noise measurements at the two North B'game monitoring stations didn't really show what I know I heard.  SFO has awarded a contract to replace the 15 year old noise monitors with new technology and one can only hope that 15 years of technical advancement brings as much improvement in microphones as it has in other products.  I will be getting a short-term noise monitor installed in my yard in July with better noise correlation that is done by a person using the actual recordings as opposed to the system algorithm and NOAA radar data about take-offs.  It should be interesting although I am under no illusion that it will fix anything other than my curiosity.

Mr. Ong puts a lot of hope on the Airport Roundtable's ground noise subcommittee being able to isolate the main cause(s) of the runway noise so that something innovative can be done to mitigate it.  I hate to conclude with "we shall see", but that is where we're at.

 

SFO Legal Action - Round 3 Summary

The plaintiffs and the defendant (the City of SF) wrapped up their arguments about SFO runway noise in Small Claims court on Tuesday.  You can catch up on the background here and here.  It's quite impressive to see so many residents apply their skills to adding to the complaint.  We had members of the plaintiff group provide detailed noise measurements showing noise as high as 84.7 dB, providing background on the legal cases from around the country that might apply, and offering survey results from 360 people showing that the 49 current plaintiffs are far from the only ones feeling the damage from back blast noise.

At the end of Round 2 the defense tried to avoid having the Noise Abatement Office systems manager even take the stand, but Judge Mazzei ruled that we should be able to ask questions of him about his written declaration and the operations of the Office.  Mr. David Ong was on the stand for about 90 minutes and we learned some interesting, if disappointing, things during that time.  The Noise Abatement office takes about 200,000 complaints (they call them "reports") per month.  That effectively blew a giant hole in their argument that the 49 plaintiffs are just a small group that is not representative of the rest of the Millbrae, B'game and H'borough populace.  The illogic seemed lost on the SFO representatives.

We also learned that the airports Fly Quiet program that has been in effect for 15+ years rates airlines on five criteria that do not include back blast noise and that some of the lower scoring airlines, like Quantas, have been low scoring for a long time and SFO expects them to continue scoring low.  There are small fines in place for when a pilot does a "run-up" in an unapproved area of the taxiways, but Mr. Ong did not know if any fines had been assessed, nor whether they are published to groups like the Community Roundtable (which B'game councilmember Ricardo Ortiz sits on).  He also did not know what happens if an airline does not pay the fine or if there are other actions that merit fines.  We all found that quite odd for a senior member of the Noise Abatement Office.

There are 29 permanent noise monitoring stations sprinkled in the three cities and San Mateo.  They have been there for decades and Mr. Ong believes they do not show any appreciable increase in noise over the last three or four years (a key part of our claim).  I have asked to see the actual data since the group finds that hard to believe given the increased traffic and our collective experiences.  We will see if the data corroborates that, if we ever get it.

As the session came to an end, the judge said she would ordinarily have the Court mail us the verdict in a week or two, but she will be doing it differently for this case. She said she was allowed 90 days to announce her verdict once the case was under submission.  She has "a lot to read over". Then she said we'd all be getting a notice of when her decision would be announced in court with so the plaintiffs could be present.  Lots of people are sitting with their fingers crossed.