The Burlingame Voice

SFO Runway Noise: Legislation Needs a Push

I called Jackie Speier's office a couple of months ago to ask what was the progress on the various airport noise bills she introduced last congressional session.  Read about them from 2019 here.  When I spoke to the staffer-in-the-know I learned that the bills had expired and needed to be reintroduced for this House session.  That has finally happened.  The press release is here.  Here are some snips pertinent to us close by and more affected by the engine run-up noise than the overhead flight noise:

“For years, constituents have lived with the scourge of airport noise. One sleepless night after another takes a significant toll on an individual’s physical health, mental health and emotional well-being.” Rep. Speier said. “This year we finally received the results of the long-anticipated FAA Neighborhood Environmental Survey, which showed what so many already knew to be true: residents are annoyed by airplane noise levels far lower than the FAA uses for its current minimum standards. 

I can totally agree with that.  Unfortunately these two bit of proposed legislation, while better than nothing, are pretty limited:

Serious Noise Reduction Efforts Act (SNORE) Act, H.R. 4931: Establishes a program at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to noise insulate 200+ homes per year in specific areas or provide financial support to the cities impacted by noise.

Restore Everyone’s Sleep Tonight (REST) Act, H.R. 4929: Allows airports, at their option, to impose a curfew, under specified circumstances, at any time between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.

I'm not in favor of giving SFO the option on a curfew.  They (the City of SF) are about the Benjamins so why put in a curfew?  But this one shows a way forward on Burlingame's main problem (and Millbrae and Hillsborough too)

Low-frequency Energetic Acoustics and Vibrations Exasperate (LEAVE) Act, H.R. 4926: 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. The bill would lead to the establishment of standards and remedies related to ground-based noise (GBN).

Now the trick is to rally the House of Representatives to actually move these forward and to find sponsors in the Senate to do the same.  Maybe our three congresspersons can take a page out of the Manchin/Sinema playbook?  Time to play some hardball on the infrastructure bills since the Townhall meeting at Skyline college was three years ago.  Yes, three years ago and last night was every bit as loud and unhealthy as 2018.

Burlingame Wins Lawsuit Settlement Against SFO

A very quiet lawsuit filed by B'game against SFO and its owner, the City of SF, for causing the ground to sink in North B'game and along the Bayfront has been settled in B'game's favor.  Back in February, the SF Chronicle reported

The entire Bay Area is plunging downward under the weight of its own sprawl. And that’s a concern as sea levels rise and cities try to figure out how they’ll stay above water in the coming decades. 

Tom Parsons, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, documented the problem recently. He calculated the weight of every building in the Bay Area and found the total to be so great, about 3.5 trillion pounds or the equivalent of more than 7 million Boeing 747s, that it’s pushing the Earth’s surface down. His research shows the region has sunk as much as 3.1 inches, on average, as a result of a century’s worth of development.

“We’ve got all that fill on the bay that’s susceptible to being compressed, and we’re building on it, and we’re seeing some of the impacts of leaning buildings and subsidence,” Parsons told The Chronicle.

But the key fact that led to the quiet legal action is

Parsons did his research by tapping databases of Bay Area building sizes and figuring out the weight of the structures and their contents. As might be expected, weights were greatest in the downtown areas of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. Of nearly 1 million buildings evaluated, the heaviest was San Francisco International Airport.

The weight calculation did not consider roads, bridges and other infrastructure, so the total is assumed to be a significant underestimate.

The City has been worried about the impact of sea level rise on our Bayfront (noted here) and has expended substantial resources coming up with plans.  All of the additional building at SFO (the international terminal, the hotel and the new tower) is believed to have exacerbated the sinking--and made sea level rise more of a risk.  The settlement amount rumored to be in the neighborhood of $3.5 million will go towards reimbursing these expenses and further mitigation near our cash cow hotels.  Great work by the city staff getting SF to pay up!  Here is the map of building "subsidence".

 

 

Bayfront Prediction - 48 Inches of Rise?

The SF Chronicle broke up the pandemic news with a front page piece about the local effects of sea level rise.

The study was led by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which released its first detailed look at sea level rise in 2007. But the autonomous state agency was joined in this effort by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Bay Area Regional Collaborative. Caltrans funded most of the $1.2 million study, which bears the unwieldy title, “Adapting to Rising Tides Bay Area: Regional Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Study.”

The full report analyzes scenarios for 10 different extremes of “total water levels,” a term that would apply to straightforward higher tides — day in and day out — as well as storm surges layered on top of higher tides. They range from 12 to 108 inches.  But much of the emphasis is on a raised water level of 48 inches, a number that corresponds to the “likely” amount of sea level rise forecast in the Bay Area for 2120 by the California Ocean Protection Council.

This part caught my eye as we are enjoying a slightly quieter SFO although two nights ago was still quite bad

The findings go beyond large-scale numbers to highlight specific aspects of the approaching threat to how the region functions.

• Runways at San Francisco and Oakland airports would be largely under water.

It's fun to wander around the internet looking at various studies.  This one is pretty short and leads to the factoid that

The current sea level rise is 3 mm/year.  The data from the past can also be used for future projections, using a so-called semi-empirical model calibrated with the historically observed relationship between temperature and sea level. With the new data, this results in a projected increase in the 21st century of 24-131 cm, depending on our emissions and thus on the extent of global warming.

Keep in mind, the highest-water mark of 131cm is 51 inches or close to the "most likely" 48 inch rise in the Bay Area study.  You will have to decide if using the highest prediction is an April Fool's joke or not.

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.