CommunityAIR and the issue of noise
Yes, CommunityAIR, and
waterfront resident organizations, along with Councillors Pam McConnell and Adam
Vaughan, are participating in meetings with Port Authority consultants looking
at noise issues. Strangely, CommunityAIR was originally omitted from the
invitees.
The TPA has opted not to perform the study mandated by the tripartite agreement – the NEF Contour study. Only that study will determine whether the noise emanating from the airport exceeds that permitted by the tripartite agreement.
Apparently, there is an existing NEF Contour study, carried out in 2001 for the TPA, by PSMI. While we asked the TPA for a copy of that study on April 20, there has been no response. We have recently obtained an update of that study, carried out by Pryde Schropp McComb in 2005 for investors in Porter. Interestingly, that study did not consider helicopter noise, that is now required to be considered, as a result of the City’s recent request to have helicopter flight paths specified.
We are advised that Transport Canada is now carrying out the correct NEF Contour study, although it has dawdled outrageously – the City required that it be carried out by a request last December 6. We’re aware of very little progress in getting it done.
CommunityAIR has decided to fund its own noise consultant to peer-review this study to ensure the results are credible. We've chosen Valcoustics, recommended by Alan Heisey, a lawyer who works on noise issues.
We’re not at all sure what the TPA study will do, beyond suggesting that the TPA is doing something about noise, when it really isn’t. The jury’s out on that.
In the meantime, pressure from that committee, and the community – particularly through noise complaints to the TPA - has resulted in a virtual cessation of curfew breaches.
And as a result of persistent questions at that committee, the TPA has finally admitted that the Q400 operated b Porter does in fact beach the noise limits established by the tripartite agreement – with the twist that they say averaging of its noise is permitted (even though the tripartite agreement does not permit such averaging). We’ve suggested that the best way to sort that issue out – and whether the tripartite agreement actually permits the Q400 to fly at all from the Island airport, be taken to a judge to decide. So far, the TRPA hasn’t bit.
TPA chair Mark McQueen persists with his line that urban noise is a fact of life (living as he does near a firehall). But the difference is that the TPA has agreed to be bound by quite strict noise constraints – constraints we’re of the view it is flagrantly breaching. Residents living near the airport are entitled to the protection of those constraints.
Brian Iler, Chair
CommunityAIR
The TPA has opted not to perform the study mandated by the tripartite agreement – the NEF Contour study. Only that study will determine whether the noise emanating from the airport exceeds that permitted by the tripartite agreement.
Apparently, there is an existing NEF Contour study, carried out in 2001 for the TPA, by PSMI. While we asked the TPA for a copy of that study on April 20, there has been no response. We have recently obtained an update of that study, carried out by Pryde Schropp McComb in 2005 for investors in Porter. Interestingly, that study did not consider helicopter noise, that is now required to be considered, as a result of the City’s recent request to have helicopter flight paths specified.
We are advised that Transport Canada is now carrying out the correct NEF Contour study, although it has dawdled outrageously – the City required that it be carried out by a request last December 6. We’re aware of very little progress in getting it done.
CommunityAIR has decided to fund its own noise consultant to peer-review this study to ensure the results are credible. We've chosen Valcoustics, recommended by Alan Heisey, a lawyer who works on noise issues.
We’re not at all sure what the TPA study will do, beyond suggesting that the TPA is doing something about noise, when it really isn’t. The jury’s out on that.
In the meantime, pressure from that committee, and the community – particularly through noise complaints to the TPA - has resulted in a virtual cessation of curfew breaches.
And as a result of persistent questions at that committee, the TPA has finally admitted that the Q400 operated b Porter does in fact beach the noise limits established by the tripartite agreement – with the twist that they say averaging of its noise is permitted (even though the tripartite agreement does not permit such averaging). We’ve suggested that the best way to sort that issue out – and whether the tripartite agreement actually permits the Q400 to fly at all from the Island airport, be taken to a judge to decide. So far, the TRPA hasn’t bit.
TPA chair Mark McQueen persists with his line that urban noise is a fact of life (living as he does near a firehall). But the difference is that the TPA has agreed to be bound by quite strict noise constraints – constraints we’re of the view it is flagrantly breaching. Residents living near the airport are entitled to the protection of those constraints.
Brian Iler, Chair
CommunityAIR
Comments