FAA NextGen And Health Impacts

For the citizens living under the NextGen flightpaths, there is an incredible amount of concern about the cumulative impacts of hundreds of low-flying airplanes releasing toxic particulate matter emissions daily over communities.

The FAA itself has stated that one of the goals of NextGen is to reduce harmful toxic emissions by flying more “efficient” flightpaths – but if by the FAA’s own admission that airplane emissions are harmful, shouldn’t the hundreds of thousands of Americans living under these new flightpaths be very concerned about their health? The FAA is now targeting all these harmful emissions over the same people, hundreds of times a day. At lower elevations.

How many citizens living under these NextGen flightpaths can expect to start seeing elevated cancer clusters? Will it be five years? Ten years? Fifteen years? Remember that in order to spring NextGen on communities as quickly as possible, the FAA got the review process exempted from  any environmental review oversight. 

There is also growing concern about the health impacts of repeated and constant exposure to noise pollution – there have been several studies in recent years showing that repeated exposure to high-frequency noise results in an array of negative health conditions, many that first begin to manifest in children.

Articles

The Harms To Health Caused By Aviation Noise Require Urgent Action

The harms to health caused by aviation noise require urgent action

How Noise Hurts The Human Heart

https://knowablemagazine.org/article/health-disease/2021/how-noise-pollution-affects-heart-health

Airplane Noise Appears To Negatively Impact Fetal Health

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-airplane-noise-negatively-impact-fetal.html

Noise Pollution And Violence

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=EEAESEM2019&paper_id=1198

The End Of Silence

Scientists have known for decades that noise—even at the seemingly innocuous volume of car traffic—is bad for us. “Calling noise a nuisance is like calling smog an inconvenience,” former U.S. Surgeon General William Stewart said in 1978. In the years since, numerous studies have only underscored his assertion that noise “must be considered a hazard to the health of people everywhere.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/the-end-of-silence/598366/

Airline Pollution Is Soaring And Nobody Knows How To Fix It

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-10/airline-pollution-is-soaring-and-nobody-knows-how-to-fix-it

Plane Exhaust Kills More People Than Plane Crashes

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101005-planes-pollution-deaths-science-environment/

Communities Around Sea-Tac Airport Exposed To A Unique Mix Of Air Pollution Associated With Aircraft

https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/12/03/communities-around-sea-tac-airport-exposed-to-a-unique-mix-of-air-pollution-associated-with-aircraft/

Aviation Noise Impacts: State Of The Science

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5437751/

Health Consequences Of Aircraft Noise

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696954/

Aircraft Noise Is Harmful To You

https://soundear.com/2018/02/22/aircraft-noise-harmful/

Health Effects Of Aircraft Noise

http://partner.mit.edu/projects/health-effects-aircraft-noise

Long Term Exposure To Aircraft Noise Linked To High Blood Pressure

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170613185148.htm

Communities Surrounding Logan Airport Subject To Harmful Air Pollution

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2019/09/24/air-pollution-from-logan-airport-harms-surrounding-communities-research-shows

Health Effects Of Airport Noise And Pollution

https://www.thoughtco.com/health-effects-of-airport-noise-and-pollution-1204091

Noise Exposure Is Becoming The New Second-Hand Smoke

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/noise-exposure-is-becoming-the-new-secondhand-smoke/2018/05/11/dd080c30-52d3-11e8-9c91-7dab596e8252_story.html

Research Presentations

“Aircraft Noise Metrics – Aircraft Noise Is The New Second Hand Smoke”

Highlights From Study:

  • The Noise Control Act of 1972 empowered the EPA to determine noise limits to protect the public health and welfare, and to establish a noise control office. In 1973 the EPA established community noise levels for aircraft, using A-weighted decibel measures. At that time, the EPA acknowledged the measure was inadequate, but convenient for public relations. 
  • The EPA decided in 1973 that the “disturbance by individual noise events and occasional high levels should be controlled by maximum permissible noise levels for individual events established by local authorities. Control over such events should not be attempted by lowering the average sound level.”
  • In 1982 EPA funding for further noise research and enforcement of noise controls was discontinued. States and local governments do not establish their own standards because the 1973 law is still the law of the land, although the 1973 report on aircraft noise indicates that local governments can set local noise standards. 
  • Decibels for Non-Acousticians: The terminology is technical, and the math gets complex quickly. The EPA and FAA count on most people not being able to slog through the math, the terminology, and the measurement issues. 
  • Airplanes generate sounds across a wide range of frequencies, most of which the FAA does not measure for community noise purposes. 
  • Low-frequency sound encounters less absorption as it travels through the air than higher frequency sound, so it persists for longer distances from the airport.
  • Congress should require full spectral analysis of overflights, including by airplane model and speed, meteorological conditions, and topography.