Occasionally, people insisting "Not in my back yard" have good reason. For example, the other day Miss Biscuit, one of my horses, got out of the pasture and dug divots in a neighbor's soft, water-soaked backyard. I repaired the lawn. He had a point.
Although many of the NIMBYites' claims are knee-jerk reactions, their potential is to wreak havoc on liberties we've complacently taken for granted. Accounts of airports being threatened by their neighbors have become clichés. Even Columbia County Airport, my local airport, has been the object of anti-airport neighbors that were aroused by the announcement of a runway extension. The group that called itself RANC (Reduce Airport Noise Committee) was organized by a homeowner who had bought a house at the corner of the landing pattern and didn't like having airplanes overhead. The group hired a lawyer, generated newspaper articles and held meetings designed to enlist other residents who hadn't been aware there was a noise problem. They wanted to stop the runway extension, concerned it would mean bigger airplanes generating more noise; they wanted to ban touch-and-goes and night operations; and the organizer wanted to change the pattern so there would be a right-hand pattern that would keep airplanes from turning over his house.
I attended one of the meetings and, after sitting in silence, finally felt compelled to speak up when the distortions and misconceptions about airplane operations became too bizarre. After admitting that I was an airplane owner I pointed out that there was no way Federal Express would use our rural airport as a hub, or the airlines use it for practice approaches with their 747s. Interestingly, when the meeting broke up the organizer approached me and asked if I would be willing to occasionally fly him down to New York City. Talk about wanting his cake and eating it, too.
When an anti-airport story appeared in our local paper I wrote a letter to the editor announcing the formation of FILE (Fliers In Love with the Environment) and suggested that RANC and FILE should work together to ensure that everyone's concerns were addressed. We promised to fly more neighborly and announced that noise abatement procedures had been put in place. Once the runway was extended and none of the dire predictions occurred, and most significantly, when the original organizer moved away, the airport antagonists faded away.
Those against airports aren't all anti-noise. They can find a number of reasons for wanting an airport closed. I remember residents at an NATA-sponsored focus group in Readington, New Jersey, were concerned about overcrowding of their roads because, as a "reliever" airport, airliners from Newark would be landing at nearby Solberg-Hunterdon Airport. One participant said, "Imagine, if a business jet lands at the airport and the CEO gets out, looks around and says, 'This would be a good place to build a facility.' We certainly don't want that." I kid you not.
Recently the attacks on another New Jersey airport have become relentless. Ironically, the problems Dan Walker, owner of Somerset Airport (SMQ) that's been operated by his family since 1946, is facing are a result of the beautiful area in which the airport is located. "Normally airports are located in marshlands or places no one wants. When the land becomes valuable, that's a big problem." And he has big-expensive-legal problems.
According to Walker, he's been trying for two years to have the NorthStar Medevac Sikorsky S-76 helicopter, operated by the New Jersey Board of Health in cooperation with the State Police, permanently housed at the airport.
Since 1990, the helicopter service, staffed by EMS technicians from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), was based at a heliport on the roof of the University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.
But the hospital wanted to improve access time. From the Newark location, the helicopter could rarely service the western part of the state. (A second S-76, SouthStar Medevac, is based in southern New Jersey to service residents in that part of the state.) "After a brief study to locate the best location," Walker related, "it was decided that Somerset, in the center of the service area, was the perfect location in order to service all of the northern part of the state equally." Somerset, at the intersection of three major highways (I-78, I-287 and US 22) that account for many of North Jersey's automobile accidents, offers a central location with fuel, maintenance and weather reporting services on the field. An ideal base. "And in fact, that's proved to be the case," Walker reported.
In February 2005 the NorthStar Medevac helicopter relocated to Somerset and operated out of two double-wide trailers and a hangar built for another customer who, Walker said, graciously set aside his own requirements so the unit could have use of the hangar.
