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.
