Thursday, January 4, 1996 · Page A18
Editor -- I am concerned about the ``teardrop'' flight approach to SFO currently being tested over Montara Mountain. The Airport Roundtable proposed it to eliminate noise problems experienced by Woodside and Atherton from four flights a day flying at 4,000 to 6,000 feet, occurring between the hours of 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. It is suggested that bringing these planes over Pacifica at 11,000 feet will have no adverse impact.
I strongly disagree. If some pilots failed to adhere to established ``powering down'' procedures in the past, how can we expect future compliance? Besides, Pacifica has a bowl-like topography that significantly amplifies any noise. Flight delays will invariably bring some flights over our neighborhoods outside the scheduled ``flight window.'' And, the ongoing major expansion of SFO capacity could very well worsen the problem over time, so why open a proverbial ``Pandora's box''?
I find it interesting that in their first months of Airport Roundtable membership, the affluent communities of Woodside and Atherton are on the verge of successfully shifting their problems onto us, a longtime Airport Roundtable member. This isn't a case of NIMBY syndrome. It's a matter of fairness. Arbitrary degradation of one community's quiet, even by one decibel, for the benefit of another community, is unacceptable on principle alone.
Pacifica already shoulders its fair burden of SFO activities as evidenced by the mandatory ``plane noise footprint'' disclosure affecting property transactions in a number of our neighborhoods. Clearly, Pacifica will derive no benefit from this proposed flight path. What solitude and quality of life we do presently enjoy is only being compromised.
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