Does the airport serve the public good of Longmont? Is it still compatible with the growing population? Is it the best use of city property?
The airport is owned by the people of Longmont, but the FAA controls the flights. The city can control growth and use or close it at its discretion. Currently, planes are allowed to fly over any part of Longmont at altitudes of up to 1,000 feet. These planes are loud and blow exhaust fumes over us. Many of them have no mufflers and use leaded gasoline. If leaded gasoline was banned for cars, why isn’t it banned for planes that fly directly over us every day?
Studies show that noise affects our wellbeing and has a detrimental effect on children’s development. There are no noise regulations for the planes that fly over our homes. We have noise regulations for everyone else, so why not for the planes that fly over our homes all day long?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers the Front Range to be in “severe” violation of federal ozone standards. Private aircraft are major polluters per passenger. It is contradictory that the city allows highly polluting private aircraft at our municipal airport while pushing so hard to go all electric at the expense of our citizens.
Other cities have lawsuits pending over noise pollution and leaded fuel from local airports, and a group in Boulder wants their airport turned into a residential area. If nearby small airports close, those planes will be diverted to our airport and over our homes. Why should we have more planes damaging our neighborhoods if it’s not acceptable for other cities?
If the city is serious about creating more housing, we need to limit the use of the airport and use that space for more housing. The City of Longmont’s mission statement is to “improve the quality of life for those who live, work or visit our community.” Why are the privileged few who use our airport – mostly for pleasure, recreation and convenience – allowed to do such harm to the rest of us? This is not fair and it is not a safe place for our children to grow up.
There is also talk of expanding the airport to accommodate larger commercial aircraft, which would be devastating.
The use of our airport serves the selfish benefit of a few and harms the vast majority of Longmont. We cannot allow airplanes to continue to burden our city with loud, unnecessary noise and toxic emissions if the city wants to grow and still have a healthy quality of life.
In conversation with Councilman Sean McCoy, he offered some creative solutions to shift the airport’s focus from noisy, polluting aircraft to lower noise and environmental impact activities that more citizens can enjoy, such as dedicated hot air balloon launch areas, drone sites, and a site for electric aircraft development.
We have numerous options available for the future of our airport: from reorientation towards uses that are less noisy and less environmentally harmful to closing the area and using it for housing.
Here are some recommendations our city leaders should follow before making any further improvements or expansions to the airport or accepting any more money from the FAA:
1. Prepare a report on the dangers posed by noise and lead emissions from aircraft flying overhead.
2. Analyze the negative impacts compared to the airport’s revenues.
3. Consider some of Councilman McCoy’s ideas for transitioning our airport to a less harmful use of airspace.
4. Analyze alternative revenue opportunities for the airport site, such as much-needed residential and shopping centers.
5. Follow the example of other growing cities, limit airport expansion and start planning for the closure of our airport.
Citizens can speak out against our airport on Facebook/Voice of Longmont, NextDoor, the Times-Call, write to our City Council, or speak at a City Council meeting.
You may also file a complaint about our airport at https://www.longmontcolorado.gov/online-services/service-request.
Sources: https://www.cpr.org/2022/04/12/front-range-air-quality-ozone-violations-epa/.
Charlie Shilling lives in Longmont and just wants a quiet, safe place to live with his family.
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