Quiet Conflict in Naples, FL
A corporate airport becomes a hot button with FAA and industry
By John F. Infanger, Editorial Director
March 2001
NAPLES, FL — People come here for the quiet, the warm air. That, in brief, is why the Naples Municipal Airport has become a national focal point for the noise issue facing airports. It is operated by an authority not afraid to challenge federal authorities and to spend money, particularly when the FAA is attempting to enforce a regulation that still requires definition.
It
is a developing story, with FAA putting a temporary halt to a ban by the
Naples Airport Authority of Stage 2 aircraft under 75,000 lbs. —
i.e., corporate jets. It is becoming an important story, a precedent,
as other airports and their sponsors take a closer look at a basically
new regulation — FAR Part 161 — and how it might permit having
a greater say in what types of aircraft use their airports.
It’s also about the reaction of the
users, particularly the corporations that are members of the National
Business Aviation Association, which is taking the Naples authority to
court over the Stage 2 ban, which went into effect January 1. Following
FAA objections to the associated Part 161 filing by the authority, the
ban was temporarily halted while the various parties work toward a resolution.
FAA has yet to approve a Part 161 filing,
and Soliday and others question whether the agency is, like Indiana Jones,
charging ahead but making it up as they go along. The Part 161 filing
is the basic premise the authority is using on which to base its purview
for the Stage 2 ban. NBAA charges the move is unconstitutional and would
have a negative impact on the national transportation system.
The FAA did not return phone calls for this
article, but has been quoted as having reservations about whether or not
the Naples ban is reasonable under the grant assurances, and that banning
a class of aircraft is a very big deal (AIRPORTS, Feb. 13).
Ted Soliday, executive director at Naples
Municipal, explains, "In the ’90s, we started a master plan
to really look at all issues environmentally. One of the early things
we did was weight testing and runway testing, and we determined that the
airport should serve smaller aircraft. So we put our design limits to
75,000 lbs. and smaller."
Meanwhile, the 1990 Airport Noise and Capacity
Act by Congress directed FAA to implement new standards that would eliminate
large commercial Stage 2 aircraft (above 75,000 lbs.) and allow a mechanism
for more local control, the new Part 161. "We don’t question
that that’s positive," says Soliday. "But to airports like
Naples that serve aircraft under 75,000 lbs., there is no direct benefit.
If fact, when you see a G-II take off from here, that’s the same
engines that a DC-9-10 has. How can that be?"
the history
Naples today is much as it has been: a quiet,
warm Gulf Coast community of little more than 20,000 residents adjacent
to white sandy beaches and resorts such as Marco Island. Go east, you
sail. Go west, you walk with the alligators in the Everglades. In between,
you golf, with some 60 golf courses and another 20 approved but not yet
built.
It lies within Collier County, population
200,000-plus and the largest county east of the Mississippi, which is
burgeoning with growth. The city and the county appear to be at ongoing
odds regarding development.
In Naples, there is little room for growth,
and it is within that confine that the Naples Municipal Airport sits,
ready to serve newly retired corporates who fly in their personal jets
for a winter home. Alas, cry the residents, may they not have Stage 2
engines?
Understand the makeup of the community,
says Soliday, and one can see why the Naples confrontation with FAA over
Part 161 should not become a national symbol. It is not, he points out,
a larger commercial airport with an ability to expand. It will remain
a predominately corporate airport with commuter service. This is an issue
based on a community’s quiet and serene history. To that mix has
been added the new Part 161, which was intended by Congress to afford
communities more local control over an airport’s activities.
Noise has been a focus of the community
and the airport since the 1970s, says Soliday. Interestingly, however,
compatible zoning with the airport was not on the radar screen.
Explains Soliday, a former airport consultant,
"I’ve done an awful lot of noise studies, and I don’t know
of a general aviation or commuter-type airport like ours that has some
25 percent of our activity that is jets. You put the turboprops in there,
and the number goes way up.
"We serve small aircraft. This gets
into some of what FAA and NBAA are upset about. They keep saying 65 ldn;
if we zoned to 65, which we did in many ways, we’re still a little
airport. You know, the city actually uses noise monitors and uses 60 decibels
to determine whether a restaurant, or you and I outside with the patio
open, are creating too much noise.
"If that noise exceeds 60 decibels,
they will warn you first and then they’ll cite you."
the next phase
For its part, says Soliday, FAA officials
at the highest level have made the Naples noise issue a high priority,
to the point of appearing on a forum that was televised locally. The authority
has passed a resolution temporarily waiving the ban. FAA has assigned
the airport the task of reformulating the studies — costing some
half million dollars — it has already done and demonstrate how they
meet 161 requirements. In particular, according to reports, the key question
could become that of grant assurances and why this does not negatively
affect that national transportation system.
Comments Lisa LeBlanc-Hutch-ings, who has
directed the noise efforts at Naples, "We’re not against aviation.
But 161 was a process that Congress established and it clearly said in
the act that there would be small airports where noise would be more sensitive."
Says Soliday, "No one questions that
we have a noise problem, but how do you define that noise problem? On
a national basis, FAA kind of uses the metric of 65 ldn, which is on an
annualized basis. And in Part 161, the law and the regulation, they say
we must use — must use — an annualized metric to determine how
the problem is measured.
"The FAA doesn’t accept seasonal
contours, so everybody is banging on us because we used 60 ldn. They’ve
used 60 ldn many times in Part 150. The FAA has even done flight procedure
changes based on 60 ldn, so it’s not without precedent.
"If we’re required to use an annualized
metric, and if this authority is given by Congress the responsibility
for making the decision as long as it’s a Stage 2 or a Stage 1 restriction,
then this authority should have the determination of what’s reasonable
and what’s not."
The situation with Naples and the uncertainty
of how FAR Part 161 will ultimately be defined are work in process, it
seems. In the meantime, other airports and their communities are watching
the players here, awaiting the next stage.