Airport plan to muffle noise will not work, study shows
By Pamela Garretson, Daily Record

HANOVER - A study released on Thursday showed there's no way for the Morristown Municipal Airport to muffle the rumble of airplanes that has drawn complaints from neighbors in the Madison area.

William Barkhauer, airport director, said an alternative takeoff pattern for Runway 23, which abuts Columbia Turnpike, would shift the noise to another neighborhood and also wouldn't be acceptable to the Federal Aviation Administration.

"We live in the busiest airspace in the world," Barkhauer said. "Even if we came up with a new departure procedure, the FAA wouldn't be able to implement it."

At 6,000 feet, Runway 23 is the longer of the airport's two runways and the one used most frequently. Airport officials were hoping the FAA would allow planes taking off to make their first turn three or four miles south of Runway 23, instead of at one mile as they do now.

Findings from the $40,000 study, conducted by McFarland-Johnson Inc. of Binghamton, N.Y., showed that if aircraft continued straight for a longer distance after taking off, the noise would affect neighbors south of the airport, in Chatham and Harding.

Barkhauer said the FAA historically has refused to approve a plan that shifts noise without significant benefits.

Bill List, a 33-year Madison resident and president of the Quieter Environment Through Sound Thinking advocacy group, said he's disappointed with the study's findings.

"It's not over," List said. "We don't give up easy. We're going to have to try a different approach."

List said the aircraft noise he hears from his home can drown out the television and telephone conversations.

"You can't have a conversation with your neighbor," List said. "Some planes are loud enough to drown out my lawnmower."

List and airport officials said noise of that magnitude comes from the oldest planes, none of which is based at Morristown Municipal Airport.

Barkhauer said he plans to work with Madison residents and county officials to appeal to Congress to require engine upgrades for all business jets. In the 1990s, Congress passed a law that required commercial airlines to use quieter, modernized engines, but it did not apply to private aircraft.

Pamela Garretson can be reached at (973) 267-8937.