This was an excellent meeting (you know you’re a wonk when you think -any- meeting is ‘excellent’). But three things I noticed:
1. The City of Burien is taking the airport and noise and pollution SERIOUSLY in a way, frankly, that DM hasn’t in a decade. A lot of this is due to the presence of Debi Wagner and Larry Cripe, but -all- the members were thoroughly engaged. I had this thought: Why are -they- taking this so much more seriously than Des Moines, when they are, generally speaking so much -less- affected? Or rather–why is DES MOINES behaving like Burien when we have so much more at risk? I was actually jealous.
2. There was a presentation by John Resing, a guy you will all likely hear about in the next few months. He is working with the City of Federal Way on a whole range of airport issues. So Federal Way is definitely engaged.
3. There was a Burien citizen who had done some research and presented several interesting bits of data which he said, corroborated the Port’s claims–eg. that the altitudes -have- remained consistent. One item caught my attention: He said that a lot of citizen complaints were not due to altitude or changes in paths, but rather that the -engines- were no longer being certified to the newer (lower) noise standards. He claimed that Boeing recognised that engines on many newer planes were louder ‘by about five to fifteen decibels’. That’s bad, but for -me- here’s the really interesting part: Nobody reacted. I think I know why and this is why I hate talking about ‘decibels’. FIVE DECIBELS IS 40% LOUDER. FIFTEEN DECIBELS CAN BE 150% LOUDER. That doesn’t mean that the plane is that much louder–there are a bunch of other factors. But that’s a HUGE increase. It’s the equivalent of taking the muffler of yer car. It shows once again that very few people–even people who are engaged on this issue, react appropriately because DECIBELS ARE NOT INTUITIVE. For most Americans, it’s like talking in metric. We just don’t ‘feel it’. We have no idea how loud 55dbA -feels- vs. 65dbA. If I say a sound was 40dbA or 85dbA you probably have -no- idea what that feels like in your daily life.
But for the record: A 3db increase in SPL is barely noticeable. But 10db is TWICE as loud.