Lowell Sun
Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Hanscom flight plan draws residents' ire
Hundreds decry Massport's 'irresponsible use of public trust'

By MATT O'BRIEN, Sun Correspondent

BEDFORD -- Nearly two weeks after being turned away from a public hearing because they couldn't fit in Town Hall, area residents poured into Bedford High School in droves last night to protest the future expansion of Hanscom Field.

More than 750 residents of nearby towns turned out to criticize the Massachusetts Port Authority's planning and environmental report, which drew no conclusions but found nothing that would prevent the expansion of the airport's commercial operations.

A vocal coalition of public officials and residents spent over five hours launching a detailed attack on the report. In a plea to the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office to take action, residents painted the document as a misleading attempt to clear the way for Massport's plan to expand use of Hanscom in order to relieve congestion at Boston's Logan Airport.

Lexington state Rep. Jay Kaufman accused Massport of using "shoddy analysis" and "shoddy assumptions" to get the state to rubber-stamp future expansion of the airport.

"(Massport) has been making ad-hoc decisions that are destroying the future of this place," said Kaufman, a Democrat. "That is an irresponsible use of the public trust."

Massport representatives argued that their report was not meant to be a blueprint for expansion,

"This is a draft report," Massport CEO Craig Coy said. "It's just part of a process. It's not a conclusion or a final step."

But while the report found that air and noise impacts of expanded commercial use would fall within acceptable standards, critics wouldn't buy it.

"I've read too many environmental plans," said state Sen. Susan Fargo, a Lincoln Democrat. "They all contain a common flaw. They ignore the background details.

"If we, as public officials, conducted ourselves like that, we would be ridden out of town," Fargo added.

Activists spent hours explaining the "background details" that they believe render Massport's forecasts and statistics inadequate.

Lexington resident Anthony Galaitsis argued that Massport's use of a day/night average threshold of 65 decibels for overflying planes is "an intentional act of misleading the public."

"The 65 does not usefully represent the impact on human beings," said Galaitsis, who earned a doctorate degree in acoustics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Although that figure is considered a standard threshold by the Federal Aviation Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency considers levels over 55 as a significant level of noise exposure for humans.

Other residents sharply criticized Massport for neglecting to report on the impact of the chemical de-icing of airplanes during winter. The use of de-icing procedures would grow with the increase of day-to-day cargo services, and residents fear the chemical use would harm nearby streams and watersheds, which feed into the local water supply.

Activists also faulted Massport for not reporting groundwater studies and for relying on arbitrary phone surveys as a basis for determining the community's response to noise-exposure levels.

Using video endorsements from celebrities such as actor Christopher Reeve and biologist E.O. Wilson, conservationists stressed the exceptional historical and tourist importance of Bedford, Concord, Lexington and Lincoln as a seat of the American Revolution and the environmental movement.

But proponents argue that an expanded Hanscom would ease the growing demand placed on Logan by corporate time-share jet services and cargo jet companies such as Federal Express and UPS.

Ford von Weise, a private pilot, said he opposes the increasing commercialization of Hanscom, but also opposes what he said are activists' attempts to compromise safety for conservation.

"Hanscom plays a very important regional role," said Weise. "If those facilities do not exist, that traffic will go elsewhere. ... Over 400,000 people used Hanscom last year. They have a voice, too."

"Hanscom might be a part of the air-traffic system, but, unfortunately, it's in the wrong place," said John Williams, a member of the conservation group Safeguarding the Historic Hanscom Area's Irreplaceable Resources, or ShhAIR.

The Massachusetts Environmental Protection Agency, which can influence but not legislate the future of Hanscom, will determine the adequacy of Massport's study on Dec. 16. The public comment period ends Nov. 26.

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