Noise on Hanscom can't change facts

A Boston Herald editorial
Monday, June 2, 2003

No offense meant to author David McCullough, but Minute Man National Historic Park is no Yosemite. The misleading comparison of the two national parks is typical of the NIMBY arguments made against reasonable air travel out of Hanscom Field - long on drama, short on facts.

``Would we as a nation, if there were 598 flights a day over Yosemite National Park say, `That ought to stop?' Yes, I think we would,'' McCullough said at an event celebrating the designation of Minute Man National Park as one of the nation's ``11 Most Endangered Historic Places'' by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

That the Washington, D.C.-based group is less than discriminating in its designations didn't dampen Hanscom foes' enthusiasm. So what if the National Trust also says every neighborhood school, every main street, the entire Island of Nantucket and prairie churches in North Dakota are endangered too. Their designation still made for a good excuse to rally the anti-Hanscom troops.

But back to Yosemite. Yosemite Valley's unparalleled wilderness, memorialized by Ansel Adams, was designated a national park in 1890. Minute Man National Historic Park was so designated in 1959, almost 20 years after aviation operations began at Hanscom Field.

And somewhere in between Route 2A, which runs through it, Route 128, which runs right by it, and the thousands of square feet of office space in the communities around it, we must have missed Minute Man's pristine wilderness.

The fact that just 4 percent of vehicle traffic on Route 2A during peak times is to or from Hanscom Field, and that the master plans of the park's surrounding communities call for 6.2 million square feet of office and research and development space somehow didn't make it into the press release touting how endangered the park is.

As for noise overhead, at 218,248 takeoffs and landings, Hanscom's operations are close to the same level that they were 40 years ago. And the planes being used today are a heck of a lot quieter.

But hey, we're glad that the little band of activists in colonial garb and the luminaries supporting them didn't let any of these pesky little facts get in the way of their made-for-the-media event.

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