Bedford Minuteman
Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Sound of the future predicted

By Anna Winter and Margaret Coppe

Imagine the sound of 95,000 jet takeoffs and landings per year. That's
triple what you're hearing now, and 10 times what you were hearing in 1995.
It's an average of 260 jets blasting over Minute Man National Historical
Park, Walden Woods, and our schools and homes every day.

And it's the sound of the future, unless we act now to stop the growth of
corporate jet traffic at Massport's Hanscom Field civilian airport.

Jet operations are up 10.6 percent over last year. Assuming 10 percent
average annual growth, there will be more than 95,000 by 2015. That's an
entirely reasonable assumption: Between 1995 and 2000, the lowest annual
growth figure was 8 percent, the highest was 26 percent, and the average was
16 percent -- and jet operations more than doubled. Today, they are at more
than triple the 1995 level.

This didn't happen because a handful of corporations made huge increases in
their use of the airport; it happened because, with Massport's enthusiastic
encouragement, many corporations made incremental increases. Therefore, to
head off the nightmare scenario outlined above, we must vigorously protest
every proposed incremental increase that comes to public attention. Right
now, that means opposing Liberty Mutual's plan for a new hangar.

Liberty Mutual is as guilty as anyone for the doubling of jet flights at
Hanscom in the second half of the 90s, having doubled its own fleet by
purchasing a new jet in 1997 and another in 1999. Now it wants to build a
new hangar for its four jets. When Liberty Mutual vacates its current
hangar, Massport will lease it to another company that will base still more
jets here. This will lead to yet another incremental increase in jet
traffic -- and that is simply not acceptable.

Nine municipalities (the four towns, plus Acton, Carlisle, Waltham, Wayland
and Woburn), our congressional and statehouse delegations, and the two
citizen's groups have unanimously called for a moratorium on "any
infrastructure improvements or new development" at Hanscom. ("Hanscom at the
Crossroads," April 2002.) That means, among other things, no new hangars.

It's ironic -- even hypocritical -- that Liberty Mutual keeps jets at
Hanscom, in light of its recent sponsorship of a TV spot promoting tourism
at Minute Man National Historical Park. The ad shows the park as a peaceful
place, with birds singing in the trees, children playing, costumed
interpreters presenting living history, and not a plane in sight (or in
earshot). Yet Liberty Mutual's own jets shatter that serenity every day.

We reject Liberty Mutual's argument that it has "only" 500 operations a
year, or about two percent of total jet traffic. It's not as if three or
four businesses account for the other 98 percent, which would make Liberty
Mutual a bit player. Many corporations use Hanscom. Most "transient" users
(those whose aircraft are not based here) account for less than two percent
of operations. The heaviest transient users are the fractional jet
companies -- but they represent a large number of time-share owners, who
each use Hanscom far less than Liberty Mutual does.

No doubt some companies with jets based at Hanscom have more operations than
Liberty Mutual. So what? What's important is that Liberty Mutual directly
contributed to the relentless growth of jet traffic by doubling the size of
its fleet just a few years ago. Our historic towns are suffering the death
of a thousand cuts from corporate jet flights, and it's outrageous for
Liberty Mutual to assert, in effect, that its 20 cuts don't count. By moving
out of its existing hangar, Liberty Mutual will enable some other corporate
jet owner to inflict still more cuts. We cannot allow this to happen.

Liberty Mutual has managed to get along for the past five years by keeping
three jets in its current hangar and the fourth elsewhere at the airport. It
has given no persuasive reason why it cannot continue with this arrangement.
(According to a letter from Liberty Mutual to Save Our Heritage, "our
current facility is too small for us to safely protect and maintain our
aircraft." Presumably neither Liberty Mutual nor Massport will wish to claim
that they have allowed an unsafe condition to persist at Hanscom for five
years).

Vigorous and sustained citizen action has reduced commercial passenger
aviation at Hanscom to a single destination (Trenton) and forced FedEx to
suspend its plans. Now we must do the same to stop the growth of corporate
aviation. We urge concerned citizens to (1) write to Liberty Mutual's
president, Edmund Kelley, at 175 Berkeley Street, Boston 02116, and (2)
attend the June 15 HFAC meeting at the Lexington Town Offices, where Liberty
Mutual will present its plans. We will announce additional protest
activities, opposing both Liberty Mutual's project and Massport's other
plans for still more corporate hangars, in the near future.

*Anna Winter is the executive director of Save Our Heritage. Margaret Coppe
is the president of ShhAir.*

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