East Hampton Airport Noise Restrictions Blocked
In a decision issued Friday morning, a federal appeals court barred East Hampton Town from enforcing three 2015 laws aimed at addressing excessive aircraft noise at East Hampton Airport.
"The town is deeply disappointed" in the decision, Michael Sendlenski, the town attorney, said in a statement Friday afternoon.
An aviation group called Friends of East Hampton Airport had sued the town seeking to overturn two overnight curfews and a law restricting noisy aircraft to one takeoff and landing per week during the summer season. A lower court blocked the once-a-week limit, but allowed the overnight curfews to stand.
On Friday the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the lower court's decision on the landing and takeoff limits, but said that the two curfews — a general ban on takeoffs and landings from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and an extended ban from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m. for noisy aircraft — should also have been blocked.
"In so ruling, we express no view as to the wisdom of the local laws at issue," the court wrote. "We conclude only that federal law mandates that such laws be enacted according to specified procedures . . . "
In enacting the airport noise laws, the court said, the town failed to comply with procedural requirements of the Airport Noise and Capacity Act, "which apply to public airport operators regardless of their federal-funding status." The town had argued that because it was willing to forego future federal funding, it was not subject to those requirements.
Referring to earlier case law, the court wrote that the Airport Noise and Capacity Act allows local airport operators to impose noise or access restriction on certain classes of less noisy aircraft only after "180 days' notice and an opportunity for comment" and on the quietest class of aircraft only when those restrictions have been agreed to "by the airport proprietor and all aircraft operators" or have been "submitted to and approved by the Secretary of Transportation after an airport or aircraft operator's request for approval."
The three laws were East Hampton Town's attempt to address excessive aircraft noise that had prompted complaints from the North and South Forks. The curfews took effect in July 2015.
"The Court's opinion undermines local control of operations at the town-owned airport property and establishes that the federal bureaucracy controls regulations in the area of aviation noise abatement and control," Mr. Sendlenski wrote. The town board, he said, "has always held the belief that it had a public policy responsibility to protect local residents from the loud and disturbing effects of aircraft noise," and to "provide residents who are impacted by aircraft noise meaningful and deserved relief."
On Monday, a number of companies accused of noise or curfew violations at the airport during the summer of 2016 agreed to pay fines in a plea-bargaining agreement reached with the town. There were 38 violations in the summer of 2016, down from 64 the summer before, according to the town attorney's office, which noted a "over 99 percent compliance with the curfew regulations."
"Although today’s court decision places the solution to the aviation noise problem firmly at the feet of Congress and the F.A.A.," the town attorney's office wrote, "the town will continue to explore every available option so that the residents of the East End won’t continue to be inflicted by an unrelenting din from the skies above."