UPDATE
It has been a long 10 months since the Task Force was convened, and three longer years for those of us under the barrage of airplanes from Burbank Airport, but they have finally sent their recommendations to the FAA.
We want to extend a special thanks to everybody who has participated in this process to date, to those of you who have donated to the legal fund, and especially to our sister community organizations' hard work!
We also appreciate the Task Force's work over the past 10 months: here is a summary of some of the recommendations that passed and will be sent to the FAA:
Most important is to immediately restore Burbank Airport's Runway 15 departure flight tracks to 2007 conditions.
Reject Burbank Airport's Proposed Procedures, SLAPP TWO and OROSZ THREE, that our community overwhelmingly opposed.
Remove Van Nuys Airport's waypoint PPRRY from all procedures.
Other recommendations include: higher climb gradients so the jets can ascend faster; greater dispersion; and runway rotation encouraging departures to the east.
Long-term recommendations include studies re noise and curfews.
If you missed the last virtual Task Force meeting during which members voted on recommendations to send to the FAA, follow this link and select the May 7th video: https://hollywoodburbankairport.com/noise-environment/noise-task-force/
The Task Force is not disbanding and will be closely watching the FAA's response. The FAA will be required to provide a progress report to the Task Force every 45 days. UproarLA and other community organizations will continue to push the Task Force, the City, and the FAA for a FAIR solution to the narrow, low altitude Jet Superhighway that has affected so many of our lives.
Please also note that UproarLA's mission is, and always has been, to utilize legal action to prevent the "proposed" procedures — the flight paths over our neighborhoods - from becoming permanent. In the event that the FAA chooses NOT to implement the recommendations from the Task Force; and the lawsuit brought by the City of LA does not provide relief, the FAA can still try and move forward with those procedures. UproarLA and our lawyers have been laying the legal groundwork for our case in this lawsuit over many months.
It has now been 14 months since the FAA announced its intention to complete and Environmental Assessment (EA) of the proposed procedures — this is an unprecedented amount of time to complete a process which should have been completed by now. Nevertheless, before we can take effective legal action, we must await the Draft EA - we then have 30 days to comment on it with the advice of our legal team. Upon publication of the Final EA, we then have 60 days to comment, and to initiate legal action.
We understand firsthand how devastating these paths are to our community and appreciate everyone's time, effort and energy toward this fight . We continue to believe that the success of our effort hinges on legal, political, and community action — we continue to be grateful to each of you for being part of this community, which continues to fight for the restoration of our peace and health.