About 20 of us made the trek down to the Redwood City courthouse on Tuesday to present our case for damages against SFO airport (and by extension the city of SF who owns and operates it).  You can catch up on the background of this story here and here.

Over the course of two and a half hours in the morning and another couple hours in the afternoon, we presented the context for the complaint (delivered by the awesome Sally Meakin) and a number of simply heart-wrenching stories about how the runway noise has affected people.  We heard about visiting grandchildren waking up in the middle of the night thinking we had an earthquake, we heard about European friends who are reluctant to visit due to the noise and, for me, the most difficult one to listen to was the B'game woman who has decided NOT to have corrective hearing surgery in one ear so that she can sleep on the other side and actually sleep.  I felt so sorry for her, but it actually makes sense.

The judge asked one speaker for a specific example of how the noise affected her. Without hesitation, she described how when she goes out for a walk, other dog-walking neighbors are all wearing headphones to try to block out the noise. Later, when we got more details on SF’s defense dates, the speaker commented, “How can there be a defense? How do you defend something that’s ruining our lives?’

A motion-sensitive alarm device in someone’s driveway that’s worked without a problem for years is now triggered by the roar of the back blast.

We learned a few things along the way.  As we are in small claims court, the only thing Judge Cristina Mazzei can do is award monetary damages.  She cannot order SFO to do (or not do) anything.  Assigning an amount to each claim would be a bit of an art which is why we are asking for a uniform $2,500 each.  The airport will present its defense when all of us are finished.  At the morning break that was set for May 21st in the afternoon, but it is still a bit up in the air.  As I type this in the early afternoon of Mother's Day, the roar is on-going and I'm sure a number of families are choosing not to be outside when they normally would be enjoying a lovely day.

Jackie Speier hosted a two-hour Townhall meeting at Skyline College on Tuesday night to address the issue of SFO airport noise.  It was very well-attended by about 500 people from around her district with a variety of concerns.  Panelists included a former United 747 captain currently on Speier's staff, airport director Ivar Satero and Peter Kirsch, an attorney known for successfully suing airports over noise issues.  For those of us who are embroiled in this issue, much of the agenda was review except for Kirsch's bit that gave a great 20 minute tutorial on the laws about noise.

One challenge with such meetings is one's concerns vary based on where one sits.  Pacifica residents have issues with overhead noise being more concentrated due to NextGen flight paths.  My assessment of their prospects for change/improvement is not hopeful.  Kirsch's legal review and insight left me with the impression that they just have to deal with it.  Similarly, the San Carlos and Menlo Park residents' issues with the San Carlos airport and Surf Air were a little out of scope for the meeting and shunted off to San Mateo County officials.

Finally, after about 90 minutes, during the Q&A, B'gamer Lynn Israelit from SFORunwayNoise.com was able to ask the burning question on behalf of the large Burlingame/Hillsborough contingent present– "What about the noise from engine run-up and take-off?"  This should have been the main focus of the meeting since on-the-ground noise is solely the responsibility of the airport–not the FAA who were not present and have total authority over airborne noise.  We got some insight from Satero about two kinds of ground noise:  initial start-up noise and "start of roll" reflected noise.  Noise from the maintenance bays was not mentioned.  He also mentioned a study of ground noise from 2000 that was done.  The big news was that a new study has been commissioned to update the 18 year old study, but no timing was given.

The most encouraging part of the evening was the impression Jackie Speier left of being engaged on the runway noise concerns.  She was home (in Hillsborough) recovering from surgery over the summer and that meant she finally felt our pain.  Windows rattling, low frequency noise, loud noise, 3 am departures–the whole panoply of problems.  Now it remains to be seen if mustering her political pressure and legal pressure can result in some improvements in our quality of life and sleep.

We noted the two runway noise meetings being held by local activists on June 21st here.  Both meetings went off as planned and offered a lot of information and a plan to hopefully force SFO and its owner, the City of San Francisco, to investigate what has changed for the worse since 2015 –and maybe even do something about it.  One of the things I learned at the meeting are that the noise limits that are in place are purely voluntary by the pilots and there are little if any penalties for not following the guidance.  Some airlines are known to be worse offenders than others.  The standard is more than 40 years old and does not account for high and low frequencies.  Also, back in 2011 the County Grand Jury found that the Airport Roundtable was experiencing "diminishing effectiveness".  Given that the Airport Roundtable is the one body that local politicians and city staff have for interacting officially with airport officials, that "diminishing effectiveness" is of great concern.  It hasn't improved in the last seven years!

The airport has reacted like any bureaucracy would in response to legal inquiries about noise.  In a case mentioned during the meeting, they responded with 118,000 pages of "documentation".  We know from a commenter here at the Voice that certain changes in "engineered arresting materials" have been implemented and may be partially the cause of the nerve-wracking noise that we hear far too often.  Just try to find it in 118,000 pages.

The Plan:  The three women behind SFORunwaynoise.com have come up with a plan of attack based on a similar civil action that took place in B'game decades ago and worked.  By getting many B'game and H'borough people to file small claims against the City of SF, which they will naturally deny, residents can build up enough of a record to go to Small Claims court en masse.  It's worth a try.

In the meantime you can enroll at Flightware.com to see which noisy plane is disrupting your afternoon conversation in the yard or your attempt to get to sleep at 1:30 am.  The list of 1:30 am departures is very enlightening (see below).  Is there any reason why three flights to Taiwan or two to Hong Kong cannot leave at a decent hour?  I can't think of one.  Here's the form to fill out to join the effort–get one by emailing SFOrunwaynoise@gmail.com.

Here at the Voice we don't do a lot of pre-advertising for meetings or events, but big issues like the Lyon-Hoag traffic problems or SFO noise do prompt us to alert you all.  Here is your chance to speak up about SFO noise which has been bad the last couple of nights, again….

Come join a group of local Burlingame and Hillsborough residents at an informational meeting to discuss this issue and learn how we can address this problem. We will be holding 2 meetings at the Burlingame Public Library:

Thursday, June 21 at 11 AM and

Thursday, June 21 at 7 PM

Please RSVP to SFOrunwaynoise@gmail.com with the time that works best for you. We look forward to working together on a solution for all! Final meeting location details will be provided to folks who have RSVP'd.

Recall we addressed this with the SFOrunwaynoise team back in August of last year here.  You can remind yourselves of the state of the conversation before the June meetings.