Airplane noise concerns overblown?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would ask Jeff to look into sock puppeting on this thread and other ones, there is clearly one person who has an axe to grind (probably lost out on buying a house in this area or is angry at someone who lives here) and frequently posts the same things. It's unhinged. I live in this area and it doesn't bother me at all. It never comes up with neighbors. It's just not an issue at all.

Why is it unhinged to have a strong opinion? My motivation is to help change things for the better (which cannot be done if we pretend there’s no issue), make people aware of the situation (so they can make an informed choice), and highlight the serious health risk (which are as of yet little known and understood).

This reminds me of the neighbors attacking the family that volunteered to report the planes for the purposes of supporting the neighborhood effort to negotiate with the FAA. They were attacked as the unhinged loner and a crazy by some neighbors. I guess that’s life. People really wanted to out them too and attack them personally just for reporting the truth but to this day haven’t found out who it is.

I don’t know about anyone else but I think there are several posters on this thread and no one is pretending to be different people. I respect your opinion, respect the others’ opinions too. You are welcome to disagree, ideally with the fact base to match.

Unfortunately or fortunately, all you need to do is stand at a location for 10 minutes and use your phone to measure dB and frequency of the planes. There are tables online that tell you what that level of noise does to you whether you tune it out or not. You can’t measure the pollution but you can read the studies.

Your neighbors are working to change things. So maybe it’s nice to not start the witch-hunts to undermine the efforts.

[Anonymous]

Regan should be closed IMO. Ultra fine particles dumping all over the city is giving us all a higher risk of cancer.

[Anonymous]

Some useful resources:

https://cagtown.org/join-give/dc-fair-skies/

https://georgetowner.com/articles/2015/09/18/community-groups-georgetown-university-take-faa-court-over-airplane-noise-routes/

https://www.flyreagan.com/sites/flyreagan.com/files/legacyfiles/dc_ward_3_presentation_concerns_andrea_ramirez_12nov2015.pdf

https://wamu.org/story/15/07/08/keep_it_down_residents_near_reagan_national_brings_complaints_to_faa/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on which way the planes are flying. In our neighborhood, the south flow approach generates a lot of noise while the north flow departure generates less noise here. For us, the noise is bothersome and annoying at times, but we live in a relatively new build home with good insulation and very high end windows, which attenuates the noise quite a bit, but not completely. (I just heard an approach while having a quiet coffee in my living room, which was mildly annoying, for example.). It mostly hampers our ability to enjoy our outdoor spaces, but we do have to use white noise machines while sleeping because the occasional post-midnight arrival will wake you up if you don’t have something to cover it. If you live in an older home with minimal sound attenuation, it would be terrible, IMO.

They are supposedly making adjustments to the approach procedure that should help. We will see. There is a lengthy backstory as to how we got to where we are, which only the affected people likely care about.

Thank you for this very fair and accurate description imo

[Anonymous]

Of course, the problem is that DCA has no curfew, is the fastest growing airport and the airlines are looking to even louder (faster) planes. Additionally, it’s a zero sum game between the Palisades/Foxhall and Arlington/Bethesda, and the VA/MD authorities are much more responsive and better organized than the DC ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regan should be closed IMO. Ultra fine particles dumping all over the city is giving us all a higher risk of cancer.

Agree. Except it’s not all over the city, is it? It’s very well concentrated in a tight corridor. There’s some historic justice in the areas closer to and EOTP not being affected.

Also there are massive no fly zones — draw large circles around the VP residence, the White House. And then there’s no need to fly over adjacent neighborhoods since you want to be closer to the river. So most of the city is fine.

[Anonymous]

Sorry to ask, but can someone other than the clearly very-bothered individual who makes all of the airplane noise posts on this forum please chip in their perspectives on airplane noise in the Cabin John, Potomac, Glen Echo, Palisades neighborhoods? I was over there today and it didn't seem that bad

Not really an issue in Potomac. The North Flow flight pattern that has many up in arms has flights departing DCA go up the river and then either turn right/inland at Glen Echo and ascend over Bethesda (just inside the Beltway), or turn "left" over Cabin John and ascend over Carderock, Great Falls Park, and then Virginia. While a few of the southernmost streets of Potomac may be affected -- although at that point the planes are pretty high -- the majority of Potomac isn't. In fact, overall the consolidation of the (northbound) outbound DCA flight patterns into two main routes probably lessened aviation traffic over Potomac.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the answers and some thoughtful and balanced takes. We were interested in something near Bannockburn. Going to go back today and check out the place to see how bad it is. Sounds like the planes are usually higher up around GEH/Bannockburn, and the turn in the fight path is further north, near Cabin John. So maybe it’s ok.

Still, the fact that one has to think about this while buying an $XM house is at once both absurd and also completely logical for DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live next to Glen Echo and are sometimes in the flight path. Your brain learns to tune it out, just like it does with other background noise. I can be in the backyard and not notice it unless a friend who is visiting brings it up.

The only time it's obvious is when it's a certain level of clouds so the planes have to fly really low below them on approach, but that's not common.

I used to live in an apartment next to a bunch of bars. Every morning at 5am, trucks would come to pick up the trash cans of glass beer bottles and taht was quite a sound. I noticed it the first week I lived there, then tuned it out after a week as my brain adjusted.

Same with road noise, which you'll see at some neighborhoods in Glen Echo or nearby -- you can hear the hum of the Beltway, but only if you really listen for it or are not used to it.

The brain's an amazing thing.

The pollution that comes with those planes is something you can’t do anything about though, and the evidence that it’s very harmful in the long term is overwhelming. It’s stuff like heart and lung disease, dementia, asthma in children, cognitive difficulties, shortened lifespan. None of it from the noise, just the ultra fine particles released by the planes and pushed straight down at and into you on closer to departure and take off areas. The noise poses it’s own risks and they only abate with hearing loss that comes in older age because of that noise.
Shortened life span and chronic disease, no thanks.

Shocking how no one else here cares about the above issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the answers and some thoughtful and balanced takes. We were interested in something near Bannockburn. Going to go back today and check out the place to see how bad it is. Sounds like the planes are usually higher up around GEH/Bannockburn, and the turn in the fight path is further north, near Cabin John. So maybe it’s ok.

Still, the fact that one has to think about this while buying an $XM house is at once both absurd and also completely logical for DC.

That’s a good idea, but one suggestion? Don’t rely on what you hear today. Go first thing Monday am and Tuesday am (so you have two points of comparison and Tuesday is a bigger commuter day so you’ll see the traffic too). Sit outside or with the roof open for at least 30 minutes, use a timer and dB app on your phone. Take some videos, that way you’ll have an objective take on things to help you decide. Also remember that the flight patterns can change and if one neighborhood improves another is likely to get the offloaded traffic. Ask yourself if you are willing to take the risks on the noise, health and property prices. If the answer is yes, then you made the best decision you could in buying the house and you’ll be a lot happier even if something goes wrong and very very happy if it actually improves instead.

Also, especially if you have children, please read about the ultra fine particles. UWA has some excellent studies.

[Anonymous]

Have there been environmental studies that quantified the chemical impact of being near the flight path along the Potomac? I’m not arguing that exposure is not happening, I just wonder how much it disperses and affects the entire region when planes are flying overhead at 2000 feet.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the excellent suggestion to go on Monday as well, and using a DB app. Will do and report back here.

[Anonymous]

I found https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8318113/#!po=25.8333 which has some good information.

DCA specific testing would be useful if anyone has pointers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have there been environmental studies that quantified the chemical impact of being near the flight path along the Potomac? I’m not arguing that exposure is not happening, I just wonder how much it disperses and affects the entire region when planes are flying overhead at 2000 feet.

Here’s one scientific and one press report of many: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c05933 and https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/little-understood-unregulated-particles-pollute-neighborhoods-under-sea-tac-flight-paths-uw-study-finds/

The big takeaways seem to be:
Ultrafine particles from the aircraft are finer/different from the “regular” pollution particles and detrimental to health in part because they can traverse lung tissues and enter the bloodstream affecting all the major organs including the brain, causing high blood pressure, cardiovascular issues, dementia, cognitive difficulties, CVD, cancer etc.
Under the flight path, they are “pushed down” fast to the ground and into the people without the sufficient time to meaningfully disperse which would happen more at higher altitudes (the worst seems to be the flight path up to about 10-15 miles from the airport)
You could get a similar exposure from a major roadway but it would need to be masses of diesel traffic and you would need to stand in the middle of it the whole day (which no one does), while under the flight path you’re breathing even finer particles getting in deeper into the airways just by breathing (whole day every day and night)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regan should be closed IMO. Ultra fine particles dumping all over the city is giving us all a higher risk of cancer.

Agree. Except it’s not all over the city, is it? It’s very well concentrated in a tight corridor. There’s some historic justice in the areas closer to and EOTP not being affected.

Also there are massive no fly zones — draw large circles around the VP residence, the White House. And then there’s no need to fly over adjacent neighborhoods since you want to be closer to the river. So most of the city is fine.

Wind carries it all over.