Wachs, Bernardi Move to Impose Jet Noise-Sharing

Los Angeles City Councilmen Joel Wachs and Ernani Bernardi asked the City Council Wednesday to demand that Burbank Airport require more flights to take off toward the east, over the cities that own the airport, or face a lawsuit.

A spokesman for the airport authority responded by repeating the authority’s long-standing argument that it has no authority to impose such rules on airline pilots and air traffic controllers.

Homeowners in Los Angeles neighborhoods of the East Valley--including Studio City, North Hollywood, Van Nuys and parts of Sherman Oaks--have long complained that the usual takeoff pattern at Burbank Airport routes jetliners over their homes as the planes climb away from the runway. About 90% of jetliners take off from north to south, then circle to the west over Studio City and northward over North Hollywood and Van Nuys.

The homeowners have been campaigning for some mechanism that would require airliners to use the airport’s other runway and take off toward the east, on a path over Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena.

Wachs and Bernardi, who were scheduled to face a homeowners meeting Wednesday night, introduced a motion complaining that “for many years, the citizens of Los Angeles have been subjected to severe and continuing noise problems” caused by the airport.

Their motion asked the council to instruct the city attorney to notify the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority and the Federal Aviation Administration that Los Angeles wants the authority to approve a “fair share” runway use proposal.

Vote Next Month

The proposal has been drafted by a subcommittee of a noise-abatement study group, organized by the airport authority under an FAA program. The nine-member airport authority is scheduled to vote next month on whether to include the “fair share” proposal in the final version of the study group’s recommendations.

Under the motion by Wachs and Bernardi, if the airport authority does not approve the “fair share” proposal, the Los Angeles representatives would be ordered to resign from the study group and the city attorney would be instructed to file suit against the airport authority to block construction of a new terminal. The airport authority hopes to build the terminal in the early 1990s.

“We are simply running out of patience,” Wachs commented. “Either the airport adopts a good-neighbor policy, or we will be forced to use other methods. . . .”

Victor Gill, a spokesman for the airport authority, pointed out that Los Angeles had gone to court once before to stop construction of a new terminal at Burbank Airport, and lost. The suit, challenging the validity of the airport’s environmental impact report, was dismissed in 1984 by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, who ruled that the city had brought “a barrage of assertions and arguments, but very little competent and meaningful evidence.”

The airport authority has no power to countermand a decision by airline pilots and FAA air traffic controllers to use a particular runway for takeoff, Gill said.

Pilots almost always choose to take off to the south because the north-south runway is 700 feet longer than the east-west runway, and also runs downhill, dropping about 60 feet, he said. Besides, the wind is usually from the southwest, favoring a southbound takeoff, and planes taking off to the east would be headed directly toward the nearby Verdugo Mountains.

Since February of last year, the FAA has forbidden pilots to take off toward the east because the present terminal, built more than 50 years ago, is too close to the runway to meet modern safety regulations. The airport authority has cited the need to comply with the FAA regulations as the reason for building a new terminal, farther from the runways.

A lawsuit by Los Angeles would cause the FAA to withhold construction grants until the suit is settled, Gill said.

That means that, as long as the city of Los Angeles creates legal obstacles to the construction of a new terminal, Gill said, the east-bound takeoffs some Los Angeles residents and lawmakers favor will continue to be banned.

Contradictory Stance

“They seem to be speaking out of both sides of their mouths,” Gill said, citing a statement by City Councilwoman Pat Russell in December calling for expansion of regional airports to avoid increasing flights at Los Angeles International Airport. Russell, who represents the LAX area, called for more traffic at regional airports to limit airport-caused pollution and traffic in her district.

Wachs and Bernardi also called for the city to study the possibility of becoming a member of the airport authority so that it could acquire a “veto power over any increase in airport operations.”

The airport authority has twice in 10 years invited Los Angeles to become a member of the authority, Gill said, but in both cases Los Angeles turned down the invitation because it did not want to expose the city and its taxpayers to the risk of paying judgments in the many pending noise lawsuits against the airport.

Even if Los Angeles were to become a member, Gill said, it could not acquire a veto over increases in the number of flights. The authority’s legal advisers believe that federal court decisions have left the authority powerless to enforce such a limit, he said.

The council sent the motion to the Industry and Economic Development Committee. No vote was scheduled.