Opinions on Opinion Poll

Polls have value only when the questions asked are unbiased and the population polled is properly chosen.

Judging from the results of your Burbank Airport poll, pertinent information was either omitted or seriously misrepresented.

A fact remains beyond dispute. Airport noise bothers people. Jet pollution (both noise and air) is a serious problem that adversely affects communities around the world--including Japan, where a new runway was prevented from being used for some time due to the community’s protests.

If someone took a poll in any Los Angeles community and was asked whether or not they would mind if a major smog-production factory were added to their neighborhood, the answers would be obvious. Yet Burbank Airport is just that-- the major smog contributor to the west side of Burbank. Windows and fruit trees are covered with a greasy grime, and the community’s lungs are forced to breathe the results of thousands of gallons of jet fuel dumped into the air.

Burbank has been cited as having some of the worst air quality in the Valley. Relatively minor life-style changes have been suggested to help alleviate this problem (stop using lighter fluid for barbecues, etc.). Yet, when someone calls the South Coast Air Quality Management District to object to the stream of air pollution trailing behind a jet on takeoff, they are told, “We used to cite planes, but the FAA no longer lets us.”!

Clearly it is time for jets and airports to clean up their act and be responsible for the mess they create. Our world is too crowded for some to dump their pollution unchecked on others.

MARGIE A. GEE

Burbank