On July 15,  sixteen members of Congress and the Quiet Skies Caucus, including Milton’s representative, Congressman Stephen Lynch, wrote a letter to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Chairman and Ranking Member with requests for the FY2016 FAA Reauthorization Act that would help to mitigate some of the airplane noise in our communities.

The request includes:

1. Mandating a robust community engagement process.
2. Requiring that the FAA use additional metrics to study the impact of noise and to lower the acceptable DNL threshold from 65 to 55 dB (over 10% of Milton’s population lives in census blocks where DNL is over 55).
3. Encouraging airport operators to engage in mitigation options in communities with aircraft noise levels of less than 65 DNL.
4. Reforming the a provision in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 that allows the FAA to make changes to flight paths and create new paths that excludes adequate environmental reviews. This provision has had a substantial effect on what Milton residents now experience. Categorical exclusions were used to change the runway 27 departures over Milton and the two new concentrated paths planned for runway 4L.
5. Mandating independent research on the health impacts of aviation noise.

View the full July 15, 2015 letter from Congressmen Lynch and others to Shuster (PDF).

For more updates on the effort to reduce plane pollution and noise for Milton and surrounding areas, visit www.bosfairskies.com.