[L]ess than two months before a fleet of F-35s arrive at Vermont’s Air National Guard base, officials from South Burlington and Winooski believe that Burlington should continue to shoulder the financial burden of mitigating dangerous noise for the 2,640 homes expected to be newly impacted by the arrival of the next-generation fighter jet.
Yet as a new noise mitigation program comes to fruition — and recently released noise maps show a tripling of affected homes — Burlington officials have made no concrete promises to continue this financial support once the F-35s touch down.
Burlington owns and controls the Burlington International Airport, where the Green Mountain Boys take off and land, despite it being located in South Burlington. This means that the Queen City is the only entity that can apply for noise mitigation grants through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Historically, Burlington has secured this money and put up the necessary matching funds, generally 10%, to help buffer airport noise for surrounding communities.
Winooski and South Burlington officials estimate F-35-related soundproofing efforts could cost $6.4 million annually, which they say would put significant financial strains on their small city budgets.
Burlington Mayor Weinberger was on vacation and unavailable for an interview last week. In a statement, Weinberger’s chief of staff said: “The City of Burlington will continue to work collaboratively with these communities and the Federal Aviation Administration to secure FAA dollars for sound insulation programs.”
But leaders in the other communities are seeking more specific assurances.
“I don’t think we can understand from that very general statement what they are willing to commit to,” Meaghan Emery, the vice chair of the South Burlington City Council, said in an interview.
Helen Riehle, chair of the South Burlington City Council, said Weinberger has been “receptive” to her concerns, but similarly added that the mayor is “being careful about what he will agree to.”
Meanwhile, Gene Richards, the director of aviation at Burlington International Airport, dismissed concerns over cost as premature, and said “there’s a lot of misinformation out there.”
“A lot of people clearly don’t have a handle on what’s going on,” he said.
Amid this confusion and simmering tension, the jets show no signs of slowing down. In September, the first pair of F-35s will touch down, with 18 set to be stationed in Vermont by the summer of 2020.
Airport officials said that new noise mitigation efforts won’t launch until May 2021, at the earliest. Homes located in the most severe noise zones will be prioritized once this work begins, Richards said.
South Burlington, Burlington and Winooski city councils have all voted to request that the Air Force provide a quieter plane, an appeal that has yet to gain any traction. Yet officials have brought city leaders into deliberations and decision-making in a way not seen during the previous era of the F-16.
Officials from South Burlington and Winooski have been meeting with Weinberger over the past two years to discuss their concerns with the F-35 basing. Additionally, Winooski, which is set to see the greatest increase in noise with the F-35s, may soon gain a voting seat on the Airport Advisory Commission, according to city documents.
Additionally, stakeholders from five communities near the airport, including Winooski and South Burlington, have been meeting to draft a new noise mitigation plan through an empaneled Technical Advisory Committee, which has prioritized saving homes rather than razing them.
Under the airport’s previous noise program, which dealt with the National Guard’s F-16 mission, officials opted for the Federal Aviation Administration’s preferred noise mitigation effort: home removal. Roughly 200 homes were destroyed around the airport under grants that were federally funded at around 90%, with Burlington making up the additional 10%.
There’s consensus among city and airport officials that home razings must stop, and the new noise compatibility program prioritizes three alternative options: soundproofing, sales assistance and purchase assistance.
Surrounding communities seem most supportive of soundproofing and least supportive of sales assistance, in which the airport helps homeowners sell their properties. If payment ends up at below market value, the FAA then steps in to fill the gap financially. Purchase assistance is when the airport buys homes, soundproofs them and then puts them back on the market. (All proceeds from these sales go back into noise mitigation efforts.)
Once the noise compatibility program is finalized it must be approved by the FAA before Burlington can begin applying for mitigation grants.
A draft memorandum of understanding among Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski includes a commitment from Burlington to apply for these FAA grants and match federal funds, though it’s unclear if Burlington will aggressively apply for grants, and how much money the city will actually commit to putting on the table.
Burlington officials declined to discuss these questions. When asked if Burlington would continue to put up 10%, Richards said: “I don’t know.”
He added that the availability of FAA mitigation grants depends, in part, on the whims of Congress and the size of the federal budget.
Richards described the matching grants as an “opportunity” to improve their housing stock.
“It’s free money to help not only mitigate sound but also insulate and improve their properties,” he said. “If some people don’t want to pay it, then that needs to be debated, but that debate shouldn’t happen in the press.”
Richards also said that the cities near the airport take in somewhere between $80,000 and $100,000 a year through an airport fuel tax, and suggested that revenue could help pay the matching grant requirement.
Richards said he and colleagues have done extensive research, and found no Department of Defense programs that help pay for sound mitigation efforts. “We feel like Burlington is leading the pack on what’s being done on this front,” he said.
