Vermont Guard Commander Tries to Downplay F-35 Bomber Noise
The Vermont Guard Commander, General Dubie, held a brief press conference last week to defend the basing the F-35 bombers. “Vermont Guard commander defends basing of F-35s” While attempting to downplay noise impacts, and to seemingly cast doubt on the validity of the Air Force’s own draft Environmental Impact Statement, the General offered no actual data to back up his claims and assurances.
General Dubie’s remarks quoted in the Free Press article appear to be targeting those speaking out against the F-35. But it is the Air Force draft EIS that provides the information that shows that the F-35 is four times louder than the F-16. While the F-35 may be acceptable for the other choices that are large military bases far from residential neighborhoods, 115 decibels is a grossly unacceptable increase in loudness over the very loud 94 decibel baseline for the F-16 at a commercial airport surrounded by residential communities. Particularly where affordable houses are at risk this is entirely unacceptable.
Although F-16 noise is quite high, the Air Force draft EIS shows the present-day 24-hour average 65 dB contour from F-16 noise barely skirts edges of Winooski and Burlingtonwhile the F-35 will put half of Winooski’s houses and Burlington houses along Calarco, Chase,Rumsey, Barrett, Mill, Grove, and Patchen roads, and along portions of Pearl and Riverside,within that incompatible-with-residential-living contour.
The table on page BR4-18 of the Air Force draft EIS shows that the peak noise level for the F-16 is 94 dBA and for the F-35 it is 115 dBA–a difference of 21 dBA–when each plane takes off and reaches 1000 feet above ground level.
The Air Force draft EIS on pages C6 and C9 shows that people hear the 21 dB difference between the F-16 and the F-35 as more than four times louder. According to a table on page C8 of the Air Force draft EIS, the difference in sound levels between the F-16 and the F-35 can be illustrated by the difference between the sound under an F-16 flying at a height of well over 2000 feet and the same F-16 flying at a height of just under 500 feet above ground level.
A final question is what effect the noise increase will have on property values. The Air Force draft EIS reports that studies conclude “that decreases in property values usually range from 0.5 to 2 percent per dB increase in cumulative noise exposure;” According to the numbers in the Air Force draft EIS the decrease in property values for houses experiencing the 21 dB increase in loudness is likely to be in the range from 11{33979494efa9b9c28f844b5c37a1ddedf4bb90a2eb3dac7a83ede58b7eac2e67} to 42{33979494efa9b9c28f844b5c37a1ddedf4bb90a2eb3dac7a83ede58b7eac2e67}.
