After years of Sacramento airport noise complaints, Natomas residents find the FAA’s ear

In 2015, Sacramento City Councilwoman Lisa Kaplan didn’t get much sleep, and it wasn’t just her newborn’s fault. Low-flying planes departing from Sacramento International Airport started taking off right over her home in Natomas, waking her up nearly every day at 5 in the morning.

That year, the Federal Aviation Administration changed flight arrival and departure paths to increase efficiency as part of its NextGen initiative. In the eight years since, Natomas residents — and communities across the United States — have complained of disruptive noise that’s not only annoying but potentially harmful to health.

Now, the FAA is revisiting its noise policy and asking for public input. Kaplan, Natomas residents and the city attorney are seizing the moment in hopes of influencing new policy and sparing their ears.

On Aug. 10, Kaplan will host an event for impacted Natomas residents to discuss the issue and the FAA’s noise policy evaluation. It will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the North Natomas Public Library.

Sacramento airport brings sound and fury

Roughly 150 flights take off from Sacramento International every day, and the airport is forecast by Sacramento County for continued growth over the next eight years. Nearly all of them fly in a narrow path over the same neighborhoods in Natomas, but it didn’t used to be this way.

Prior to 2015, flights mostly used a path over county-owned land adjacent to the airport purchased and left mostly undeveloped in order to prevent noise issues in residential areas. Planes had a broader exit path and reached higher elevations before crossing over residential areas.

The NextGen initiative used satellite technology to pick optimally efficient flight paths, saving fuel and time and increasing predictability. The changes concentrated the number of planes that flew over straight over three residential communities: Westshore, Westlake and Sundance Lake.

“You literally cannot sit outside and have a conversation. We can’t open windows when the weather’s nice. I wake up every day at 5:35 a.m. when the first plane crosses over my house,” said Tracie Cone, who lives on the edge of the Four Seasons Westshore, a residential community for adults over 55.

Soon after the 2015 changes, residents like Cone and Kaplan turned their commiseration into action. In 2020, they got the city to send a letter to the FAA saying it wants to provide input on the decision-making process for new departure routes.

“The city hopes that the FAA will either include dispersal headings or lateral track variations that address the noise issues experienced by the residents of Natomas and make use of the vacant land to the west and south of Natomas until aircraft reach a higher altitude,” the letter stated.

The Sacramento city attorney’s office confirmed to The Sacramento Bee that it will again be submitting a letter to the FAA about its noise policy. The office could not share details on the contents of that letter yet.

Last year, complaints from airport neighbors across the country escalated the noise issue to the Congressional Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s subcommittee on aviation. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal agency that evaluates and audits government activity, released a report recommending that the FAA use supplemental noise metrics and increase community engagement and information sharing.

Now, the FAA is accepting comments from people affected by noise pollution through Sept. 29, after the FAA extended the period past the original July 31 deadline. The public comment period is part of a larger review the administration is conducting on its noise policy.

Environmental lawyer and specialist in aviation and aerospace law Steven Tabor noted that even if the FAA changes its noise policy, there’s no guarantee that the Sacramento airport’s flight paths will be rerouted.

Revisiting a 51-year-old noise policy

Since the passage of the Noise Control Act of 1972, the FAA has used a metric of Day-Night Average Sound Level (DNL), which is the average sound level in an area over 24 hours.

The FAA makes all flight decisions to keep the DNL of airport areas to below 65 decibels. The FAA does take nighttime flight noise into account, giving it extra weight in the DNL metric due to its potential sleep disruption. In California, the FAA must use the Community Noise Equivalent Level, which also adds weight to evening aircraft noise.

But some, including the U.S. Government Accountability Office, say DNL may not be the best noise metric. An area passed overhead by many quieter aircraft may have the same DNL as an area passed overhead by a single louder aircraft. Though they have the same DNL, the lived experience of residents might be wildly different.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, normal conversations are on average 60 decibels, and washing machines make 70 decibels of noise. Noise above 70 decibels, the CDC says, can damage hearing over long periods of time.

Noise pollution is more than just an annoyance, research has shown.

In 1992, researchers studied children in neighborhoods adjacent to the Munich Airport when it changed locations. Children living near the old airport location improved at cognitive tasks after it relocated, while children living near the new location experienced declines.

And there’s the issue of sleep disruption. Even moderate airplane noise levels increased the odds of disrupted sleep in a study of 35,000 people living near 90 major airports in the U.S. by public health researchers at Boston and Oregon State universities.

Natomas residents aren’t the only ones whose lives have been disrupted by the NextGen flight paths. Sacramento International has a dramatically higher rate of bird strike occurrence than other area airports, KCRA reported.

In the past year, Sacramento’s airport has had a bird strike rate of 30 per 100,000 flights. San Francisco International Airport, for comparison, has a rate of 10 and Los Angeles International a rate of nine per 100,000.

Some say the low altitude departure paths are to blame. Sacramento is along the Pacific Flyway for migrating birds. The longer planes stay at lower altitudes, the more likely they are to cross paths with a bird, according to the city attorney’s 2020 letter to the FAA.

Though the public comment period is only related to the FAA’s noise policy, Natomas residents ultimately hope the pre-2015 flight paths return, sparing their ears and the birds.