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HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 4725 City of Palo Alto (ID # 4725) City Council Staff Report Report Type: Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs Meeting Date: 4/29/2014 City of Palo Alto Page 1 Summary Title: FAA Metroplex EA Title: Discussion and Direction to City Manager Regarding City of Palo Alto Response to the FAA Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) Regarding the Northern California Optimization of Airspace and Procedures in the Metroplex (NorCal OAPM) From: City Manager Lead Department: Public Works On March 25, 2014, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released for public review and comments a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) on potential actions involving the airspace management for flights in the Northern California Metroplex area. This project involves changes in flight routes and altitudes in certain areas and in particular for aircraft arriving and departing from the four major airports in the Bay area: San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento. The proposed action does not require an increase in the number of aircraft operations or involve additional aircraft landings. Over the past few years, the FAA has been implementing airspace management programs nationwide and the Bay area is one of the last regions to be implemented. The FAA has stated these programs are necessary for flight safety as well as fuel economy. This program is unrelated to the potential flight path change proposed last December by Surf Air that a number of community members were concerned about. The original deadline for public comments on the EA was April 24. However, the City joined with other agencies to urge the FAA to extend the public comment period, and to provide critical information regarding airplane altitudes (Attachment A, B and C). Staff believes the FAA should provide the altitude information. City of Palo Alto Page 2 At the special request of Congress members Eshoo and Speier, the FAA has extended the t comment period to Sunday, May 4, 2014. The requested critical information has still not been released. Therefore, there is no way to evaluate the aircraft position/elevations over the City of Palo Alto (i.e. possibility of lower altitudes and increased noise impact). In an abundance of caution, the EA comment letter (Attachment D) was sent on Thursday April 24, 2014. The recently announced extension of public comments to May 4 allows for Council and public discussion, as well as the opportunity to amend the original comment letter. The full Environmental Assessment of the project can be found at http://oapmenvironmental.com/norcal_metroplex/norcal_docs.html. Attachments:  Letter from Palo Alto Mayor Shepherd to Secretary of State Transportation Foxx (PDF)  Letter from Congresswomen Eshoo and Speier to State Secretary of Transportation Foxx (PDF)  Letter from San Francisco Community Airport Roundtable to FAA (PDF)  EA Comment Letter from Palo Alto City Manager to FAA (PDF) City of Palo Alto Office of the Mayor and City Council April 10, 2014 The Honorable Anthony Foxx Secretary of Transportation United States Department of Transportation 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Washington, DC 20590 Subject: Northern California Optimization of Airspace and Procedures in the Metroplex Environmental Assessment Dear Secretary Foxx, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given notice of proposed changes to the published routes of aircraft landing and taking off from San Francisco International Airport and other airports in Northern California. The published document is generally referred to as the Northern California (Nor Cal) Optimization of Airspace and Procedures in the Metroplex (Nor Cal OAPM) Environmental Assessment. Pursuant to federal law, the FAA published the assessment and invited public comment for 30 days. The City of Palo Alto concurs with our local Congresswomen and other agencies that additional time is needed to receive critically -needed information about the altitude of airplanes along the new routes. The FAA states that it will determine if the information can be made available and, if so, how quickly it can be disseminated. As things stand at the moment, the 30 day time period would be nearly exhausted before this critically -needed information would become publicly available. The altitude of airplanes over Palo Alto heavily influences how much noise is imposed upon residents. Since the FAA has the information, we believe that the City should also have it. Additionally, the City should be given time to incorporate the information into its comments on the Environmental Assessment. The City of Palo Alto therefore respectfully urges you to instruct the FAA to extend the public comment period on the Nor Cal OAPM environmental assessment by at least 60 days so that the City of Palo Alto and other entities may make judgments based upon information that the FAA has but that is not currently in the public domain. We feel that the purpose of the Environmental Assessment cannot be well served if critically -needed information is absent from the published document or only available at the very last minute. Thank you for your time and consideration of this request. Because the 30 day written comment period ends only a few weeks from now on April 24th, we respectfully ask for your timely attention to this matter. Sincerely, (JAL c Nancy Shepherd Mayor, City of Palo Alto cc: Palo Alto City Council Palo Alto City Manager Members of the San Francisco Airport Community Roundtable Congresswoman Anna Eshoo Congresswoman Jackie Speier P.O. Box 10250 Palo Alto, CA 94303 650.329.2477 650.328.3631 fax Printed with soy -based inks on 1009 recycled paper processed without chlorine. (Congress of ttp 3Aniteb taut mulling -tun, ME 20515 April 4, 2014 The Honorable Anthony Foxx Secretary of Transportation United States Department of Transportation 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Washington, DC 20590 Dear Secretary Foxx, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given notice of proposed changes to the published routes of aircraft: landing and taking off from San Francisco International Airport and other airports in Northern California. The published document is generally referred to as the Northern California (NorCal) Optimization of Airspace and Procedures in the Metroplex (NorCal OAPM) Environmental Assessment. Pursuant to federal law, the FAA published the assessment and invited public comment for 30 days. It is our opinion and the opinion of local government leaders that additional time is needed to receive critically -needed information about the altitude of airplanes along the new routes. The FAA states that it will determine if the information can be made available and, if so, how quickly it can be disseminated. As things stand at the moment, the 30 day time period would be nearly exhausted before this critically -needed infoiivation would become publicly available. The altitude of airplanes over communities heavily influences how much noise is imposed upon residents. One can view a line on paper or on a map but without altitude information one cannot begin to estimate the noise impacts. The FAA has the information. We believe that the public should also have it and, just as importantly, that the public should be given time to incorporate the information into its comments on the Environmental Assessment. We therefore write to respectfully urge you to instruct the FAA to extend the public comment period on the NorCal OAPM environmental assessment by at least 60 days so that the public and its representatives may make judgments based upon information that the government has, but that is not currently in the public domain. We all want to have a safe, well -functioning aviation system. We believe that this objective is in the public interest. We also believe that the purpose of the Environmental Assessment cannot be well served if critically -needed information is absent PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER from the published document or only available at the very last minute. Thank you for your time and consideration of this request. Because the 30 day written comment period ends only a few weeks from now —on April 24`h —we respectfully ask for your timely attention to this matter. All the best, cc: Members of the San Francisco Airport Community Roundtable Ms. Elizabeth Ray, Vice President, Mission Support Services Air Traffic Organization Federal Aviation Administration 800 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20591 Speier er of Congress -+ SF� COMMUNITY ROUNDTABLE April 3, 2014 NorCal OAPM EA Federal Aviation Administration Western Service Center-Operations Support Group 1601 Lind Avenue SW Renton, WA 98057 San Francisco International Airport /Community Roundtable 455 County Center, 2nd Floor Redwood City, CA 94063 T ( 650) 363-1 853 F (650) 363-4849 www sforoundtable org Re: Extension of OAPM Environmental Assessment Public Comment Period This comment is in reference to the Draft Environmental Assessment (DEA) released on March 25, 2014. The release included all chapters of the DEA and technical reports except the Design & Implementation Team Technical Report, which contains details to the enhancements of IFR procedures. This report was released on March 31, 2014. While the Design & Implementation Team Technical Report shows the anticipated procedure way points, it does not show altitudes of the new waypoints or the latitude/longitude of these new locations. At the April 2, 2014 regular meeting of the SFO Airport/Community Roundtable (Roundtable), the group asked the attending FAA representation for additional design information be made public during the comment period, including altitudes of the way points and the procedure approach and departure plates. Should this information become available during the comment period, we anticipate the existing 30 day comment period will be inadequate to review the changes. We respectfully request a comment period extension of 60 days in anticipation of reviewing the waypoint and associated altitude information. A key part of the Roundtable's mission is to continually abide by Article II Section 5 of its Memorandum of Understanding, "that the Roundtable members, as a group, will not take an action(s) that would result in the "shifting" of noise from one community to another, related to aircraft operations at San Francisco International Airport." It is our intention to fulfill this article for our stakeholders in San Mateo County and the City and County of San Francisco through a thorough review of the DEA in its entirety, including technical reports. R D:4 Cliff Lentz City of Brisbane Chair, San Francisco Airport Community Roundtable Working together for quieter skies + OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER CITY OF PALO ALTO 250 Hamilton Avenue, 7th Floor Palo Alto, CA 94301 650.329.2392 April 24, 2014 NorCal OAPM EA, Federal Aviation Administration Western Service Center -Operations Support Group 1601 Lind Avenue SW Renton, WA 98057 City of Polo Alto Public Comment: FAA Northern California Optimization of Airspace and Procedures in the Metroplex (NorCal OAPM) Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) Document Release. These comments are in reference to the Draft Environmental Assessment (DEA) released on March 25, 2014. We have reviewed the draft EA, and provide the following written comments as part of the public comment period. 1. While the Design & Implementation Team Technical Report shows the anticipated procedure waypoints, it does not show altitudes of the new waypoints or the latitude/longitude of these new locations, which limits the City's ability to effectively comment. It is the City of Palo Alto's understanding that the FAA has this information and has not made it available to the public. This information is critical as there is no way to evaluate the aircraft position/elevations over the City of Palo Alto (i.e, possibility of lower altitudes and increased noise impact). 2. The City of Palo Alto requested that the FAA extend the public comment period on the Nor Cal OAPM environmental assessment by at least 60 days to allow the City of Palo Alto and other entities to make comments based upon complete information. The outcome of the environmental assessment cannot be accurately represented if critical information is absent from the published document or only available at the very last minute. At this time the altitudes have not be released to the public. 3. The City of Palo Alto is concerned that this project will result in the shifting of noise from one community to another related to aircraft operations over the city of Palo Alto. 4. And lastly, the project directly involves airspace over the City of Palo Alto and yet the City was not notified by the FAA of the proposed project. The City gained knowledge of this project third hand well after the March 25, 2014 released date. We appreciate the opportunity to participate in this public process. Sincerely, hies Keene City Manager Cc: Congresswoman Anna Eshoo Congresswoman Jackie Speier Mayor and Council Members San Francisco International Airport/Community Roundtable Molly Stump, City Attorney Mike Sartor, Public Works Director Andy Swanson, Airport Manager CityOfpaloAlto.org Printed with soy -based inks on. 100% recycled paper processed without chlorine.