Politics & Government
Video: IB Residents Meet Navy on Fence Line to Discuss Helicopter Noise
Navy officials and local residents, many from the Seaside Point and Oneonta neighborhoods, met Tuesday to discuss helicopter operations and the impact of noise on nearby homes.
Imperial Beach residents met with U.S. Navy representatives Tuesday afternoon, meeting first at the then moving to the corner of Iris Avenue and Fifth Street.
The meeting was held to discuss helicopter noise and its impact on neighborhoods adjacent to the Naval Outlying Landing Field Imperial Beach.
Within the next five years, the Navy wants to increase helicopter activity at the Landing Field by 30 percent.
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“At times we’ll have these helicopters encroach on our neighborhood, probably anywhere from 50 to 100 yards,” said Oneonta resident Joe Scanlon.
“Although they say that they don’t do that, it does take place,” he said. “Nine out of 10 times I can stand in my backyard, and I can pretty much see the flight crew in the helicopter.”
Such flights are out of flight patterns and violate course rules agreed upon by the city of Imperial Beach and the Navy.
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Commanding Officer Capt. Yancy Lindsey and Lt. John Peters were on hand to answer people’s questions. As the Naval Air Station North Island CO, Lindsey is in charge of NOLF IB. Peters is the air traffic controller for Naval Base Coronado.
“When you’re on this side of the fence, it’s a huge noise issue, a vibration issue and it’s a safety issue,” Scanlon said to Peters as they stood at the fence separating the Navy facility from Imperial Beach homes.
“We never let [or] don’t like our pattern to go over here,” Peters said, motioning toward the houses, “because we lose sight of our pattern.
“Sometimes, these helicopters, once they’ve completed their pattern, do make a turn this way, they’re flying at 1,000 feet. They go over [Imperial Beach] to Otay Mountains,” Peters said.
Dante Pamintuan, an Oneonta neighborhood resident who helped organize the meeting, said that local residents are not simply complaining about the current noise levels, but are worried about high noise levels to come as the number of operations increases in the next five years.
“The neighborhood is not going to tolerate it anymore. What’s happened for the past 20, 30, 40 years is that they’ve been encroaching, and the residents are tired of it,” Pamintuan said.