Palo Alto Sends SFO Letter About Impact From Plane Noise

PALO ALTO, CA — Palo Alto Mayor Pat Burt sent a letter to San Francisco International Airport over SFO’s proposed Ground Based Augmentation System’s impact on airplane noise over Palo Alto.

The letter, dated May 31st, accused SFO of failing to consider input from Palo Alto and its community members before submitting the system’s proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration and requested that it be withdrawn. It also requested for noise monitoring in Palo Alto.

SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel told Patch that airport staff is preparing a response to Palo Alto’s letter.

Three arrival routes into SFO pass over Palo Alto. According to the city’s website, the routes have an “ongoing negative health impact on our community,” which has been made worse by the FAA’s NextGEN Initiative.

“SFO has made a very significant investment in the GBAS project to date, and noise monitoring needed to support the project objectives should be viewed as an expense, and a relatively minor one, of the GBAS project,” Burt wrote in the letter.

Click here for more information and here to view the letter.