PASCACK VALLEY—Woodcliff Lake Councilwoman Jacqueline Gadaleta, who has emerged as a leading voice in the Pascack Valley for changes to operations at Teterboro Airport that could help with airplane noise pollution here, says she’s optimistic the work is heading in the right direction.
On Feb. 2 she told Pascack Press she was pleased with the efforts of the Teterboro Aircraft Noise Abatement Advisory Committee (TANAAC), established in 1987 to “establish a meaningful dialogue between the airport community and the residential communities” to balance quality of life with efficient airport operations.
At the committee’s most recent quarterly meeting, Jan. 26, she said, officials noted they were working:
- To encourage more pilots with the properly outfitted aircraft to use a new, alternate approach along Route 17 and advertise this option more to pilots on night routes, to get them accustomed to it for day flights;
- Possibly to redirect some larger aircraft to Newark Airport, taking pressure off Teterboro;
- To raise pilots’ altitude of approach, when feasible, and have certain routes approach Teterboro over the industrialized Meadowlands rather than the suburban Pascack Valley.
Meanwhile, area mayors and councils, increasingly hearing from irate residents, are organizing to make more noise of their own, saying the airport’s work to reduce the number of area flyovers can go further.
Gadaleta said continued “pressure” would help the cause. She amended this to an idea of more people using Teterboro’s noise complaint line, saying the airport takes complaints seriously and breaks them out at TANAAC meetings.
“I’m definitely encouraged. This is an ongoing process. In Woodcliff Lake, we do not want to burden other towns with the new flight pattern; we believe it should be equitable for all the towns, and anything that Teterboro and the FAA can do to alleviate some of the noise pollution for all of the Bergen County towns will be greatly appreciated,” she said.
She emphasized that Woodcliff Lake isn’t just trying to kick the problem to someone else’s airspace; she said the solution must take a larger view. “I’d like that on the record: I don’t want them to think Woodcliff Lake doesn’t want its fair share.”
She added, “In their own way they are trying to accommodate us, and it’s a long process, but we all agree first and foremost that safety is the main concern. Also, it’s pilots’ comfort level in dealing with any new routes, but they are trying to get the word out and make it work as best as possible.”
A Teterboro Airport official says residents with flight path noise complaints centered on Hackensack University Medical Center and the surrounding residential areas can contact the airport directly.
Meanwhile, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is briefing Bergen County mayors on Feb. 8 on airport operations, aircraft activity, and the roles played respectively by the Port Authority as the airport owner/operator and the FAA, the principal federal regulator of national air space.
Pascack Press reported in July 2021 that the FAA had completed its air traffic controller training for the new alternate route. Gadaleta said then that she believed pilots often use Woodcliff Lake Reservoir as the point to veer off toward Teterboro.
She also said aircraft noise appears worse over weekends, when residents spend more time outdoors, at least in nicer weather.
(See “Teterboro flight path adjusted; Woodcliff Lake, in victory, urges vigilance,” Pascack Press, July 12, 2021.)
A resolution that Woodcliff Lake approved Sept. 13 “recognizes the serious negative impact on its residents resulting from the barrage of business jets flying overhead for arrival at Runway 19 at Teterboro Airport [and] the detrimental effect of low flying jets at high rates of speed with low altitudes often on a descending path, generating high pitched, loud, whistling and roaring engines [that] degrades the quality of life for borough residents.”
The resolution notes noise from jets using Runway 19 at Teterboro affects nearby Pascack Valley towns and sometimes “upwards of 200 arriving business jets per day” fly over residential areas “generating unreasonably high levels of noise pollution.”
Towns, boroughs speak up
Mayors speaking at the Greater Pascack Valley Chamber of Commerce Breakfast With the Mayors on Jan. 26 discussed frustration on the airplane noise and agreed something must be done (see stories, this issue).
Township of Washington residents have been complaining to their governing body about airplane noise, with several speaking out in October 2021.
On Nov. 8, council minutes show, resident Mary Ellen Stickel updated the governing body on the upshot of a TANAAC meeting after members had been forced to miss it amid a memorial for former mayor Janet Sobkowicz.
Township of Washington Council President Desserie Morgan told Pascack Press on Feb. 2, “We are in the process of developing a townwide survey via email to gauge the impact that aircraft noise has had on our residents.”
She said, “Having personally experienced this nuisance, I feel I can speak on behalf of the town, however I want to ensure our residents have an opportunity to be heard and for them to know that they were influential in the outcome.”
Morgan added, “We are going to extract as much data from the survey as we can and we will be looking to collaborate with our neighboring towns so that our impact can be felt.”
In Hillsdale — which Mayor John Ruocco noted in a recent letter to airport officials was not a member of TANAAC — residents were yielding “a noticeable uptick in complaints … regarding aircraft noise impacting quality of life.”
He wrote Maria Sheridan, Teterboro’s manager and TANAAC’s co-chair, on Dec. 30, 2021 that “complaints [to Hillsdale’s governing body] are originating from residences further inland than what we understood would be the new GPS approach to Runway 19 at Teterboro, along State Route 17.”
He said it was his understanding that RNAV-capable aircraft — the technology gives pilots more flexibility in choosing courses, the same way drivers on the ground can use their own GPS to plan commutes — landing at Teterboro are obligated to use a certain approach west of Hillsdale.
He said “It is apparent that aircraft are not exclusively using” that approach,” and that turbo-prop aircraft and jets without RNAV are still following the prior arrival procedure.
“This takes the planes directly over Hillsdale and other towns to the east of Route 17,” he said, asking for clarification if he was not correct.
Ruocco said, “The greatest complaints I am receiving are well east of Hillsdale’s proximity to Route 17, which we were not expecting based on the noise models provided to the public prior to implementation of the new … approach to Runway 19.”
Ruocco heard back on Jan. 18 from Teterboro Airport’s noise abatement and environmental compliance manager, Gabriel Andino, who noted that the FAA had implemented the alternative procedure for arrivals to Runway 19 at Teterboro such that planes that could generally would follow Route 17.
“The FAA developed this procedure at the request of TANAAC as an additional procedure [that] does not replace the existing ‘straight-in’ approach to Runway 19 which the FAA will continue to utilize as the primary approach for this runway,” Andino said in part.
Andino said complaints are welcome at (201) 288-8828 and noiseoffice@teb.com. For more information visit https://aircraftnoise.panynj.gov/teb-airport-noise-office.