PARK RIDGE—Borough officials agreed on Aug. 8 to host a Taxpayers For Aircraft Noise Solutions (TANS) page on the borough website to help promote the regional group’s efforts to reduce jet aircraft noise prompting complaints in the 10 towns of the Greater Pascack Valley.
The Borough Council also made TANS an official committee of the borough. Council liaison Greg Hoffman said the TANS recognition would help to publicize TANS efforts, increase outreach and lead to more community involvement from across Pascack Valley.
TANS member Audrey Herget, of Park Ridge, thanked the borough for stepping up. She said there was “so much interest and so much support. We’re fired up and we’re not backing down.”
Mayor Keith Misciagna said TANS was formed locally after Teterboro Airport’s noise advisory committee, or TANAAC, rejected the Pascack Valley Mayors’ Association attempts to secure a seat on the committee. That committee only includes towns within five miles of Teterboro Airport.
Misciagna said he hoped that TANS would soon include a representative and council liaison from each of the 10 Pascack Valley towns.
“Since we represent 100,000 residents we feel that it would demand more respect when we ask for consideration (from the FAA and Port Authority),” he said.
Pascack Valley mayors have long contended that jet aircraft noise is impairing residents’ quality of life in most towns, especially on weekends, and have lobbied for pilots to use an alternate route over Route 17 to reduce aircraft volumes and noise.
The Federal Aviation Administration says that pilots have discretion to choose a landing route and that the FAA cannot compel a pilot to take a specific landing route.
TANS members wrote the FAA and received a response. Herget told Pascack Press recently that “their response highlights that there is more work to be done—the increased air traffic, choices the FAA is making when routing planes, and pilot and airport management decisions are adversely impacting the lives of the taxpayers beneath the planes and surrounding the airports.”
Councilman Hoffman said he spoke at a recent TANAAC meeting and introduced the TANS group to show that the two committees have similar goals, “and look out, cause we’re coming,” he added.
The borough has included TANS on its website at parkridgeboro.com/Committees, along with Access For All, D.A.R.E./Municipal Alliance, Diversity and Inclusion, Electric Lake, Green Team, Historical Advisory Committee, PKRG-TV, and others.
Woodcliff Lake discussion
At the borough’s Aug. 21 meeting, Mayor Carlos Rendo and councilwoman Jacqueline Gadaleta urged residents to complain about low-flying jet aircraft noise. Both said that the more complaints received from more individuals has a bigger impact on airport and federal officials.
Both noted that Teterboro Airport operators keep track of residents’ noise complaints, totaling the number of separate complaints coming from each town. Rendo said when he had requested a total number for weekend jet aircraft flights over the borough, “they came back with a tremendous number of flights.”
He said that the Pascack Valley Mayors Association and TANS have requested that the FAA divert more flights to the new alternate landing route for Teterboro over Route 17, although the pilots have final choice for a landing route.
Rendo asserted that although the PVMA is a bipartisan group, “none of our [state or federal] representatives” have made the Pascack Valley’s noise concerns a priority.