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Community Corner

Letter to Representatives

Please send the following letter either by email or conventional mail to your Congressional rep.

Thanks to Jeffrey Starin prospectparkquietskies.org we have a new very easy way to send emails to your reps. It is described below. Please try it and let me know if you have questions or problems with it.

Len


Dear Representative XXXXX,

Please help us in our fight for relief from excessive aircraft noise and pollution by doing the following:

  1. Join with Congressman Quigley and Schakowsky of Illinois regarding request for review of the significant noise threshold DNL value as it applies to annoyance and ask that the review include consideration of DNL threshold on health.
  2. In parallel with, or soon after 1. above, submit legislation or request rule changes to modify the significant noise threshold from 65 to 55 DNL. In discussions with the FAA, note that the EPA standard is 55 which is also the standard for the rest of the world
  3. The FAA announced that the New York Metroplex design will start in 2015. All other Metroplex’s in the United States used Environmental Assessments (EA’s) to evaluate environmental impact. Therefore please investigate whether:
  • EA(s) will be used here in NY?
  • Individual CATEX’s, as currently described in the DRAFT 1050.1F, will be used? As you know that approach is unacceptable as it may ignore impacts below 3000 feet and the cumulative impact of multiple changes.  
  • There are other environmental review processes for the Metroplex being considered?
  1. Get advance notice of flight procedure or other airspace changes, including CATEX’s, so that we can review or participate in any environmental reviews well before an associated comment period ends. At this point in time the FAA argues that CATEX actions do not have to be announced yet comments on CATEXS must be submitted withing a short time frame. We find it impossible to submit comments if we do not know a CATEX is in process
  2. Investigate whether FAA grant funding under the VALE program can be used to purchase and install air pollution monitors near NY airports. See  http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=16495&cid=TW227

Use the new email method as follows:

Go to http://www.opencongress.org/

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click on "senators" which will take you to http://www.opencongress.org/people/senators


enter your zip code then click "show me"

select on the name of one of your reps. which will take you to the reps page.

On the right side of the page you will see the reps email address through opencongress.org

click on the address and type or paste-in the letter above.

The first time you send an email to myreps@opencongress.org, (where "myreps" is the name of your rep.) you will receive a confirmation email from opencongress.org asking for details about your zip code, address, etc. -- that's to make sure the email gets delivered to the correct representative.

The next time you send an email to myreps@opencongress.org all you have to do is click on the email button that says "confirm and send my email".  All subsequent emails will not require you to re-send the details of your address, zip code, etc.

You can read all about it here:

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/06/17/we-finally-gave-congress-email-addresses/#OCemail


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