what's going on i'm jan knight and joining me this morning is adriana poole who is founder and chair person of boston west fair skies go welcome thank you thanks for you here well it's nice to see you let's begin with when and why you began the quiet belmont group which has grown and evolved into the boston beer skies group so i lived here almost nine years and we came to belmont we moved to belmont because of the schools of course but also because it's a very quiet town wonderful and peaceful right and so seven of the nine years we lived here was quiet and wonderful we enjoyed our backyards and then all of a sudden in two thousand and thirteen pretty much overnight we started to notice that there were airplanes coming at you know a rate that we've never seen or heard before so we didn't quite understand what was happening and this was in june two thousand and thirteen by september we've noticed they weren't going go it wasn't some sort of coincidences mistake or something so we started to ask around and sure enough we found out what the problem was so the f a a implemented a new system of navigation to make the airspace more efficient it's called arnav so the paths are very narrow the planes are flying using the g p s so it's a satellite base system and so they're efficient the problem is that you have a population now living under those very narrow paths that actually there are cold highways in the sky because they really are narrow and so you've got this percentage of you know a small percentage of population who gets an unbearable mount of noise and unfair amount of noise we found out that we have a cac representative in official level but then i thought well i've got to do something about this so i thought ok let me just start something at the citizens level right grassroots type of organization so i started a group that i called quiet belmont dreaming of our old quiet belmont and we started to grow numbers of course other people were noticing the same problem and so we started to discuss and see what we can do so this is how it started of course belmont is a small town now if you have both twenty percent of population was affected by this right living under the arna of path it's a very small number of people so in time we realize that it makes more sense to have more people but who well all the towns west of boston all our neighbors arlington north cambridge summerville watertown mad for it are affected by the same departures from logan so they're all the planes are flying from runway thirty three and they go on a common path about you know about over bedford it's called a tech point and then from there they divide into four path three of the arden have path fly over belmont and so and then one goes north you know towards arlington and you know that that way but  yes everybody is under the same you know of the problem and so in may about this year we decided to form a coalition and expend the group to all the people affected by the same departures and so quiet belmont became boston west fair skies fair skies is a term that's associated at national level with the problem created a and it's happening at national level happening everywhere so they are trying to make the air space more efficient save some fuel of course and by making it more efficient knowing all you know exactly where the planes are going so not distributing them finding them out of course they're safer or so they say but yes probably there is no they have there there are parameters that that they're following so yeah and their problem is not just in the daytime but it night as well so yes little done logan airport has no curfew logan airport is is a destination airport and so it's a twenty four seven operation type of type of functioning and so the only thing that is happening is at night between oh i don't know maybe midnight and six am in the morning they use a certain class of airplanes that are not as noisy as is this true shore probably but however when you have you know a background noise zero it's very quiet and then you start to have those those airplanes coming over us ten thirty eleven thirty up to meet night sometimes and then the next morning at five thirty am there is a problem right ye hearing comes from those the engines that have those low frequency and so you know there is there is something there so you can't you can say there is absolutely nothing happening right and i know my house is on that path as well and i have been woken up at three thirty in the morning with a very low flying plane correct and so when we talk about why you started this and what you're trying to accomplish this it's the effect of that this has on people to be woken up and startled and and whether it's in the middle of the day or the middle of the night right and so yes so to to get a little bit more into the so a did a study they have their you know their system that they use some environmental study they use a computer generated system where they put in some parameters and their salt of this is system the metric that they are using the d n o the day night level is an average over twenty four hours so over twenty four hours you have to have a certain number of decibels and that works out just fine from as the system is from the seventy's when we didn't have g p s when we didn't have our net of when the one hundred twenty plus planes didn't come over you every two minutes at thirty five hundred or four thousand feet so you've got the situation of two thousand and fifteen with the equipment that we have now g p s satellite and everything using a metric from the seventy's that did not take in consideration the human factor so it's a problem right there you use and so there are the metrics that taken consideration the really the single noise event frequency right hahaha is that how many decibels are that when you are closer decibels let's say and you've got the repetitive events every two minutes or so into the middle of the night at five thirty in the morning they have a serious effect so harvard actually put out a study a health study and they there is an obvious increase in cardiac events in the elderly stress anxiety i mean we all need sleep you can take this from us but it's i think the elderly our population of that's even more affected by this i personally have not as i have never had a problem before and i get startled at five thirty in the morning and i get up i have so is it because it's really it's a big roar the house slightly the rattles so it you know you sleep and then you get up with this so yes we need a new metric system  some people are working on lowering the threshold from sixty five to fifty five d l we don't really think that that will do something for us what we really think is important she analyze data using a different i think that's we really feel that this is the important thing we are pushing at the you know congress level in in d c so there is a congressional caucus called the quiet skies well to the citizens it has to have a certain entity that they need to work with and report to an e p a would be a great start point so there is that we've been writing letters and  our legislators at you know state level here an inch of tones in the qualifications of course complains with massport noise complaints these are the you know most important part because you have to demonstrate that indeed there is an impact you know that there is a significant impact and to illustrate this belmont had zero complains before june two thousand and thirteen boston west here skies group so we are trying and this is you know we have goals and these are of course long term because it's it will take a long time you know the f a a is the bureaucratic large organization so it's not easy but we are trying to get a more fair noise distribution so talk to you know get to it get them to the negotiating table and say ok reevaluate thirty three l operations or runway thirty three i'll make those are little wider it's a matter of software it's a matter of you know twitching a little bit doing a little bit that and let's see if we can do that find some alternate solutions so they were working actually see if the wind is such i should have said that this happens only in on days with northwest winds because the airplanes take into the wind and so it's not always but when we have them it's really  o the alternate solution is to you know when the winds are not so again deep weather dependent if they're not so strong and if they can do this where they have a configuration where they send a lot of planes in over us late at night if possible the next morning we don't get hit at six thirty which is the time when they were six o'clock when they start the news cycle but we get a break until nine thirty so then you can sleep in say on the weekend or recover a little bit how ever this doesn't protect you because that curfew like i said doesn't exist you still can't get a helicopter as i have five o'clock but you don't get the repetitive planes every two minutes roaring over you so so the alternatives the most important thing is transparency we feel we feel we are not part of this dialogue and as citizens we need to have a place negotiating table we need to get get the f a a our feud back and we need to to have them listen to us because this is a you know a huge problem and we're trying to see if we can convince them to use a different metric that takes in consideration the human factor and for that we actually bought a noise monitor that is nist calibrated so that data that we're producing will be this it's maybe you know seventy five eighty decibels repeated is this ok let's look at the metrics so these are the main main things there we're trying and i'm sure that is where working with other groups at national level we will develop it be other sets of you know goals yes and i should say that going into this the important part is that we are not alone it's happening at everywhere yes and so we feel that if we always unite we can have a voice and we can press this you know bring twenty fourth is next saturday between ten and twelve in front of the state house in boston it is happening in seventy six others cities around the country so there are coordinated protests  there's a two part to it there is a pledge that everybody can sign online yes at no fly day and you pledge that you don't fly on the twenty fourth of october or on your next trip if possible it is so anyone who would like to do that have been great and if you can come to the protest that's even better so you know we do both so you sign the pledge and you come and protest there with us ok the the protesters from what time problem ten am to twelve noon ok and if if our yes would like to join your group and go to regular meetings  short can you tell us about your website and how they get the information to go to each of the meetings short they wish short so we have monthly meetings and we try to rotate between the towns in the coalition obviously so we can get more members from arlington or from cambridge or from some of l this month's meeting is on tuesday october twentieth between seven and nine o'clock in cambridge at the senior center in puerto square you can find all this information on our website which is w w w dot boston west fair skies dot jeep there is a page that we just created with the no fly day has all the information  there we have runway closures on the home page that obviously always triggers more traffic over us so it's good to prepare maybe you want to go out maybe i don't know you want to be out of town if it's on the weekend or so you really can find all the information there we have a link to or face book we have a facebook page so you can stay informed you can also join the google group just for the airplane noise so we don't bother everybody with our specific issues and yes in general you need to just stay informed come to the meetings and we kind of give everybody an idea what what needs to be done every week or you know the monthly goals or so so we can can do something about it and again this is not just happening in massachusetts or in boston area it is there are active groups in several parts of the country including california yes so the organizers actually have the no fly date are in santa cruz and minneapolis there are very strong groups in both minneapolis and pole santa cruz and in chicago actually chicago actually got to late into into the game they were busy with other actions that local actions that they are taking but they are participating in the pledge and given that the organizer organizer thinking that they will  this a multi year event maybe next year will be more than seven cities participating in the protest song something to look forward you know ok is there anything else that we would like to share with  the audience you know i think go a rep to kind of everything we just hope that everybody's gonna join the group and come to the meetings and help us do this we can do this alone we need people in every of the tone of the the points that we need to cover this morning and we'll see you next time thank you