Airport noise forum draws crowd; Many complain about new runway

About 100 upset people Friday morning piled into a dining room at Rosewood Banquets in Rosemont to complain about airport noise at the O'Hare Noise Compatibility Commission meeting.

The focus of their discontent was a new 7500-foot-long northern runway, which opened to great fanfare by Chicago on Nov. 20. It's part of the city's $15 billion expansion plan that includes a number of reconfigured runways.

The runway, technically called 9 Left/27 Right in aviation terms, has disrupted the life of people like Des Plaines resident Dagny Gebert. She told council representatives from almost 30 suburbs and 15 school districts that the noise greatly disturbed her.

"On Saturday morning, it started at 6:30 and they go every minute," Gebert said.

Many in the crowd, most of whom were from Park Ridge, complained of a similar frequency of flights, saying planes flew overhead about once a minute or even less than that in some cases.

But Federal Aviation Administration representatives said that they believed the runway would be used at most 35 to 40 times per hour.

And while the meeting offered a forum for complaints, nothing was said or done at the meeting that would indicate residents could expect any noise relief in the immediate future.

Several elected officials did say they were annoyed with the runway's use as well.

"For two years, we asked about the runway and were told small aircraft would use it, but they're not," said Des Plaines 6th Ward Alderman Mark Walsten, who's on the commission. "I was at a residence (in Park Ridge) when a 747 came roaring right over and it shook the ground."

The runway is big enough to accommodate larger aircraft, so occasionally a Boeing 747 will fly by on the approach, said Aaron Frame, assistant commissioner for the Chicago Department of Aviation. Smaller aircraft like regional jets and Boeing 737s are routinely flown on the runway.

Park Ridge Alderman Donald Bach, a noise commission member, echoed Walsten's comment about the number of large aircraft flying overhead, but went a step further, calling for a cap on the number of flights on the runway. He urged the meeting's attendees to write their elected officials in Springfield.

"Most folks knew it'd be coming," Bach said of the runway, "But they did not know how much it'd be used or by such huge aircraft."

The commission expects to discuss the issue again at its next meeting, when a decibel level report for November is finished. That meeting is scheduled for 8 a.m., Friday, Feb. 6 at Rosewood Banquets, 9421 W. Higgins Road in Rosemont.

For more information, call (773) 894-3255, or to complain about noise, call (800) 435-9569.