Airdrie City council continues to look into concerns from residents about increased noise due to the new runway expansion at the Calgary International Airport, which opened on June 28.
Council unanimously voted at their regular meeting on Oct. 20 to direct Mayor Peter Brown to express council’s concern about the increase in noise and airplane traffic to Airdrie’s Member of Parliament Blake Richards, and to request a noise monitoring system at the next meeting of the Calgary Airport Authority’s (CAA) Airport Community Consultative Committee.
Brown said he felt council needs to continue to do everything possible to respond to concerns raised by residents.
“We’re still on top of it,” he said. “Council was unanimous in our desire to ask for the noise monitoring equipment. We’re going to exhaust every avenue we can to try to mitigate the concerns residents have about noise since that new runway opened. We want to be proactive. We want to be sure we’re covering all of our bases so we can exhaust all options if this continues to be a problem.”
Richards said he’s happy to do what he can. “If there’s something I can do beyond some of the conversations I’ve already been having with the people at the CAA to try to raise some of the issues I’ve heard from residents, I’m open to hearing what that might be and I’m glad to help in anyway I can, obviously,” he said.
According to Manager of Legislative Services Sharon Pollyck, staff began receiving complaints from residents after the new runway opened, however, no new complaints have been received since the beginning of September.
“(I’ve) been outside quite a bit, the weather’s been great, and it seems like the planes are turning a lot further south than they did originally,” said Alderman Kelly Hegg. “That’s just an observation and I could be way off on that. It seems to be when they’re taking off and landing that the flight path is not over Airdrie as much as it was initially when we started to hear some noise (from residents) about the noise.”
Pollyck presented council with information received from the CAA regarding the new runway and the number of planes flying over Airdrie.
“In conversation with the CAA, they have indicated there are noise abatement procedures in place for the runway and they also indicated the actual number of planes landing and taking off at the airport has not changed,” she said. “The distribution of what runways are used is what has changed.”
Pollyck said flight paths and landing routes are determined by NAV CANADA, the national Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) that manages 12 million aircraft movements per year in over 18 million square kilometres of air space. City staff have asked NAV CANADA for clarification of questions regarding the flight paths around Calgary and Airdrie but have not yet received a response, according to Pollyck.
Alderman Fred Burley asked if there is a cost to having a noise monitoring terminal. Pollyck was unsure and said she would look into it.NO WORD ON RICHARDS?
