 Welcome to the May episode of In the World of Winooski. I am your host, Mayor Christine Lott, and today I have two guests joining me. With us from the Burlington International Airport are Nick Longo, Deputy Director of Aviation Administration, and Diane Carter of the Jones Pain Group. They are here to share information with us about the newly released updated noise exposure map for the Burlington International Airport, ahead of a public meeting that will occur tomorrow at the airport, and another one that will occur on Thursday right in Winooski at the O'Brien Center. So I'd like to say welcome to you, Nick and Diane. I really appreciate you joining us today to inform us of this complicated, long-term process that residents in Winooski are looking forward to hearing about. I think it would be good to start with just some background and basics on what is the noise exposure map, why is it being updated, what is this bigger process that we are looking at here. Well, thank you very much, Mayor, for having us on board. I think it is important because, as you mentioned, of the complexities behind this program, and we want to make it as simple as possible so that you as a homeowner within Winooski and many of the municipalities surrounding the airport understand what the noise exposure map means, why the airport moves down that path. But then the second half of the program is, if I'm in that program as a homeowner, what are the next steps for me and what are the programs behind that? I think we have some slides for you today to kind of go through that, and these are going to be available at both public meetings in a poster board, as well as live on our website, btvsound.com, so your residents can directly access them. What you're looking at here is really the overall schedule of our noise exposure map. That yellow square there is just about where we are in the overall process, and that is the draft noise exposure map document for you, the audience's review and public comment. Today it is on our website, btvsound.com, and you can access the full document as well as the noise exposure map picture, the map itself, rather. So what happens here is we have to open this public comment period for approximately 30 days, and we receive comments both from you as municipality and leadership of that municipality, as well as the general public on the actual document and the maps themselves. We'll compile that, we'll answer some of those questions, and then what we do is submit that to the Federal Aviation Administration or the FAA for their review, and they accept those maps. Really the next step after that comes what happens with the map and what happens within the area of the map. I think that the next slide really goes into the overall perspective, and Diane will walk us through what is a Part 150 study. Thanks, Nick. So a Part 150 study is a federally funded program that allows communities to make land use planning decisions. It identifies noise exposure from aircraft noise, and then it puts together a program of how to mitigate that noise once it's been identified. It's a two-step process that starts with the noise exposure map itself, which is a technical document that depicts the noise in a graphical format, and that's where we're at today. We've finished up the map, it's here for everyone to see, and then we'll go into the noise mitigation planning process later this summer. And as I've said, the noise exposure map is two maps. Actually, it's the current year, which is 2018, and then a five-year forecast, which will be 2023. And in terms of looking at noise mitigation areas, we'll be looking at the 2023 map as the affected area. So what is a noise contour? This is the lines that go around the map that explain what the noise level is. It's an average annual day that is encompassing all of the aircraft operations, both general aviation, military and commercial, and there's a 10-decibel penalty for nighttime operations from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. That counts the equivalent of 10 aircraft for every departure after 10 p.m. or every arrival after 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. in the morning. This is the metric that the FAA requires us to use. It's used by all the airports across the country, and so it's a way for everybody to look at the noise in the same type of way. So it's an average of the noise that you're hearing throughout the day. There's going to be peaks and quiet times. Correct. And then you said in the nighttime there's sort of a penalty to recognize that that's more disturbing than the same level of noise in the daytime. Exactly. Okay. And a good way to picture it for DNL is if you turn on your faucet and you put a bucket under your faucet all day long for a year, at the end of the year, whatever water you had in that bucket, you divided it by 365 glasses, that would be the noise contour. That would be the average. So some days you do more dishes, some days you do less. It's that same type of principle. Okay. So the noise compatibility program is the piece of it that looks at people who are within that noise contour and it determines what programs can be offered to help mitigate that noise. It could be things like sound insulation or assistance with sale of a home and we'll be talking more about that a little bit later. And Mayor, this is probably the more important piece of this project. While the map defines those areas, those geographic areas that may be eligible for one of these programs, the noise compatibility program is the document that details what each program is. And as Diane and I talk about all the time, we want a toolbox that has many tools in it so that as a homeowner you have these tools that you can choose from that best fits your property or your unique circumstance. And that's what a noise compatibility program really details. What works for you? Is it sound insulation or is it one of the other programs that we'll go through in just a moment? And that's why it's so important that, one, the maps are produced, but two, what do we do within those contour areas, whether it's for Winooski, South Burlington, or Williston? Yeah, so we're going to see this map that's going to tell us who would qualify for noise compatibility programming. And then after that is determined, we move into the stage of actually sorting out what that program is, people being able to apply, which I think we'll talk about a little bit further out in this program. Yeah, the map is a means to get federal funding. So first you have to identify it, then it allows the airport to apply for the funds to do the mitigation. So some of the potential land use measures is sound insulation. I think this is something that we see a lot of interest in from the communities around the airport. It's when the airport will come in, they'll do a test of the home to determine the interior noise level, and then they'll install new windows and doors that are acoustically made to reduce your interior noise level. You can't do anything about the outside or your backyard, but we can always make it quieter when you're in the house and you don't have to turn up your TV or ask someone to hold on while you're on the phone. It also could include ventilation in terms of fresh air or central air conditioning if you don't have it. It may include attic insulation or some other types of treatments to make sure we can reduce that interior noise level. It's a long process. From the initial time we come to a house to do the initial assessment until the construction happens. It's about a 12- to 18-month process because it depends on grant cycles with the FAA. But the actual construction on the house takes about 30 days, so it's 10 days from start to finish to get 90% of everything in, everything operational, and then another 20 days to do all the inspections, close the permits, tidy up all the work and make sure that everything's working. And we find this to be a very positive program. Homeowners like it, it adds a lot of value to their home. It's no cost to them. All of those costs are paid by the airport and by the grant, so it improves their home without there being a financial impact to homeowners for sound insulation. The other two programs that we're looking at are sales assistants. All of these programs, I should say, are developed to keep the homes residential, keep the area residential. The airport is not looking to do any more purchasing of properties and tearing them down and clearing the land. So we're wanting to keep the neighborhoods, keep the communities intact. And so sales assistants allow people who want to relocate the ability to do so, and the house stays in the neighborhood. The homeowner sells their home on the open market to a third party, and if there is not an offer that is equivalent to the appraised value, then the airport would make up that difference. The other option that we look at is purchase assurance, and that is where the airport will just come in and buy the home at the appraised value, and then sound insulate it and resell it on the market. So it always remains residential and keeps that neighborhood intact. I think you make an important point there about a community value that we have. You know, Winooski in the area has a lot of more affordable housing than some of the surrounding county. And so it's really important to us that we have these options to keep people in their homes, keep that housing stock available, that we're not looking at a situation where we'd be demolishing any homes. Yeah, and we were very adamant with you and your staff, as well as the other municipalities' staff and leadership to stop the acquisition program. We heard loud and clear from municipal leadership, from Burlington and Winooski-Wilson, South Burlington, that that no longer was a viable option moving into the future. That program has ended. Like Diane was saying, we no longer will be purchasing any more houses for the removal of the building and start offering some of these programs. And it's important to note, too, that these programs were and have been discussed over the last year, about a year, as part of the airport's technical advisory committee for this noise compatibility program. A lot of acronyms out there, but the technical advisory committee is made up of municipal leadership that really have stakeholders and community members and residents within these areas that truly are part of this project with us. So that's why it's so important that we did have these discussions, and we'll continue to have these discussions on what best fits the community and keeping and remaining this affordable housing stock into the future. And our own city manager has a seat to help advocate for Winooski and what we would like to see. So when we talk about the history of the Part 150 program, it's been at the airport for quite a long time. In fact, all the way when the Part 150 started with the FAA back in the 80s, the airport's first initiative with the Part 150 program was really back in 2008 when we completed the first noise compatibility programs. That's the program that defined purchasing and removal of the house. So that's why we're updating that program. That's why this new noise compatibility program is being edited now and will be submitted later in 2019 to adjust for the programs we just mentioned, the sales assistance, purchase assurance, and sound insulation. In 2015, just a few years ago, we did produce our last noise exposure map. That map is available for viewing and in fact, it's available within this new document that we have just so folks can compare what it used to look like in 2015 with the new maps defined this year and the future forecast for 2023. Like I said, we have been working on the NCP updates for some time. We anticipate that we submit those NCP updates to the FAA later in 2019 as well as our noise exposure map which is defined right there. That picture on the right hand side is probably tough for viewers to see but that is available at BTVsound.com that is part of the overall noise exposure map documentation right there on the homepage of BTVsound.com and what that does is it details the estimated residential population as well as the dwelling units within each community and within each contour area. So we talk a lot about noise and sound with airports and we wanted to just familiarize people with terminology of acoustics and sound is measured in decibels. We use an A-weighted decibel. There are different types of ways to measure noise, whether it's low frequency but we use A-weighted which is most like what a human hearing would be. So that's our basis measurement and then a decibel can be in a variety of measurements whether it's a single event or the loudest point of something the loudest point of an event or a series of aircraft over flights but the main measurement we use for the part 150 is the day-night sound level as we talked about earlier it's this annual average with this 10 dB penalty and so one thing to know about acoustics is it's logarithmic it's not linear addition so if you're adding two flights together it doesn't make it doubly loud there's a larger technical way that noise is measured and there's a lot of detail about that for those who are interested in acoustics in the noise exposure map. In the overall document online we do get into some of the details of fine or tuned technicalities of how this is produced but it can be very technical indeed and difficult for even us as the airport to define these terms to put into the noise map so like Diane said if you're interested it's available online but overall it's defined in a way that we all can understand it a little bit better. And would it also be fair to say that the way this is measured and how this program rolls out it follows policy of the Federal Aviation Administration so there are rules in place there are things that we have to abide by that are guided by the FAA and when we get to the point of the noise compatibility program after the initial stages are set up that that is then administered by the airport itself. Yeah that is a fair point in fact many people one of the frequently asked questions we receive is why don't you physically measure the noise with microphones outside the airport and the simple answer is the FAA the Federal Aviation Administration does not allow that to be put into a noise exposure map so that we can access grant funding and that's the most vital piece there is we have to follow of course like many grantees and municipalities have to follow the federal procurement and federal requirements of this program so that later down the road we can access that federal funding and then yes once that all of these items the noise exposure map and the noise compatibility program these two documents are approved by the FAA then that would be administered by the Burlington airport with communication, constant communication with you and other municipalities that are within this 65DNL. Again we are showing here some different types of sound levels so people can compare what a loud urban environment is versus a suburban environment and showing how a DNL is constant over time and that how there's a penalty at night which raises those noise levels to account for the people who are disturbed more in the middle of the night when they're sleeping the FAA recognizes the human side of all of this so it's important people understand that so land use compatibility as we chatted about a little earlier comes through the federal regulations and it's while we've mainly talked about residential use it also involves public use so it isn't for buildings that are churches or schools or day care centers or hospitals those are also things that are identified as potentially not compatible with the noise environment when you're above the 65DNL noise contours so all of those types of sensitive receptors we've looked at and that's in the document and there are some exceptions to different noise levels if you're in the 75 or higher which is the highest level we're measuring that's incompatible for any land uses in terms of residential or public sensitive receptors and so that's why previously the airport has been purchasing properties now that is mainly on the airport so we don't see a lot of need for purchasing homes because everything is in the 70 and below and so that gives us the more flexibility for sound ventilation or purchase assistance or sales assistance so the next slide is going to be the actual maps themselves but I think it's important for the viewers to understand kind of the steps once again where we are today which is of course publishing this noise exposure map this will be today in fact will be the first day that it's published and open for public comment for the next 30 days which you can access on btvsound.com and there's a little comment section on the left hand side of the screen there once that's completed we'll compile all of that information answer many of those questions and respond to those questions on our website again and then submit that to the FAA and for their acceptance once that's completed we're going to reconvene the technical advisory committee to confirm those land use measures that we talked about the sound insulation purchase assurance and sales assistance programs that confirmation would then detail within our actual noise compatibility document so that we can publish that as well and accept additional public comment from you as a viewer and from your constituents in Winooski and of course South Burlington-Wilston in the surrounding area that document, the noise compatibility document then gets submitted to the FAA later in 2019 so that they can review it they actually review each individual sound measure and approve or deny those sound measures we of course are hopeful that they'll approve all of them because they really truly do make sense in this area and we've worked really hard with our neighbors including yourselves to make sure that it fits with the area and with Vermonters and with who we truly are the FAA takes about 180 days or they can take up to 180 days to review and approve those items once they do approve it then we can access grant funding so at the earliest by summer of next year we'll have that approval so that into late next year 2020 and then really into 2021 we can access federal funding to start implementation of each one of those programs and I think now is a good time to show the map and kind of review if that's what you wish to review the map in its entirety so here you're looking at really a zoomed in area of just Winooski of course tailoring to your viewers you can see at the bottom right hand corner of the map the end of one of the runways at the Burlington area you can see the Winooski downtown as a whole in the top left hand corner I-89 kind of going right through the middle of the screen there and so this red line that you that you're viewing on the outside edges shows the 65 decibel DNL line so that's that average line that Diane was describing and that area right there that outside red line is the initial eligibility for one of those programs again the map has to be accepted by FAA and those programs have to be approved by the FAA until we until we can move forward with accessing grant funding so this really is the map for Winooski this details additionally there are signs in there of the 75 the 70 and like I said the outside edges which is the 65 dB DNL line pause there just for a second just in case we have questions or in case I can remember anything additional to add I would say that on the BTV Sound website there is an eligibility map when you go to that home page you'll see on the left hand side there's an eligibility map if you click on that you can enter your address and it will show your home compared to these noise contours so you'll know where you fall within the noise levels if you're within the project area or outside of the mitigation area but that's helpful that came up tonight as well yeah that's great too I mean when I've seen this map it's a significant portion of Winooski that is impacted as well for those who are kind of on the edge whether or not they would fall into it so being able to search your own property is important I think for folks who want to know more there is the website we have the meeting that you're hosting at the airport tomorrow from 5 to 7 then again we're doing it at the O'Brien Center so we have the airport staff actually coming to us in Winooski to bring some blown up maps more zoomed in on Winooski so homeowners who are interested can come and learn more what would you say is kind of the next step if I'm a property owner in Winooski and I'm concerned about this you know what is my part of the public process here as a homeowner I think your involvement as a homeowner on reviewing the maps reviewing the documentation behind this the next step like I said is completing the documentation for the noise compatibility program as a homeowner that's vital to review as well and to talk to your town leadership or respond to btvsound.com the comment section to really submit questions or comments what those programs entail certainly the airport is always available as I assume the city of Winooski would be as well and really be engaged with what this entails because once those programs are approved and within that documentation we will be moving forward with the FAA and with the grant funding and with the communities on accessing those funds and really implementing those programs directly and we'll work geographically and physically as close to the airport as we can as the FAA allows us to do and work our way outward from that point so it may take some time for the citizens of Winooski to access that grant funding you know working through the airport so I think that's important to stay engaged to read those documentations of course if there's questions always respond to the website or directly to the airport or the city and really get engaged with what those programs are and how you can stay involved in accessing grant funding in future years and I would say to viewers to residents that we as a city are working with the airport we want to hear from you, they want to hear from you as this noise compatibility program is kind of fleshed out and finalized whatever we hear we're going to take that information and bring it to advocate on behalf of our residents for what they want to see in the program we can also direct folks to the airport you know once once we move into the actual funding and program the airport is really running that process but we will be in contact we can also help connect folks and then I think the other thing to take away is that as you explain through this process of approval it's going to be next year before the funding application probably another year before any sort of construction actually begins so it's a slow process that we have to keep working through correct and it's never ending too let's put it that way because even when our technical advisory committee is disbanded because that's really focused on just the noise compatibility program so once that's complete of course we'll disband the technical folks but then we'll continue continuously a sound mitigation committee and that still has your town manager Jesse Baker on it who you and your staff have been wonderful to work with and really important in this whole engagement of this process so that sound mitigation committee is really a rolling committee that we can always tweak and comment and make sure we're moving in the direct in the line and path that we all want to move forward to in accessing and investing into the community with some of these programs yeah it's a constant communication between residents the city, the other cities that are impacted South Burlington, Wilson and so we will continue to work with you all and get to a place where we can roll this out for folks one thing I did want to mention is that parking at the airport tomorrow you can get a voucher so it'll be free when you leave right absolutely there's plenty of free parking at the O'Brien Center for the Thursday event and translation is also available if you reach out to city staff we have some service in place for that if there are folks who need that in order to attend looks like we have about two minutes left any final thoughts or final bits of information you want to share no I think this kind of sums it up and brings us to these these two meetings that we're holding and I think maybe it would be beneficial for the viewer to understand that that the meeting is really an open meeting from 5 to 7 p.m. so there is no formal presentation so if you don't if you can't make it at 5 o'clock p.m. that's okay because there's going to be plenty of opportunity to have one-on-one time with Diane and her team with the airport team as well the FAA will be available to answer any questions at that meeting as well and it's really just a rotation of stations that you can not only understand what these programs as we just discussed what they mean and how they came to be and what the background is on that but also you know those zoomed in maps exactly where you live and get the answers to your unique property and your unique home that you may need in the future well thank you so much for coming to the show tonight hosting the meeting, coming to Manuski to do that as well and I've also heard repeatedly from the airport that they are available to speak one-on-one with anyone who has questions as well absolutely