 Welcome to Skywatch. I'm Jimmy Lease, and I write for the news report, cancelf35.substack.com. And I'm Danika Katowicz, and I am the co-director of CodePink Women for Peace. Our guest today is Ashley Adams, who lives in Burlington. Ashley owns an industrial manufacturing company located across the street from the north end of the runway at Burlington International Airport. Ashley also owns residential properties. She rents out 14 units in the Chamberlain School neighborhood of South Burlington, which is immediately adjacent to the airport. So Ashley, you've been speaking out about the F-35 at city council meetings, at city committee meetings, and at airport commission meetings. What have you been telling Burlington, South Burlington, and Winooski city officials? Well, a lot, actually. There is so much to the issue, you know, and especially because I'm both a business owner in that community and I rent housing to people in that community. My primary concern is that people are suffering, and there seems to be an utter lack of awareness about this problem. So elevating that, the fact that there is a concern, grave concern, about human health and child development. In my opinion, city counselors, our leaders in general are aiding and abetting this harm and it's immoral, and something needs to be done about that. So that has been the primary thrust of my argument. Local government is meant to protect residents, not allow harms to be perpetrated against those residents. And the quiet enjoyment of our home is something that we all deserve and should be able to expect, and I can't provide that any longer to my tenants as a result of the F-35. You know, I think that if folks in other parts of the city were exposed to the level of noise that my tenants are exposed to, we wouldn't be having this conversation quite frankly. You know, that's something I've noticed speaking to other people who live around the city, that people who live, let's say in the southeast quadrant of South of South Burlington, further away from the airport, sideways to the runway, have a very different experience than people who live in what the Air Force designated as this oval-shaped noise zone. People who live there really get it far worse than people who live further away. Like where the mayor of Burlington lives on Summit Street, it's a very different experience. It's loud, it's inconvenient, it interrupts conversations, but it isn't at the level of pain. It isn't causing suffering, it isn't causing children to cry. And so they think that's the experience. They need to spend some time in the neighborhood where this is really excruciating. And more than a thousand families live in that. The Air Force said almost 3,000 families live in the extreme noise zone. Yeah, and I have the experience of personally experiencing that noise with the proximity of my workplace to the end of the runway. And then knowing that my tenants are experiencing that. And then driving home to Burlington and having what you just described a very different experience where certainly we can hear them, they're a nuisance, but what folks near the end of the runway are experiencing is levels of magnitude beyond nuisance. So it's not that I've heard some people refer to it as a nimby problem. It's not a nimby problem. This is something that should be in nobody's backyard. Right. Yeah. And Ashley, could you tell us a little bit about how the F-35 maybe impacts your business operations? And if you want to expand a little bit more on tenants as well, that would be helpful, I think. Yeah, I will. I'll tell you a little bit about how I personally experience it and then how I experience it as a business owner. And it's, you know, for me personally, I grew up really at my business. My parents started the business in 1968 and it was a very quiet sleepy airport. I even had a borrowed pony in the backyard. And my dad lived there. My parents were divorced and I would stay with him for weeks at a time we would have during the summer. The windows open at night. It was a very different place, let me tell you. The F-16 really changed things quite dramatically. And we spend a good deal of money on sound noise attenuating windows for the office. Well, the F-35 has been a completely different experience. While it doesn't completely negate the help from investing in those windows, it has really impacted our ability to conduct business seamlessly throughout the day. I don't leave the windows open in the office because I certainly can't have a conversation with someone or a phone conversation while the windows are open. And the last thing I want to do during a phone conversation is panic and run to close the windows in time. So and it's distressing, quite frankly, when you walk outside to when I go to my car. I can feel it in my chest when they fly overhead. I can feel the sound reverberate throughout my body. I have tight chest, a racing heart, and I am dashing for the car or dashing for the office. Quite ironically, we require earplugs to be worn in the shop because the sound that we generate as a business within the manufacturing floor somewhat exceeds 85 decibels. So they're wearing hearing protection throughout the day. And meanwhile, we have noise exceeding sometimes 110 decibels upwards of 115 decibels right outside. So it's really quite ironic. We have a picnic table we don't use out front. It's healthy for folks to get outside during and take breaks. And that's not something that any of us feel comfortable using because the F-35 could fly overhead at any time. So your business is almost directly across the street from the end of the runway? Yeah, so it is. Directly across from us is the helicopter facility, the Blackhawk helicopter facility, which provides absolutely no issues with noise. Our drive is adjacent to two doors over, and then the runway lights are right there. Near Pizza Putt. Exactly, right next door to the former Pizza Putt. Exactly. Yeah, and actually while we're on the topic, if we have a moment to just share, I have some feedback that I wanted to share from three employees that I think we can just share on the screen so that folks get a little bit of the flavor of what it's like to work in close proximity to the F-35. One office employee said that it's almost impossible to hear each other. We pause conversations. We wait for them to fly by. I have to pause meetings. The windows rattle. Being outside when they're taking off or landing is painful. My mom, our controller, had an experience in Fairfax recently where she was, the F-35s flew low overhead. She was shocked that they were flying in Fairfax, and it sort of brought that panic back to her, that panic that she experiences at work while they're flying overhead. Fairfax is about 15 or 20 miles north of the airport. Right. Yeah, very, very odd to see them there and shocking for her, because for her, having been there and worked there for many decades for over 50 years, it's quite a shocking experience to deal with that level of noise. And we liken it to what sounds like a war zone, and we question why our leaders find that to be acceptable. As a mom, I question why that is acceptable. I never imagined being a mom and raising a child in these conditions. Do? Go ahead. No, no, please go ahead. So I was going to ask about some of your tenants. Do they have children? You have 14 families living, and are there children living in these homes, and how close are they to the runway? Yeah, there are. So my tenants are working-class folks. Some of them are immigrants and new Americans. Several of them have children. Some of them receive rental assistance. And again, you know, our laws are meant to protect residents, and they deserve quiet enjoyment of their homes. And I actually brought something that I think about frequently is, you know, I'm not going out to enjoy that picnic table during lunch. My tenants aren't going out for other reasons. You know, they might be concerned about their children. So I brought, I think we can show this on the screen, an email that I received recently from one of my tenants who is on Airport Parkway, again in close proximity to the end of the runway, near Kirby Road, the intersection of Kirby Road and Airport Parkway, where I have a couple of duplexes. And I won't read the whole email here, but I think we can share it with folks. And, you know, she says, it is extremely loud right here. When my nine-year-old was a bit younger, he would run inside covering his ears when you're outside and they're taking off. It's very uncomfortable. There have been many occasions when one of us has been sick or didn't sleep well and was trying to sleep when they took off. They're impossible to sleep through, and it's been really frustrating when our kids are woken up, when they needed to sleep, or when I was trying to get work done. They are so incredibly loud. And she says, and I share this, feeling that I think it's hard for people who don't live right here to understand. I think that our leaders need to be encouraged to physically go to these locations and sit with that noise and experience that noise. You know, the FAA wouldn't permit this if it was a civilian aircraft. Rightly so. It's way above what the law allows for civilian aircraft. It's also illegal under the military's own regulations. But our city, state, and federal officials seem to have a hearing problem when it comes to hurting our own people and doing what's necessary to conform to the law, to conform to the regulations, and to conform to human rights and civil rights and any kind of decency. They just don't understand the rules. They don't get it. They pretend they don't know their own powers. They're always telling us we don't have the power. It's really, really, it's really gotten a little bit north. It's so outrageous to have our own city and state officials imposing this kind of cruelty. I agree. And, you know, they're not doing their jobs. I haven't seen a single city official speak out and speak up for residents of Chamberlain or of Wyniewski or surrounding communities. I have yet to see that. And I question, you know, if they aren't concerned about human health, why aren't they concerned about degradation of the housing stock? Why aren't they concerned about the housing crisis and the fact that 44 acres around the airport have been sacrificed to the F-35? How many houses could be built there? Far more, I'm sure, than the 200 that were demolished. Think of the beautiful, walkable community that would result if we could restore housing to those 44 acres. And think of the habitable community that we could create for the rest of the folks who are living there right now. Think of the improvement to their quality of life. Right. The 44 acres, as you say, had roughly 200 houses that were demolished because of the F-16, which preceded the F-35. And it was only when the F-16 started using its afterburner routinely for takeoff in 2008 that that noise exploded. It's five times louder than the F-16 was before it was using its afterburner for takeoff. And the timing was so coincidental, but no public official has explained why two years before the scoping for the F-35 started, suddenly the F-16 was using the afterburner. But we found out in the environmental impact statement that the decision for the F-35 and the decision for all environmental issues where there's an environmental impact statement depends on what is the baseline level of the problem. And in this case, it was a noise problem. So what they did was they, knowing they wanted to bring the F-35. Here's the theory. Knowing they increased the baseline of the F-16, so then they're comparing the F-35 with a much, much higher noise level for the F-16. So people have had to suffer from this F-16 afterburner from 2008 to 2019 until the F-35 arrived for no good reason just that they wanted to increase the baseline. Now if that isn't despicable, inhumane, gross, just mind boggling, a whole generation of children went through the Chamberlain School and went through schools in Winooski and in Burlington for this kind of maneuver. And now we have the F-35, which is just as loud or louder than the F-16 afterburner, but it doesn't get turned off. When the F-16 took off with the afterburner, soon after it left the ground, they turned off the afterburner. This is a big waste of fuel. It's a gigantic fuel consumer. So if they're going to do their mission, they have to turn it off. So by the time it got to Winooski one mile away, it had long been off. And so with the F-16, there was no real change in the noise level when the F-16 used its afterburner for takeoff. But now with the F-35, as loud or louder than the F-16 with its afterburner on, Winooski is being crushed by this noise. And so as Willis did when they have to take off in the opposite direction because of the wind direction. I actually found out something interesting today. It was timely for this interview. Every summer in August, Chicago where I'm based has the largest outdoor free festival, the Aaron Water Show, where they regularly display fighter jets. And for about a week before the show, they have all these fighter jets flying around the city doing their practice runs. And previously they've been blue angels or F-22s, different fighter jets. But I found out right before we got together today that actually the F-35 is going to be in the Aaron Water Show. So the same planes that are causing a bunch of issues in Vermont are going to be flying over the third largest city in the United States. And previously activists in Chicago who have opposed the Aaron Water Show opposed it. Obviously the noise reasons. And this is only going to be worse this year with the F-35 because the noise isn't even comparable to the other fighter jets that they've had around. Noise has been a complaint, but also issues of why are we blowing so much CO2 in the air to watch planes fly around for two days every summer. And so I was wondering if you wanted to speak a little bit about the other issues with the F-35 that you see, any other concerns that you have like climate or that sort of thing. Yeah, two different issues I'd like to raise. I'm glad that you mentioned that. And climate is a huge concern of mine. And as a Burlington resident I'm keenly aware of the hypocrisy of a city that declared a climate emergency in 2019. And yet does not count flight emissions in their net-zero plan. So they're left out entirely. And isn't it amazing the airport came out with a report just recently that says that 99% of airport greenhouse gas emissions are from these flights. All the work the airport is doing is for its ground operations which account for 1% of the emissions of the airport. And 99% they don't have a plan for. Right, exactly. No plan to reduce because we're not even acknowledging them or counting them. It's much like the McNeil generating plant. We don't acknowledge the emissions. We don't count the emissions and therefore we don't plan to reduce them. And meanwhile we burn up the atmosphere, right? I mean it's just, it's crazy. And they don't want it. And then they pretend, gee, we don't get it. We don't know. We don't have power. We this. We go somewhere else. Yeah. Go file a lawsuit. This was the latest one from the supposedly most concerned city official in South Burlington who said, why don't you file a lawsuit? So I, so that we on the city council including me don't have to do anything. Our job. We don't have to do anything to protect the people. Even though it's the job of city officials, of town officials, of select board members, whether it's a village town, this is the primary job. They call it the police power to protect the civilians, the citizens of the town. Now that job couldn't mean protecting them from all kinds of people, but it also involves protecting them from business and corporate and other levels of government. That's what we have divided powers in this country. That's the plan of our constitution. Because the founders expected one level of government to do bad things and it would be corrected by action of the other levels of government. But here we have our city officials collaborating. Exactly. They're not doing their job. They're not defending the constitution which requires them to stand up to the other levels of government when they're doing something wrong. That's the whole idea. So we have implemented the tyranny the founders wanted to prevent. Yeah. It's, you know, every, every leader in surrounding communities, every city council member should be up in arms about this problem and they should be going to the city of Burlington in demanding change. You know, it's, Burlington is the proprietor of the airport and that lease needs to be terminated. You cannot, you cannot, no lease gives a tenant free will to perpetrate harm on citizens, period. And it's my firm belief that if our leaders did their jobs and united behind this problem and demanded this of the city of Burlington, we would see change. Oh, I think you're right. I think that if Winooski city officials, if South Burlington city officials called up the mayor in Burlington, if the members of the city council in Burlington would speak up about this. Yeah. Very rapidly. Not a peep. We would see some change. Whether they're progressive, Democrat, we don't have it. I don't think we have any Republicans on the city council. This is purely a Democrat and progressive city counselor issue that's being perpetrated on thousands of families. Speaking up for human rights, it's a basic role that they should be playing. And, you know, here's another option. Reach out, all of you, all of you leaders, reach out to our congressional delegation and let them know that we have been, it's no longer theoretical. We've been living with this plane for since 2019 and the harms are real and something must be done. You must rebase this aircraft. Right. Get it out of our populated cities. And they have two ways to do it. One, because of the noise and two, because of the emissions. Absolutely. The emissions really give them, I mean, with the horrible situation we're having this summer, with this air qualities problem, with the fires, with the extreme temperature, everything is going wrong. Downhill fast. Now's the time to seize the initiative and set a standard for all aircraft using the airport. Exactly. Passenger miles per gallon. Standard. That would eliminate the F-35. It would eliminate these gas-guzzling private jets. And it would still leave in place the civilian commercial airliners that 99% of the people or more rely on for long distance transportation because those get more than 100 passenger miles per gallon. And it would also include the cargo aircraft if a similar standard was implemented. Donica, do you have any further questions you wanted to ask? Yeah. Ashley, I was wondering if you could just tell us briefly a little bit more about the campaign to stop airport expansion in the Chamberlain school neighborhood last year and a little bit about that effort. Yeah, I'd be happy to. I became aware that the airport was looking to rezone 11 acres of open space across from the four of my apartments on Airport Parkway, and Kirby Road at that intersection. And I was outraged. And I have a graphic that I'd love to share. I'm sure we can bring it up on the screen of a proposed enormous building which involved a hangar and so forth, which dwarfed my duplex buildings. And this in what was meant to be a buffer zone. And what the city called for and the airport itself called for was a buffer zone between airport operations and residences. And I was outraged that they were looking to eliminate the buffer and build whatever their intention was. It would be noisy invariably. So I got involved. And consequently I attended a meeting. I expressed my frustration. There was a task force that the city set up to investigate the issue. And I thought they did a terrific job and they solicited comments from the public. But I think several of us, and I actually met several folks yourself, included Jimmy through that effort, were aware that only certain individuals can attend a public meeting. And we felt that it was important to get out in the community and actually talk with residents. So we canvassed the community. We circulated a petition. And we brought that petition to city leaders. And that task force ultimately voted unanimously to say no to rezoning. To recommend no to rezoning. And the Planning Commission agreed to decline that rezoning effort. So very happy about that. But who knows what the airport has up their sleeves next. We must remain diligent. Now that campaign was really an inspiration because as a result of the canvassing and as a result of the petition and the work that you and others did, many people came out to the public meetings. And one after another they spoke about against the airport expansion. And they also spoke against the F-35, which for many people was driving the opposition to the expansion because they just had had it with what the airport is doing. Yeah, it just, for me, was piling insult upon injury to even consider allowing the rezoning. And when we were canvassing, I remembered, and I'll wrap it up, but I remembered talking with so many folks who just were distrustful of the airport, felt powerless to do anything, knew that the airport would do whatever they wanted to do, were concerned that they would potentially even lose their housing at some point. It was a real eye-opener. Well, that's a really good note upon which to conclude our episode of Skywatch because we did have a victory in that campaign and we anticipate having more victories. We know that the human rights prevailed, that the arc of history bends towards justice. And so that's the purpose of this program. We're going to be building the campaign by the way, we have a rally scheduled for July 24th at 6 p.m. at Burlington City Hall before the City Council meeting at which these emissions issues are going to be taken up. And as you said, it's the McNeil plant as well as the F-35 that are the huge emitters that the City Council of Burlington ignores. So we're going to be pressing them to put a stop to both of those. And thank you very much, Ashley, for joining the show. Donica and I are delighted to have had you on. Thank you. Appreciate it. Good night.