In 1985, the federal government gave money to the Department of Transportation’s airports division to undertake a study of noise related to operation of the Kahului airport on Maui. The study was to lead to preparation of noise exposure maps and, eventually, development of what is called an FAR Part 150 Airport Noise Compatibility Program for Kahului.
Residents — especially those living in nearby Spreckelsville — were eager to have the study completed and the program implemented. A rapid increase in activity at the Kahului airport had begun in 1983, when airline deregulation allowed direct mainland flights to Maui. In succeeding years, the Kahului airport became a major cargo facility as well, with Aloha Airlines’ nighttime cargo flights being especially disruptive.
Airports division administrator Owen Miyamoto appeared to be no less eager to begin the study. In a letter to Spreckelsville resident Jack Thompson on September 8, 1986, Miyamoto wrote: “Noise abatement is a major concern of the Department of Transportation… Implementation [of noise abatement measures] will be done in an orderly fashion, as you suggested, after the completion of the Part 150 study, which will be under way very soon.”
Miyamoto was making the same promise to Thompson more than a year later. On October 1, 1987, he wrote Thompson that he was “just as upset as you and others who have heard me repeat over and over that I expected the Part 150 study to begin soon. I can only state that there are factors completely beyond my control that have frustrated all attempts to have the project under way any sooner.”
Before the month was out, the DOT finally did sign a contract with Belt Collins & Associates to conduct the noise study (among other tasks). Nearly six and a half years later, a study of noise exposure levels has been published, but the noise abatement plan itself remains an unfinished task.
A Noisy Neighbor
According to the DOT, the delays are primarily the result of a lawsuit brought in 1989 by impatient residents. In course of that litigation, the litigants challenged preliminary noise assessments in the noise exposure study prepared by the DOT’s consultants. Among other things, the plaintiffs noted that the results emerging from the FAA’s computer software for assessing noise levels were widely at variance with noise measurements from the field. The suit was settled by a stipulated court order reached just last September.
Terms of that settlement require (among other things) that the DOT analyze the cost of requiring all aircraft using the Kahului airport to be equipped with quieter, Stage III engines, with the cost-benefit analysis to be prepared by “an impartial, unbiased private consultant without conflicts of interest.” Deadline for completing the cost-benefit study was January 31, 1992.
Besides that, the DOT agreed that single-event noise levels — virtually ignored in the computer program devised by the FAA for Part 150 noise studies — “give the most accurate picture of the nighttime noise environment.” The DOT, therefore, would study single-event noise levels and consider them in addition to the average day-night noise exposure levels.
The DOT agreed also to begin, by April 30, 1992, the process of implementing rules concerning airport operations that will have the effect of reducing night-time noise to those levels that would occur if all night flights involved Stage-III aircraft.
Missed Deadlines
There would appear to be no way for the DOT to meet the deadlines set forth in the stipulated order. If the deadlines are missed, the plaintiffs can reopen the court case and seek the same type of relief originally sought.
Dean Nakagawa, an engineer in the DOT’s airports division planning office in Honolulu, has said that a draft noise compatibility program has been prepared. He could not release it, however, since it had not yet received approval from all of the various consultants.
Apart from the missed deadlines, the DOT seems to have violated the court settlement in another fashion. While the new cost-benefit studies were to be prepared by an “unbiased, impartial consultant” — a term that the plaintiffs took to mean someone who had had no prior involvement with the Kahului airport noise studies — the consultant actually hired by the DOT is KPMG Peat Marwick.
When one looks at the DOT’s 1989 noise exposure map report, however, Peat Marwick Main & Co. (of which KPMG Peat Marwick is the successor corporation) is listed as one of three consultants responsible for preparing the report. Isaac Hall, attorney for the Spreckelsville plaintiffs, said he had not noticed this. Dean Nakagawa, who had earlier cited the need to bring in a new consultant as one of the factors contributing to the lengthy delays, explained that while Peat Marwick Main & Co. had indeed been among the initial consultants in preparation of the noise exposure maps — “they were picked up sort of as a reviewer,” Nakagawa said — they “dropped by the wayside” in the later stages of Part 150 planning, with Perry White, of Belt Collins, and Y. Ebisu & Associates doing the bulk of that work.
DOT’s legal division apparently decided KPMG Peat Marwick would satisfy the requirement that an “unbiased and impartial” consultant be retained to do the analyses called for as part of the court settlement, Nakagawa stated. According to Isaac Hall, the litigants’ attorney, the DOT did not consult with them on the matter of KPMG’s selection.
Volume 2, Number 8 February 1992