Wow, this lady has been fighting about the noise coming from PDX for 20+ years. I admire her tenacity.
Amplify’d from www.oregonlive.com
HILLSBORO -- Of all the Port of Portland's records on citizens, Miki Barnes' is the biggest. For more than a decade, she's complained, testified at meetings, volunteered on citizen boards and published an aviation website trying to change airport noise policies.
When none of that worked, Barnes started filing lawsuits.
Now, the people who plan where and how airplanes should land must listen to her. Last month, the state Land Use Board of Appeals agreed with her complaint that the Port and the city of Hillsboro acted unconstitutionally when the city created an ordinance that gave more power to the Hillsboro airport. Hillsboro staff members spent five years crafting the ordinance before the land use board threw it out.
"They can't throw me off as just an opinionated woman," Barnes said, "because I study. I have the law on my side."
To understand how Barnes became the Port's most persistent gadfly, look back 20 years. Before Southwest Airlines came to Portland International Airport in 1994, far fewer planes took off from it, says Christopher Corich, the airport's general manager for long-range planning.
Southwest's low prices meant more people could afford to fly. Other airlines cut prices, too. By 1998, takeoffs and landings had nearly doubled at PDX. That's the year Barnes said she looked up from her peaceful Cedar Mill garden and thought, "Well, this is a lot of noise."
Over eight days in 1998, the Port recorded 171 aircraft flying over Barnes' home at 60 decibels or louder, a level the Port considers intrusive.
That year, the Port revamped its PDX Citizen Noise Advisory Committee, and Washington County leaders nominated Barnes, who had been pestering local officials with noise complaints.
"Back then I thought you should sit down, tell people what's going on and then have a reasonable dialogue about it," she said.
The Port does listen to noise complaints, Corich says. And when possible, it makes changes in response. That's part of the reason for the noise rumbling above Barnes' home.
As the airline business picked up in the late 1980s, Portland residents complained about increased noise. So the Port and the Federal Aviation Administration developed new flight paths directing all planes to ascend over the Columbia River and change direction at 6,000 feet.
The turnaround spot for south- and southeast-bound flights was over Barnes' home.
As Barnes worked on the noise committee, she became increasingly frustrated. Nothing changed. So she decided to move. As she and her husband searched for a new house, they requested flight path information for each potential location. Finally, she thought she had found a place where few planes would go. She moved to Banks -- 40 miles from PDX.
Barnes' house in Banks is secluded and surrounded by Douglas firs, but those do nothing to block out noise, she said. Fewer planes go over her home now, but it's not the peaceful place she imagined.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/8f44
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