Thomas Breen Photo
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal with airport chief Sean Scanlon at May expansion announcement.
Opponents of the $70 million privately funded plan to expand Tweed-New Haven Airport have formed a new organization to fight it, called 10,000 Hawks.
Their aim is to watch like hawks as the plan’s details, to be executed by public Tweed’s private operational managers, the Goldman Sachs-owned Avports, progress into what they fear will be a noisy polluted reality.
The expansion deal still requires the Board of Alders to approve the private operator’s 43-year lease. And details have yet be released for a promised mitigation plan.
The new group says it gets its name from “the number of raptors in the annual hawk migration that takes place over Tweed airspace & our East Haven, East Shore, and Fair Haven neighborhoods,” tallied during an annual migration count.
Organizer Rachel Heerema represented the 10,000 Hawks at the most recently monthly meeting of the Fair Haven Community Management Team, held this past Thursday over Zoom.
She called attention to both good news and bad news in the proposed expansion of service, the building of a new terminal facing East Haven, the lengthening of runways, and the arrival of bigger planes at Tweed.
The good news: The city would no longer have to come up with an annual $325,000 in operational budget support and $500,000 in annual capital support.
Rachel Heerema: Hawks are bearish on expansion.
The bad news: “Also air pollution is going to travel to the East Shore, Fair Haven,” Heerema said. “And what’s most problematical is the particulate matter” generated.
The advice to combat air and noise pollution, she reported, ironically is “to stay indoors, purchase filters, and move if you don’t like it.” Heerema said there’s another option: People should show up to raise concerns at public meetings.
She argued that the plan should include limiting the flight times (and decibel levels) permissible under the current municipal ordinances; monitoring ongoing health and noise pollution; and conducting a new study to limit overall the number of planes; stronger oversight of flight paths; and creation of a coastal resiliency plan and strong traffic calming plan.
Heerema urged contact her at this email address.