In a blow to local residents and public officials looking to force Hamptons-bound helicopter traffic to the south shore or force the aircraft to stay over water until a point east of Plum Island, the FAA is moving forward with a four-year extension of the existing “north shore helicopter route,” which is set to expire in two weeks.
Notice of the extension will be published in the Federal Register on Monday, according to the website for the federal publication, which provides public notice of proposed and pending actions by federal agencies.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which adopted the original north shore route in 2012 and extended it for two years in 2014, is dispensing with the 30-day notice required by federal law for rulemaking by federal agencies.
“The current rule expires on August 6, 2016. To prevent confusion among pilots using the route and avoid disruption of the current operating environment, the FAA finds that good cause exists to make this rule effective in less than 30 days,” the agency said in the published document.
The agency’s intentions for the expiring rule remained a mystery even to Rep. Lee Zeldin as of this morning, when he appeared at a Southold civic group’s meeting specifically to discuss the helicopter situation.
Zeldin told a meeting of Southold Voice at the Peconic Lane recreation center that he has been advocating for a south shore route.
“Unless I’m missing something,” Zeldin asked, “why would anyone be traveling the north shore at all?” His statement brought cheers and applause from the approximately 75 people on hand.
“If you’re coming from New York City and traveling to a landing location on the South Fork, then the FAA should have a south shore route,” Zeldin said. “Seems like a no-brainer, common-sense solution to me. Aircraft would travel along the south shore off the coast and then cut in when they’re going to land. This is what I proposed as a permanent solution,” he said.
Zeldin said after the meeting that he had not been able to get any information out of the FAA about its intentions with regard to the expiring rule.
A spokesman for the FAA, in response to multiple inquiries, told SoutholdLOCAL on June 29 “I don’t have a response for you yet.”
The north shore route was intended to keep helicopters over the Long Island Sound from Manhattan eastward, to quiet the skies of the north shore. It was adopted in response to complaints from north shore residence up and down the northern coast of Long Island. But the rule allows helicopter pilots to “transition” over the North Fork as they make their way to landing points — mostly the municipal airport in East Hampton.
The north shore route actually made the helicopter noise levels worse for North Fork residents by requiring pilots to stay off the coast until they got out east, with the effect of funneling all NYC-Hamptons helicopter traffic over the North Fork, Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell said.
Russell said he preferred to see the route expire in August. “The pilots tell us ‘get rid of the North Shore route and we’ll disburse it around the island’ and then the noise issues on the North Fork will be reduced substantially,” Russell said in an interview late last month.
Tonight the supervisor said he was “not surprised” by the FAA’s action. “I know that Rep Zeldin has been fighting against the renewal,” he said, ” but it’s difficult to overcome the support for extending it by the west end representatives and a U.S Senator who came up with the hair-brained scheme to begin with,” he said, apparently referring to Sen. Chuck Schumer, who had advocated for the rule initially. Schumer recently said through a spokesperson he is in favor of a north shore route that would require pilots to fly east over water beyond Plum Island.
Besides the route, which requires helicopters to stay off-shore except when transitioning to a landing point, the rule sets a minimum altitude requirement as well.
But the rule, which in 2012 made what had been a voluntary over-water North Shore route — in place since 2008 — “permits pilots to deviate from the route and altitude requirements when necessary for safety, weather conditions, or transitioning to or from a destination or point of landing.”
The extension does not address those provisions of the rule which activist Teresa McKaskie of Mattituck complains is “plagued with loopholes.”
In 2014, when it extended the rule for two years, the FAA said it found a two-year extension “warranted to maintain the current operating environment and permit the agency to engage in rulemaking to determine future action on this route,” according to its statement published in the Federal Register at that time.
“The FAA expects to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the permanent use of this route in the immediate future,” the agency said in the published statement. But no final rule was ever issued.
In the new rulemaking publication, the FAA says in the notice to be published Monday that it has been “engaged in a variety of helicopter research initiatives that could inform the Agency’s future actions on this rule. Topics addressed by these research efforts, described include modeling of helicopter performance and noise, helicopter noise-abatement procedures, and community response to helicopter noise.”
The FAA describes the research in detail in the publication. See Federal Register.
“The FAA expects that four years will be sufficient time to consider results of the described research efforts in determining appropriate future actions on the rule,” the agency said in the publication. “Extending the requirement to use the North Shore Helicopter Route during this period will continue to foster maximum use of the North Shore Helicopter Route and avoid disruption of the current operating environment. Therefore, the FAA finds that a four-year extension of the current rule is warranted.”
