A couple weeks ago, Delaware County filed a lawsuit against the FAA challenging the FAA’s flight path redesign plan. In Swarthmore, the Republican mayor and a Democratic borough councilman joined as plaintiffs to the suit. The Swarthmorean carried an item on the topic that should be useful for anybody who would like more of an insider’s view of the suit. Unfortunately, the Swarthmorean  doesn’t produce an on-line edition, so I’m reprinting the article here with the permission of the author:

Last Friday Swarthmore Mayor Eck Gerner and Swarthmore Council member Geoff Semenuk became plaintiffs in the Delaware County lawsuit seeking to halt the FAA air-space redesign plan that seeks to redirect an open-ended number of departing flights over the center of the county. The suit, which Semenuk says is “currently the best chance to stop the FAA” seeks to show that the FAA failed to fully comply with the legal requirements of the plan’s Environmental Impact Study.

Among other points, the suit contends that the FAA failed to properly study noise levels by looking at averaged noise of a 24-hour period rather than the specific noise associated with an actual plane flying overhead or nearby. Another target of the suit is that the FAA failed to properly factor in the positive airline traffic effects of its own approved and under-contruction 17-35 runway extension. “The FAA predicated their plan on conditions they knew they were improving with this other project ,” Semenuk added.

Although Gerner and Semenuk were happy to lend support to the hard work of County Council Chair Andrew Reilly, who has spear-headed this bi-partisan effort and was kind enough to speak to Borough Council on this matter last year, they admit that the issue is bigger than just this particular lawsuit. “No one wants the airport to fall on hard times, most of us use it and depend on it in varying degrees,” said Gerner. “The shame of this is that delays could be ended tomorrow if the FAA forced the airlines to spread their schedules more evenly during the day instead of over-booking those popular rush hours.”

“So when the FAA says that because of flight delays it has to fly fully-fueled and sold-out passenger planes at full throttle and only a few hundred feet above the center of the second most densely populated county in Pennsylvania, they are clearly being disingenuous,” said Semenuk.

Last week in one of her final public speeches before leaving her post as head of the FAA in order to become the president and CEO of a company that lobbies the FAA to adopt automated air traffic control technology of the sort she has been publically promoting for a number of years, Marion Blakey made this admission: “To be clear, the airlines need to take a step back on the scheduling practices that are at times out of line with reality. Passengers are growing weary . . . And if the airlines don’t address this voluntarily, don’t be surprised when the government steps in. Drawing down the schedule at Chicago was not my happiest hour, but it could come to that on the East Coast as well.”

In Chicago in 2004, the FAA stepped in and forced the airline industry to reduce the number of takeoffs and landings between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. to 88 per hour, down from over 130 or more, reducing delays by 24.5 percent in 2005.

Why the FAA doesn’t simply make airlines comply with common sense isn’t a mystery though, the FAA charter is to promote the airline industry as well as ensure its safe operation. Semenuk adds, “It is a shame that our federal government can only seem to respond to a crisis instead of guiding an industry to adopt safe and reasonable practices. The airlines wouldn’t lose any money, people would still buy tickets to get from point A to point B. If I was forced to fly at 10 a.m. instead of 8 a.m. I’m not going to cancel the trip. I’d much rather have a reliable off-peak travel time than risk turning my trip into some delay-ridden day long saga.”

When asked what the public could do, Gerner and Semenuk agreed that citizens should contact both the FAA and even individual airlines with comments. “The airlines want to make profits, and the FAA want to help them do that. If they think that real people in real numbers are noticing that their industry is undertaking poor practices, perhaps then they will voluntarily make more sensible schedules,” said Semenuk.

Gerner and Semenuk also noted that Swarthmore’s elected representatives Congressman Sestak, State Senator Erickson, and State Representative Lentz were also standing shoulder to shoulder with the County Council and the citizen plaintiffs in support of Council’s efforts. Reilly, Sestak, Erickson, and Lentz acknowledged gratitude for everyone in our area that has already written letters and attended local forums addressing this issue.

For those who missed the August 5th program, the NBC10 Live @ Issue program is available online. Both Congressman Joe Sestak and State Representative Bryan Lentz are interviewed.

Bryan Lentz also has posted video of the July 23rd hearing on HB1182 held by the PA House Transportation Committee in Ridley Township. HB1182 is the Lentz’s bill proposing to create a regional airport authority.

By all accounts, they’re expecting a full-sized mob at the FAA public comment hearing in Essington tomorrow. The blogger part of me wishes I could be there, but another part of me is very ambivalent about the process. It’s almost impossible to discern the presence of factual information.

What is certain is that the FAA has a terrible communications strategy. What do the risk management people say? Risk = hazard + outrage. They’re about to wake up and smell the outrage.

The local papers are covering the political jockeying over the FAA situation. But I’m terribly disappointed that they’ve let us down by failing to inform the public about what’s really going on. How many planes are we really talking about? Where? How much noise are we really talking about? As long as this issue has been going on, why can’t why have a little gumshoe reporting?

I apologize to anybody who might come here looking for a play-by-play of the event on Wednesday. If it’s all redeeming, I’m going to spend the whole day tomorrow fulfilling an important civic duty.

We residents of Delaware County are coming to the realization that it’s going to be an uphill slog to resist the FAA’s plans to redirect flight paths from Philadelphia International Airport right over our heads.

Today, the FAA officially identified its preference for the so-called “Integrated Airspace Alternative.” Yes, Delco sports fans, that’s the one where planes taking off from PHL can turn turn directly over our heads, instead of having to stay over the Delaware River until they’ve achieved sufficient altitude.

If you peruse the documents pertaining to the airspace plans on the FAA site, you quickly realize why we’re hosed. Although County Councilman Andrew Reilly (R) and other politicians have cast this as a highly local issue about the Philadelphia Airport, the FAA has tied the traffic issues of the Philadelphia Airport with those of Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia. When you calculate the untold billions of dollars of commercial interest invested in these gigantic airports, you realize that a half million residents of a suburban county are an afterthought.

The FAA will hold one open meeting in Pennsylvania to allow for public comment. (Aren’t we so lucky?) Of course, they’re holding it in a hotel down at the airport. I’d love to see them come out to one of the affected areas, like Media or Ridley Park, because they ought to see the area and the residents that they’re really impacting.And you know they’d get an earful.

County Council is threatening to sue, although from what I’ve heard from others who know more, it’s difficult to find legal grounds to stop the FAA. They apparently have pretty broad latitude to do whatever they want. Andy Reilly (R) and Co. haven’t advanced a legal theory by which they might be able to withstand the FAA, but I suspect that his tough talk is as much about the posture as it as about results. He’s still plotting the next step in his political career, after all.

Our best hope now is to get some relief from Congress; some recognition from the Aviation committee that the FAA might need more oversight and restrictions to its ability to claim eminent domain to the air above your head.

This strikes me as an undeveloped market. Like in other matters of pollution, maybe a cap-and-trade system is needed. If Delaware County could sell direct flight-path routes to the airlines, we could at least be compensated for the real costs to us of the extra noise and pollution. Then perhaps, the airlines and air travellers who most wanted shorter delays and more direct routes could buy and trade their “tokens” to go over Delco instead of the Delaware River. The cost-conscious consumer could take the flight that takes a little longer, while the premium airline passenger could spend the extra money for a flight that takes less time and has a lower likelihood of delay. In the meantime, we’d retain our privileges to balance the compensation against the various inconveniences. If we can be paid fairly for our troubles, the market should reach equilibrium over time.

Unfortunately, this is a case where we seemingly have no standing in the marketplace. At least we know that it’ll be years before actual changes to flight paths will be permitted to take place. There is a little time for some mitigation to this initial plan. Here’s hoping that Joe Sestak can find some leverage over the FAA in the form of support from his colleagues in the House.

For more of the political reaction to the FAA’s decision, see today’s Delco Times and Inquirer takes on the news.

More »

As already widely noted, Google has changed their PageRank algorithm to counteract the practice of coordinated link bombing. This should effectively put an end to attempts, such as those organized by MyDD’s Chris Bowers, to elevate the the ranking of news stories that cover controversies surrounding Republican opponents.

No tears shed here. Gaming search results for tiny tactical advantages in the midst of large-scale political races is not my thing.

But political candidates, campaign staff, and political bloggers alike should not lose sight of the real and ongoing battlefield of legitimate search engine optimization, especially in local and regional races. After all, a blog typically covers recurring themes and topics. In that respect, every blog is its own link bomb.
Feel free to check on some of these Google search terms, which generate a lot of traffic to this site:

FAA Delaware County or FAA Delco: New airplane flight paths out of the Philadelphia Airport are a big issue in our suburban Philly community. The changes were possibly the top issue in Novembers’s race for state representative, and the results will figure heavily in the municipal elections of 2007, and possibly even the re-election bids for legislators in 2008. This blog accounts for the two top results for the former term, and fourth the for latter. In both cases, ahead of any elected official’s site, and ahead of the (100% Republican) County government’s own site on proposed FAA flight path changes.

Bryan Lentz
Daddy Democrat ranks fifth for searches on our freshman state representative (PA-161), behind his campaign site and a site so pro-Lentz it’s called “Citizens for Lentz.” Of the fifty top-ranked Google results, all are pro-Lentz or neutral, despite the existence of an attack site generated by his opponent’s campaign that they advertised through direct mail.

Tom Gannon
Things online weren’t nearly as well-controlled for Bryan’s opponent, an entrenched 28-year legislator from the majority party. Yours truly accounts for the content at three of the top ten Google results for searches on his name. Only two of the top ten results are pro-Gannon.

Let’s face it. The big media outlets will typically control the narrative of national and statewide politics. But the field is still wide open for individual bloggers to shape the discussion of regional issues and elections. In fact, search engines probably play a proportionally larger role in influencing voters in local and down-ticket elections, where voters may know less about candidates and might use search engines to survey the available information.

The current political off-season is the time to lay claim to as many of the terms and future traffic as we can, making it harder for opponents to gain traction later.

Simple things you can do right now…

• Make sure your site has links to the official sites for newly elected Democratic officials in your region. Make sure you’re in the loop on positive stories out of their offices.
• Start tracking and linking to negative or controversial stories about Republican officials in your area. Make sure those stories have a long shelf life.
• Maintain or extend your contacts with other area bloggers.
• Create categories or tags for candidates and issues you follow, positive or negative. Make sure you use names and key words in post titles.
• Make use of appropriate cross-linking opportunities. Do you have relevant items in community diaries, flickr, or YouTube? Link them to your blog entries and vice versa.

Starting with a town hall meeting on February 9th at the Ridley Municipal Center, Rep. Joe Sestak will be hosting a series of public events to address the FAA’s “airspace redesign” plans for Delaware County.

In coming weeks, the area will also see visits from House Aviation Subcommittee Chair Jerry Costello and Deputy Secretary of Transportation Maria Cino, who will come to area to hear resident concerns about the FAA flight path changes and airport expansion.

More info here.

When I last mentioned the FAA flight path issue, it was in connection to a local acoustical engineer’s assertion that the maps distributed by the Delaware County Council and Repubican candidates mischaracterized the available data.

Working on a pro bono basis, said engineer, Carr Everbach, advised the county workers who developed new, corrected maps a month ago. The maps show how much audible sound residents would likely experience should the FAA’s changes move forward. Despite the completion of the maps, and Prof. Everbach’s repeated requests, the maps were not made available until the end of last week–two days after the election. If you would like to see the maps, they are on the County web site. (Start by viewing the map called “Percentage change in noise levels.” Sones, rather than the decibels, are the relevant unit for we ground-dwelling beings.)

Given that Tom Gannon had essentially staked his entire re-election bid on his stance ont he FAA, it’s hard not to be suspicious. After all, his campaign had printed large signs plastered at polling sites and at area businesses that said “Keep Tom Gannon Fighting the FAA.” In order for Gannon’s gambit to work, he needed that data to be overwhelmingly bad. Rep. Gannon continued to claim that the potential noise increase would be upwards of 1000%–even in the final days before the election. Even though the error had been pointed out weeks before. It just doesn’t get people worked up into sufficient lather if you say that there might be 10-90% increases in noise levels. 90% is not 1000%, even though it may be damned loud.

Of course, I can’t prove that the release of the maps was quashed until after the election. But it sure has trouble passing the sniff test, doesn’t it?

I don’t want more planes flying over my head. And I expect my representatives to protect our local interests to the fullest extent possible. But I also don’t like flouting the truth about data. On Friday, I heard of a local resident in an adjacent ward who is putting her house for sale fearing the possibility of planes flying overhead. A full-scale real estate panic would be the worst possible outcome of fudged data.