Rosendahl Seeks to Take Santa Monica Airport Concerns to Washington

District 11 Councilman and Mar Vista resident Bill Rosendahl says he plans to do everything in his power to change the departure path at Santa Monica airport and to push for the closure of the airport’s six flight schools.

Together with 15th District Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whom Rosendahl has endorsed for Jane Harman's vacated 36th Congressional District seat,  Rosendahl drew up a resolution and presented it to his  colleagues in City Council chambers on Wednesday.

Residents in Mar Vista, Venice and surrounding areas on the Westside have long been concerned with the highly concentrated jet fuel emissions from aircraft that idle on the runway at the airport while they wait for commercial jets from LAX to clear the airspace.

"The reason we're doing this now is because my folks have had enough of Santa Monica Airport," Rosendahl told Mar Vista Patch. "We have to deal with all the take offs and landings and jet fuel in our lungs. We have both a health issue and a noise issue here."

In his motion, Rosendahl told his council colleagues, "We can't sit and wait anymore for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to make this change. We need to start lobbying Washington, D.C., for a permanent solution to the suffocating jet emissions from Santa Monica Airport.”

Rosendahl told Patch that thanks to former Congresswoman Jane Harman's efforts, Congress can clearly understand the impacts of Santa Monica airport on local residents. "Jane Harman set up a test for six months last year that took the Santa Monica airport flights out of the traffic controllers' hands at LAX."

Once the jets started flying out over Santa Monica rather than on the LAX flight paths, the toxicity of the jets idling was no longer happening," Rosendahl said and finally residents could breathe clean air and get some peace and quiet.

According to a UCLA study released in November 2009, ultrafine-particle emissions were nearly three to 10 times higher than normal within 2,000 feet of Santa Monica Airport.

Harman's six month test was standard procedure almost two decades ago said Martin Rubin, founder of Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution (CRAAP). "In 1990 the city of Santa Monica requested that the FAA divert the planes to fly out over the ocean so as not to upset Santa Monica residents," Rubin told Patch.

“The closest homes to the Santa Monica Airport are 250 feet," h said. "There’s a leaf blower law that says you have to stay at least 500 feet away from a person’s home.”

Rubin notes that it's ironic that leaf blowers aren’t even allowed in Santa Monica. “And yet,” he said, “this unbelievable situation exists with the airplanes.”

Rubin says he’s happy that Rosendahl is backing constituents who have genuine concerns about the airport. “[Rosendahl] has taken our voice and put it behind a microphone,” he said. “He’s given our group credibility from day one. He even made a point of speaking about the [airport issue] in his inauguration speech.”

It’s about time the city of Santa Monica is taken to task for its handling of the airport, Rubin believes. “They have what’s called a ‘fly neighborly program,' " he said. “But they don’t allow their planes to fly over Santa Monica, so the only neighbor they have is Los Angeles and they fly their planes all over the city. That’s not exactly being neighborly.”

 “That’s why those jets sit idling on the runway now,” said Rubin. “Because they have to wait for clearance from LAX to fly out over the ocean.”

"The amusing thing was that [as a result of Harman's test] Santa Monicans now felt the insanity of all the airport problems," said Rosendahl. "We've put together this motion as part of our legislative packet as a commitment to our lobbyists to deal with this issue," Rosendahl said.

Rosendahl told Patch one of the reasons he's endorsing Hahn is because she is a policy maker. "If she's elected I know she's willing to step up to the plate and support me and my constituents - who will become her constituents too - in this effort."

In Rosendahl's and Hahn's motion, Hahn also criticized six flight schools that operate out of the airport. She said she was concerned about the dangerous maneuvers performed by the pilots over residential homes.

“I can't understand why we would have pilots-in-training performing these maneuvers over densely populated areas,” she said. “We should close down those schools at SMO, and move them to a safer location.”