“The Sedona Airport is located in a community that is sensitive to potential adverse impacts to the surrounding environment. The updated Master Plan for the Sedona Airport contains plans for the expansion of the airport facilities in response to projected demands from the general aviation and corporate aviation communities that currently utilize the airport. Elements of the plan which are, or may become the subjects of controversy for Sedona and Yavapai County may require the preparation of Environmental Impact Statements which present alternatives and mitigation plans for development, which may be determined to have adverse environmental impacts.”

The Sedona Airport Master Plan, Chapter 6 Environmental Evaluation- page 10 of 10. Section 6.3.

With air traffic projected to triple in the next decade, noise and emissions are becoming bigger problems around airports and regulations on carbon emissions are proliferating.  Now is the perfect time to remove the ill conceived Sedona airport away from our homes, natural monuments and federal parkland and schools; Sedona’s air and soundscapes cannot sustain more air traffic inside people’s neighborhoods.

Future Sedona Airport terminal to handle the Sedona Airport’s goal of 279,000 air events per year!

I built this webpage to bring awareness to the plight of the people living here.  Two of my neighbors have died from liver and pancreatic cancer in March and April of 2012.   One neighbor was a young lady aged 21 and she died from a rare form of liver cancer.  There are three teenagers with cancer at our local high school all diagnosed in the last two months, one girl has ovarian cancer at age 15!  I have experienced liver pain and liver spasms, laid in bed with  my central nervous system shaking all night, I also have high blood pressure  and a racing pulse when jets are flying over my roof.   I and some of my neighbors have various ill health effects from living under a jetport in one of the most beautiful towns in the world; we smell jet exhaust in our homes and yards sometimes all night long.

What are we breathing in our airspace?

A partial list of the constituents of jet fuel are:

Freon 11; Freon 12; Methyl Bromide; Dichloromethane; cis-l,2-Dichloroethylene; 1,1,1-Trichloroethane; Carbon Tetrachloride; Benzene; Trichloroethylene; Toluene; Tetrachloroethene; Ethylbenzene; m,p-Xylene; o-Xylene; Styrene; 1,3,5-Trimethylbenzene; 1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene; o-Dichlorobenzene; Formaldehyde; Acetaldehyde; Acrolein; Acetone; Propinaldehyde; Crotonaldehyde; Isobutylaldehyde; Methyl Ethyl Ketone; Benzaldehyde; Veraldehyde; Hexanaldehyde; Ethyl Alcohol; Acetone; Isopropyl Alcohol; Methyl Ethyl Ketone; Butane; Isopentane; Pentane; Hexane; Butyl Alcohol; Methyl Isobutyl Ketone; n,n-Dimethyl Acetamide; Dimethyl Disulfide; m-Cresol; 4-Ethyl Toulene; n- Heptaldehyde; Octanal; 1,4-Dioxane; Methyl Phenyl Ketone; Vinyl Acetate; Heptane; Phenol; Octane; Anthracene; Dimethylnapthalene(isomers); Flouranthene; 1-methylnaphthalene; 2-methylnaphthalene; Naphthalene; Phenanthrene; Pyrene; Benzo(a)pyrene; 1-nitropyrene; 1,8-dinitropyrene; 1,3-Butadiene; sulfites; nitrites; nitrogen oxide; nitrogen monoxide; nitrogen dioxide; nitrogen trioxide; nitric acid; sulfur oxides; sulfur dioxide; sulfuric acid; urea; ammonia; carbon monoxide; ozone; particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5); and finally this compound; 3-nitrobenzanthrone.  These petro-chemicals are emitted in such high quantities that we can smell them in our yard and home.  The threshold for toxicity is far below the level of being able to detect these chemicals by odor.  The jetport was installed in Sedona in 2006, prior to that we had a small local airport; I think  a jetport does not belong inside our small town.

 Chronic effects of some of the constituents in jet fuel (benzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalenes, alkyl benzenes, and various alkyl PAHs) include changes in the liver and harmful effects on the kidneys, heart, lungs, and nervous system.  Petroleum-derived fuels and fuel oils are com­plex mixtures of hydrocarbons. Inhalation and percutaneous absorption are the primary routes of uptake into the peripheral blood. ^[1] Following absorption, organic solvents undergo biotrans­formation (which occurs primarily in the liver), or they accumulate in lipid-rich tissues such as those of the nervous system. ^[2] Metabolism in the liver results in the detoxification of the organic solvent through formation of water­soluble compounds that are excreted through urine or bile. 

I have asked for help from the AZDEQ, EPA, City, County, Congressman Gosar and the airport.  No government agency or government employee wants to get involved or is willing to  help us.

Thousands of people complain about the Sedona Airport.  Hundreds of people called Congressman Gosar’s office; people are also calling and writing the FAA, the Sedona Airport Authority, and the Sedona City Council.  Congressman Gosar meet with 60 people from Sedona last year about the Sedona Airport, but he did nothing to help us because he is a member of the General Aviation Caucus in Congress.  We have the best representation and protection money can buy. 

An updated Sedona Airport Master Plan and air quality monitoring stations in areas beneath the flight path would be a first step to addressing the problems Sedona citizens and visitors experience due to aircraft, including but not limited to noise, air pollution, negative health impacts, lack of peaceful enjoyment of public land and private property, decreased property values; these problems will only get worse as air traffic increases.  The town and our neighborhoods were here before the two airplanes and their illegal air strip that has become the Sedona Airport.

After decades of protesting the existence of an airport and air tours in and around Sedona, the time is past for the air traffic to be relocated to another area.   The excessive aircraft noise in Sedona results in annoyance, inconvenience and interference with the uses and enjoyment of private property, US Forest Land and Wilderness and adversely affects wildlife, the severity of which differs depending on what area of Sedona one is located in.  Aircraft noise is unnatural sound that the human body cannot adapt to, causing the fight or flight mechanism to stay triggered.  Aircraft noise is particularly undesirable and damaging in areas where it interferes with our normal activities associated with the area’s use; including residential, educational, health, religious structures and sites, parks, recreation areas, Wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and cultural and historic sites where a quiet setting is generally recognized feature or attribute.

Unfortunately the worst impacts to Sedona are in the nicest areas, including the Crescent Moon Recreation area which is  a riparian, historic site of great natural beauty and fame and also home to a community garden and residential neighborhoods.  Most of the air traffic in and out of Sedona traverses past Cathedral Rock, the icon of the state of Arizona.  Due to the close proximity of the airport to Cathedral Rock there is no way for the aircraft to avoid flying  in the vicinity of the Crescent Moon Recreation area, a federally owned and managed US Forest Land.  Oak Creek is a protected waterway which connects to the wild and Scenic Verde River.
 

Crescent Moon Park Recreation Area on the bank of Oak Creek.	Helicopter Flying Past Cathedral Rock

Should this be an airport?  Imagine 35,000 to 80,000 flights per year over this valley.

 
There are less than a dozen quiet places in the lower 48 states.

Many people want Sedona and the surrounding U.S. Forest land and Wilderness to be a No Fly Zone. Why? Because silence is a precious commodity and noise causes negative environmental and health impacts for the animals and people who live and visit here.  The location of the Sedona Airport pollutes the atmosphere in Sedona forest lands and neighborhoods with between .33 and .75 tons of lead per year and jets leave behind deadly exhaust that collects in our neighborhoods with no way for the pollution to be evacuated due to the land formation in Sedona being  a basin with low wind.  Sedona has worse air quality than half of the United States, our overall air quality rating on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best is 4.8.  EPA statistics are located on homefacts.com   All cities with an airport have a cloud of lead over them, the closer one is to the airport the higher the lead concentration. 

In March of this year, Friends of the Earth and EarthJustice sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failure to enforce their own regulations regarding lead emissions–specifically lead emissions from general aviation aircraft.   Piston-engine aircraft, a category which includes most general aviation aircraft, both fixed wing and helicopters, as well as air taxis for the transport of passengers and freight, are responsible for emitting nearly 50 percent of the lead toxins released into the air in this country. Lead was eliminated from automotive fuel more than 15 years ago. Nonetheless, despite well known negative health and environmental impacts, lead is still added to aviation fuel to boost octane and prevent engine knock in the airplanes that require it.  Findings by the EPA and other researchers reveal that, “Lead concentrations in air increase with proximity to airports where piston-engine aircraft operate.”  The majority of Americans are unaware that aviation gasoline (avgas) contains lead and that lead emissions from these aircraft constitute a public health hazard, there is no safe amount of lead.  In the last three years our lead levels went from moderate to extremely dangerous levels.   I and other neighbors are being chelated to remove the lead in our bodies, two of those neighbors are aged 4 and 8, their doctor was shocked to see their lead levels were dangerously high.  How many parents know they should test their children for lead simply from breathing?  A hair analysis shows the last three months of lead exposure.  Unfortunately lead stores in the bones as the body mistakes it for calcium and this stays in the body and is difficult to remove.

People come from all over the world for a nature and wilderness experience in our beautiful town and usually get aircraft noise, traffic and air pollution.  Sedona is a town of 11,000 people, yet receives millions of visitors by car and tour bus.  This small geographic area is bombarded with aircraft noise in a way that no other small town suffers under.  While the business owners at the airport tell us, “we can’t live without the airport,” in actuality we have Red Rocks and people come here for the Red Rocks, not for the noise or the airport.  While these airport business owners promulgate how indispensable and valuable their businesses on the airport mesa are to our town, they pay no sales tax or property taxes to the city or county and lease the entire mesa for $1.00 per year. 

The City of Sedona and Yavapai County do not have noise ordinances that regulate aircraft noise at this time.   A noise ordinance requiring helicopters to fly with noise dampening equipment over the city and Amendment 12 areas is a reasonable request and the implementation of such would go a long way to easing the lack of peaceful enjoyment many homeowners now suffer under.  The Sedona City Council should implement a noise ordinance immediately, they owe this to the homeowners who pay hefty property taxes and lack peaceful enjoyment of their homes and land.  

Under FAA regulations air craft are advised to take off as high and as quickly as possible to get away from homes, schools, churches, parks, and hospitals but in Sedona we live under the opposite conditions.  Instead of aircraft leaving the Sedona area, they fly around and look down on our town and red rocks. These aircraft fly by Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock and other natural landscape monuments, over and through our town, above hospitals, churches, schools, neighborhoods, our land where we go to recreate and our wilderness; disturbing not only humans but wildlife as well.

What used to be the “Most Beautiful Place in America” is now one of the noisiest and over commercialized small towns in America.

Instead of being a quiet, meditative atmosphere, Sedona has become a loud air circus; there are barely any areas to escape the noise. The decibels levels in my bedroom from overhead aircraft are between 55-100 db. The despite the lenient DNL levels allowed by the FAA, the ongoing noise in some parts of Sedona is in excess of levels allowed by the FAA.

Tourists come from all over the world to see Cathedral Rock and visit the Crescent Moon Recreation area on the banks of Oak Creek.  On a busy day it is so loud at Crescent  Moon that you cannot hear the person next to you speak and there is no sound of wildlife or nature, just an endless barrage of helicopters, bi-planes and small aircraft.  The Cathedral Rock area is being over used by one use group – the aircraft, to the detriment of the majority of those recreating on the land.  One aircraft ruins the experience for thousands below it, helicopters routinely fly around and between the Cathedral Rock spires where hikers are climbing on the rocks.

In order to protect our town from further damage from aircraft we must stop the insanity now!

What can we do to return Sedona to a quieter and cleaner place to be enjoyed by all?
Read our petition page to see how you can help.

Together we can solve the problems in Sedona and make it a better place to live and visit!

Links page: www.SoundTrackerTheMovie.com

1.	Pederen LM. Biological studies in human expo­sure to and poisoning with organic solvents. Pharmacol Toxicol 1987;3:1-38.
2.	Bergman K. Application and results of whole­body autoradiography in distribution studies of organic solvents. Crit Rev Toxicol 1983;12:59­-118.    [PUBMED]  [FULLTEXT]

© Copyright 2012 CTAC, Close The Airport Committee.
www.closetheairport.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, UCC 1-207. No part of this website may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, html, WordPress, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express written, dated and signed permission from the owner.