FAQ Page about the Sedona Airport Issues

Last year (2011) my husband who is an ND told me, “people will start dying in our neighborhood soon

and when they do we will be able to do something about the airport because we will have dead bodies.”

 

Do airports emit large amounts of polyaromatic hydrocarbons and particulate matter that harm the environment and human health?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q5CdyLFtNY  Dr. Suzanne E. Paulson from UCLA’s Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Science at the California Senate Select Committee on Air Quality November 30, 2011 on Air Pollution and the Santa Monica Airport.  Particulate matter is in the millions and remains elevated unless there are winds. In Sedona many neighborhoods beneath the mesa are micro environments, they do not have much wind on most days. The mouth of Carol Canyon empties the taxi and take off exhaust which falls down the Canyon to people’s homes.  Citizens are forced to breathe aircraft emissions continuously because there is no way for the exhaust to evacuate.  Larger aircraft produce more particles. The Santa Monica Airport which is the subject of this film has an ocean breeze.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTQOOIH14qA&feature=relmfu  Dr. Phil Fine on air pollution and air quality regulation.  The inversion layer traps pollution near the ground in addition to the geology of Sedona.

Many pilots, those who own businesses at the airport and those who work at the airport do not want their airport taken away.  They mostly believe making money off the red rocks and their convenience to land inside our town is more important than 99% of the property owners’ rights and the health and safety of all the people who live here.  I disagree, people have a right to peaceful enjoyment of their homes and a safe place to live and breathe.

Top Arguments Airport Supporters Use To Protect the Airport Being Inside Town.

1. The Airport was here first!  You have no right to anything.
   
2. You knew there was an airport here when you moved here.
3. The airport brings money and jobs to our town.
4.  The Airport is good for Sedona transportation.
5. I never hear noise so I think the airport is fine, town is quiet except for car traffic; you are just a bunch of complainers!

 

      1. Neighborhoods were already platted around the current airport location in 1950. If the two pilots had looked at the county recorder’s office they would have seen they were building an airstrip in an area that would grow, as the town and the airport grew.  Back in 1955 people did not think there would be a thousands of people living in Sedona up to 80,000 air events per year, most people lived in cities and we had half as many people alive in the United States compared to today.

The land in Sedona was land granted by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 and 1914 to various pioneer families.

The airport was built in 1955 by two laymen, with no authority.  If we did this today we would be arrested.  There was no planning for the future development of the Town of Sedona.  At the time the airport was anticipated to have no impact on the existing town due to low traffic volume and few citizens living here or being pilots.  Air travel for the public was rare in 1955.  Farmer’s used the local airstrips in the Verde Valley to look for their cattle who were wandering around.

      2. Who is you?  Most people I know moved here when there was no airplane traffic and no jetport inside our town.  The airport was not an issue because this was a small local airport with a few local pilots. Noise is not the real issue, jet pollution is the issue; noise is a secondary issue for some people depending on where they live. How did the small Sedona airport turn into a busy jetport inside our town?  No one asked the people who would be affected if this was ok with them.  The resulting deadly air pollution from jets was also not disclosed.  Today people are getting sick and dying from the jetport, Sedona is a basin with smaller basins inside it.  The jet pollution blows off the mesa and lands into the airspace of all the homes around the mesa in all directions.

      3. The total economy of Sedona is over $350 million per year. The airport is said to bring in $20 million dollars, counting hotel rooms and food sales; I have no documentation on this.  The revenue generated by the airport in 2001 was 1.6 million according to the below article.  People come here for the red rocks and natural beauty.  The people who spend money staying here can land in Flagstaff or Cottonwood, if someone really wants to come to Sedona they will drive 20 minutes.  Sedona currently has a very short tourism stay, somewhere between only hours and two days. This is not a week-long stay destination like other tourist areas.  I have heard from wealthy friends from places like Aspen and Telluride that, “Sedona is too commercialized and has a circus like atmosphere, so they have no interest in being here.”  How do you fix that?   I think the airport is chasing money out of our town.

The airport is decreasing property values and causing people with expensive homes and money to leave.  Most of them sell their houses as quick as they can and take the money and run, rather than complain and risk losing their investment in real property here; this causes Sedona to be a transient town.   Say what you will, I personally know several people who have abandoned their properties here and they sit either empty waiting for the economy to receiver, are listed for sale or have been given back to the bank.  I am the only one  know willing to complain publicly and risk losing more money.

      4. According to the FAA the Sedona Airport is a redundant airport, meaning it is not necessary because it is located near two other airports, one of them a regional airport. Less than 1% of the people living here use the airport.  While it may be convenient to the 1%, it is a hazard for everyone else to be subjected to the pollution, noise  and take off and landing risks of having a jetport inside our town.  Sedona has become a high use area for too many aircraft and it is no longer sustainable.  The airport is a hazard to homeowners because most aircraft accidents happen on take off and landing and the airport is located adjacent to homes and the town.  The Sedona airport has had many accidents and approximately fourteen fatalities.  The winds on the mesa make landing difficult and treacherous on some days, even experienced pilots have crashed planes and jets.   Sometimes pilots have to land elsewhere in bad weather in order to get home safely.

       5. The flight path of the airplanes and jets is such that most aircraft never fly over town unless they want to, therefore many homes will not hear aircraft noise. These aircraft still fly over homes, parks and schools where people are getting sick and dying and their homes are sometimes unlivable and certainly not worth what they paid for their property or the property taxes they give the county.  If you live near Thunder Mountain or in VOC you will not hear most of the airport noise or get the highest concentration of pollution from it.

      Besides the long list of jet petro chemical pollution dumped into our atmosphere many Sedona citizens have lead poisoning from the airport’s location inside town.  There is no safe amount of lead; young children have dangerous levels of lead in their bodies in our town. No one tells the public, “Don’t live here with your kids because the airplanes are flying over your neighborhood and your kids are breathing lead from the leaded AV gas.”  People believe they are living in a rural area that is a safe place to raise their families.  Larger jets carrying 8,000 to 10,000 gallons of fuel will dump 1,000 to 1,200 gallons of fuel into the air, one mile from the runway to lighten their jet because they won’t be able to take off with the added weight.  This fuel smells like furniture polish and is sprayed directly above our homes and Oak Creek.

      Sedona is a basin, with smaller basins inside it. The jet pollution from taxi, takeoff and landing falls into people’s yards and homes and collects in the washes beneath the airport mesa. This heavy concentration is detectable by odor, if you can smell jet exhaust you are far above the levels that are dangerous and toxic.  http://www.closetheairport.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/odorstudyThresholdsversusdangerlevels2.pdf  Two people have died from liver and pancreatic cancer beneath the airport mesa in the last month March-April 2012, they both lived on washes.

      I am sure my neighbors were unaware they were being poisoned by jet pollution.  Both of our livers and other local neighbors now have livers that hurt as well as intermittent high blood pressure that occurs only when local incoming and outgoing jets fly over us.  I have sharp, stabbing pains from breathing the fresh smell of jet exhaust that is a combination of the scent of furniture polish and petroleum.  No one disclosed there was an airport flying over my neighborhood, no one disclosed there was a jetport inside Sedona, no one told our neighborhood we would be suffocating in a basin under the mesa breathing the accumulated jet exhaust of a dozen jets or more in the hot sun.  No one had our permission toallow jets to take off and land inside our neighborhood.

      People have a right to breathe clean air that will not kill them in Sedona; it is really as plain and simple as that.  People have property rights; property rights supersede the incompatible land use of having a jetport inside our town.

In case you didn’t live in Sedona in 2001, you can read more about the

Sedona Airport’s History and statistics in this article written by Dr. David Allen.

http://www.redrockreview.com/Sep01/7story.html

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User Comments

Question 1:  Why would you purchase a home near an airport if you were not willing to accept all possibilities associated with day to day airport operations?  The airport has been in Sedona since 1955….Have you?   My neighborhood was platted in 1950, before the airport. It’s called lied to by the Realtors and Sellers, no disclosures on the sale documents.  I bought my properties in Sedona in 1999, there was no noise here and no jets and a lot less air traffic, Sedona had a small local airport- a non issue.  There was a radical explosion of noise, traffic and building here in 2002.  Many of my neighbors have been here for 25-30 years.   Face it Cathedral Rock is at the butt end of a busy runway; there are two parks, creek properties, and tight valleys and washes holding jet and aircraft exhaust.   On low wind and no wind days the sun light interacts with the particulate matter, add 20 jets to that combination.  There is no way for the exhaust to blow out of here.  It took me three years to figure out what was going on with the jets and I am home all day.  It is hard to fathom that we have an airport inside our town and in front of the icon of our State.  If you don;t have airport noise you likely have helicopters flying over your roof all day and no the helicopters were here after the homes.  Property rights supersede the right to suck money off the red rocks.  These people run their airport and businesses off the backs of everyone else.  We should be paying no property taxes, let the business owners pay our taxes instead.

Question 2: If you are unhappy with what your neighborhood had become…why not move?  I am moving and it is a hardship I moved in thinking I was staying here and I own my house I can’t give it back to the bank; what about everyone else?  They should just sit here an die? get poisoned, a lot of them have no realization this is happening.  Most people cannot smell the jet exhaust they live one hundred feet lower than I do.  They also work, so they are unaware of how much air traffic we have.  They have other things to worry about besides thinking about why they feel bad, have cancer, and can’t sleep and have a racing heart all night.   Most doctor’s do not even think about jet exhaust exposure, they don’t live under the mesa.

Statement:  If these jets are “coasting” over your house as you stated, that implies at a low power setting…..at a low power setting these engines have hardly any emissions at all…let alone enough to bring on the physical symptoms you describe. This seems psychosomatic.   This only seems psychosomatic to you.  There is no coasting on take off and landing in a jet.  We had moderate lead levels three years ago, after living near the creek we have extremely high levels of lead and so do our neighbor’s young children.  Lead tests do not lie, I can’t create a high lead level on a test by believing it to be there.  My neighbors have the exact symptoms we do on high jet days. intermittent high blood pressure at age 30-42, liver pains.  Read the odor study, if you can smell jet exhaust you are well beyond toxic.  Sorry to say this is a real problem and odor detection of jet exhaust shows the entire valley with no wind and high heat is deadly; think about it.

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