Working from a Power Point presentation, the colonel also argued that aircraft noise has been "proven as compatible with residential use," even though the Air Force impact statement estimates more than 1,000 homes will be rendered "incompatible with residential use" by the proposed F-35 base. Additionally, about 100 homes have already been destroyed as part of a Federal Aviation Administration program designed to clear inhabitants from excessive noise zones.
The board of health chair, Dr. Austin Sumner, is a practicing physician and the Vermont state epidemiologist. At the hearing he expressed concern that his board's limited and advisory authority applies only to Burlington and not the two communities next to the airport:
"There
are three separate communities that will be"potentially adversely affected by
this plane. That's Winooski, Burlington and South Burlington".
There
is only one department or agency that really has multi-jurisdictional authority
and that is the Vermont Department of Health and I have not to date heard their
position on this matter. They should be the lead organization investigating the
public health effects related to what could affect 7000-9000 members of those
three communities."
The state health commissioner, Dr. Harry Chen, has been unresponsive to public requests to assess the potential health impact of the F-35. An open letter to Dr. Chen in September, written at the behest of Dr. Sumner, has gone unanswered.
Dr. Chen has also ignored media inquiries wondering why the Vermont Health Dept. is ignoring a Vermont health issue at the moment when prevention would do the most good.
No representative of the Vermont Department of Health attended the F-35 hearing, so it remains unclear why a request on behalf of the state epidemiologist continues to be ignored by the state health commissioner, even though the state's website recognizes at least some of the damaging health effects of noise.
Air
Force Tries to Get By With Decades-Old Study
In his testimony to the board, Les Blomberg, who is the executive director of the state's Noise Pollution Clearinghouse in Montpelier [website last updated January 2000], told the board that the Ai Force had failed to respond to his requests for clarifying information. Such bureaucratic silence, Blomberg suggested, "only happens when they have something to hide."
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