Town Government &
  Services:

Committees Home Page

Logan Airport Community Advisory Committee

Committees: Logan Airport Community Advisory Committee

Note:The Logan Airport Community Committee is a community committee and not a Town committee.

Noise Relief for Hingham and the South Shore

You may not have noticed recently that the skies are much quieter over Hingham than they used to be.

This is a result of a 30-plus year collaboration between the FAA, Massport and the Logan Airport Community Advisory Committee (CAC) which includes Hingham, Hull, Cohasset and another 35 communities around Boston. This collaboration was not always smooth and in fact, at one stage litigious but, at least for Hingham, we finally seem to be on the right flight path.

Hingham has an average in excess of 450 flights daily not including the high altitude flights to and from Europe. We have been plagued with almost continuous noise from aircraft overflights for many years, with nearly 80% of departing flights and 30% of arriving flights crossing the town. While one might think a little bit of noise is only a momentary inconvenience, medical studies are highlighting a trend that noise can cause medical issues – particularly related to repeated sleep interruption.

On November 18, 2010, the FAA implemented the last of the recommendations of the CAC under Phase 1 of the Noise Study to reduce noise from aircraft arriving at and departing Logan International Airport. Aircraft departing Logan will now cross the shoreline over Hingham and on the South and North Shores approximately twice as high as before and be more equitably dispersed on the South Shore from Hull in the north to Marshfield in the south. The FAA has also implemented a precision guidance system (RNAV) that routes aircraft on highly accurate tracks.

The effort to obtain noise relief began 10 years ago when the towns of Hull, Hingham and Cohasset joined several lawsuits against the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) in opposition to the implementation of a new runway (14/32) and new taxiway at Logan. Hingham appropriated $100,000 while Hull and Cohasset appropriated additional amounts to support the suits. In addition, Hingham and Cohasset citizens formed the South Shore Jet Pollution Council (SSJPC), a grassroots organization that independently pursued legal and administrative remedies. Meanwhile, CAC submitted a set of recommended flight patterns to the Federal Aviation Administration and Massport that had been proposed by members from Hull, Hingham and Cohasset to reduce noise on the North and South Shores.

In November 2003 Judge Margot Botsford of the Superior Court of Massachusetts found in favor of the Massachusetts Port Authority and against the communities and authorized the construction of runway 14/32. While deeply disappointing, the one ray of hope was a requirement in Judge Botsford's Final Judgment that mitigation measures specified in the FAA's Record of Decision (ROD) of August 2002 be implemented and enforced. That ROD contained specific language that required Massport and the FAA to engage in a study with the following language: "FAA's preliminary assessment of proposals by South Shore communities indicates that changes in flight tracks and possibly other proposals may be feasible," and that the "FAA, Massport, and the CAC (which includes the South Shore communities) will work jointly to develop the scope of a noise study that will include enhancing existing or developing new noise abatement measures applicable to aircraft overflights." Now after ten years, innumerable disappointments, thousands of hours of dedicated work by Massport, the FAA and consultants from Landrum and Brown and Ricondo, countless hours by citizen volunteers and the CAC, and $8 million dollars later, the first phase of the noise study is complete. It is a pleasure to report to you that we believe it has accomplished its goals and should be judged a success.

This is only the end of Phase 1 (of 4). The next phase reviews how noise can be minimize for the communities surrounding Logan using creative solutions such as minimizing engine use on the taxiways, new flight paths, continuous decent, adopting greater technology, new procedures etc.

For Hingham, our final challenges are to minimize those pesky over flights when the wind is from the northwest and aircraft fly too low to land on Runway 33 – particularly at night. In addition, we need to be vigilant in monitoring the success of the program to make sure we don't see erosion of the recommendations and over flights return to their previous levels.

For more information, please go to www.bostonoverflightnoisestudy.com. Should you wish to monitor which aircraft are making noise, or indeed register a complaint, please go to www.massport.com/environment. You may also call Massport's Noise Complaint Line at (617) 561-3333.

Declan Boland – Hingham Representative to CAC and CAC Secretary.

Declan Boland was appointed in 2005 by the Hingham Selectmen as the town representative to CAC. If you have any comment, please contact Declan Boland at 781-741-5163 or email logancac@comcast.net.