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Wednesday, June 22, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
AIR TRAFFIC: Airport has
strong regulatory/legal
protections
Continued from page 1
and landings, and in particu-
lar the circling of a skydiving
plane as it gains altitude to
drop parachutists into a field
along Camp Polk Road.
Several residents in the
area have contacted the air-
port and/or the City of Sisters
with noise complaints, and
the Indian Ford Homeowners
Association drafted a let-
ter of concern over the issue.
Homeowners met with airport
manager David Campbell and
City officials last week.
In a letter to the editor last
week, Bruce Mason com-
plained that, “It sounds like
plane after plane is flying over
Sisters, creating a dawn-to-
dusk drone of noise.”
The HOA letter from
Indian Ford Ranch expressed
concern about “the increase
in planes flying low over our
neighborhood and also cir-
cling for hours above Sisters,
especially during weekends,
and the airport’s plan to add
more hangar capacity and
commercial operations.”
Campbell acknowledges
the concerns local residents
have raised — and he is forth-
right about the airport’s posi-
tion: “The airport will con-
tinue to grow; it will continue
to increase in flight numbers
— and all that was approved
through city processes years
ago.”
The airport was purchased
by Benny and Julie Benson in
2011, after they moved their
company, ENERGYneering
Solutions, Inc., there. The citi-
zens of Sisters voted to annex
C L
the property into the City of
Sisters, and in 2013, the run-
way was replaced with grant
funding. The airport’s master
plan calls for up to 50 han-
gars, though Campbell told
The Nugget he doesn’t think
that full build-out on the han-
gars is realistic in the immedi-
ate future.
Campbell said there are
currently 31 planes based at
the airport, with some 30-40
takeoffs and landings per
week being an average for the
summer months. In five years,
he expects those takeoffs and
landings to double to 60 to 80
per week.
In addition, Skydive
Awesome is located at the
airport, operating Thursday
through Sunday. According to
drop-zone manager Stephen
Rosier, the modified Cessna
182 contracted for the opera-
tion carries four skydivers up
to 13,000 feet above sea level
(approximately 10,000 feet
above the ground) for a jump.
It takes about 20 minutes to
climb in circles to jump alti-
tude. The plane’s engine is
audible from the ground for
about 10 minutes of that time.
A busy day entails about 10
trips (15 is the record set last
Memorial Day); an average
day is three or four.
Campbell and Rosier noted
that, in order to mitigate the
noise impact of the plane cir-
cling as it gains altitude, the
pattern is shifted each trip.
They acknowledged that,
while shifting the flight pat-
tern reduces the direct impact
on any one particular route, it
also increases the number of
people who are affected by the
noise.
Rosier notes that people
often make assumptions that
the airplane noise they hear is
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from the skydiving plane.
“We’ve gotten complaints
on days when we never even
started the plane,” he said.
Rosier said that the last
jump of the day has to be on
the ground a half-hour before
sunset. At this time of year,
that means that jumps can
continue until after 8 p.m.
Rosier said he is not will-
ing to restrict hours of opera-
tion, because the operation
requires jumping when condi-
tions allow for it.
“We kind of have to capi-
talize on when the weather’s
good, also,” he said.
Rosier acknowledged that
concerns have been raised
about skydivers landing on the
field just west of Camp Polk
creating a potential traffic haz-
ard. He said he and the airport
management are working on
creating a viewing area that
will discourage people from
parking along Camp Polk
Road and pedestrians from
using the roadway to take
photographs.
Rosier estimated that
Skydive Awesome is bring-
ing more than 100 people into
Sisters each month — people
who eat in local restaurants
and shop at local shops.
The airport’s attempts at
mitigation and its position on
its prerogatives don’t sit well
with neighbors who feel the
impacts.
John Mapes told The
Nugget, “After our meeting
with the airport manager and
city manager, it occurred to
me that the owners and man-
agement of the airport view
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Increased use of Sisters eagle airport is impacting neighbors.
Sisters as an airport with a
zone around it that serves the
airport, rather than a commu-
nity with an airport that serves
the community.”
Campbell said the airport is
“willing to listen to reasonable
ideas” to mitigate impacts,
but he made it plain that those
mitigation ideas couldn’t
materially impact the busi-
nesses’ ability to operate.
In some cases, obvious
ideas for mitigation aren’t
available. For example,
Skydive Awesome is required
to operate in a five-mile “cyl-
inder” around the airport and
so cannot circle and drop sky-
divers away from Sisters, even
if that was a viable option
from a business standpoint.
Some local residents have
expressed concern that the air-
port may add a helicopter tour-
ing company to the commer-
cial operations out of the facil-
ity. Campbell said that there
are no plans for that as of now.
“I’m not seeking it,” he
said. “If somebody showed
up and said, ‘I want to do
tours’… we’d take a look at
it.”
Those with complaints
about increased traffic and
noise essentially have no
regulatory or legal recourse:
Neither the FAA (Federal
Aviation Administration) nor
the City of Sisters can com-
pel changes in how the airport
operates as long as it is within
the parameters of the law and
approved land-use. In fact, the
protections of airports and air-
port activities under Oregon
law are quite robust.
That leaves it up to the
airport and its neighbors to
find ways to co-exist — and
the competing values of eco-
nomic activity and the tran-
quility of neighbors may not
be resolvable.
“If people would rather
not have growth in the Sisters
area, they have a legitimate
complaint,” Campbell said. “If
they want to see growth like
there has been in the Central
Oregon area in general, then,
yes, they’re going to have to
learn to live with it.”
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