City Council: Vote against extending the VTANG lease. Ground the F-35 now!
F-35 training from the runway amidst densely populated cities injures Vermont children and adults.
The rally starts at 6pm on Monday, October 23 on the Church Street side of Burlington City Hall. Participants can then go inside to speak at the public forum portion of the City Council meeting that begins at 7:30. Demand that City Councilors vote down the flawed 25-year lease extension.
Sadism on steroids
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger seeks a gigantic 25-year extension to the city’s collaboration with mass violence directed against thousands of Vermont families. A city council vote to extend the lease would give city-council approval to the vicious daily F-35 assaults.
But the city has the power to fix this problem. First, the city council should not agree to extend the lease until the Air Force and Vermont Air National Guard (VTANG) abolish the F-35 training from the runway in the most densely populated area of the state. The city should also adopt an ordinance establishing a uniform noise standard at BTV: “For the safe operation of the airport, all aircraft regularly operating at Burlington International Airport shall meet the same noise standard established by the FAA for civilian aircraft.”
The F-35 assaults working-class and minority portions of Vermont cities
The Air Force Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), Volume II describes the suffering the Air Force expects anyone living in the F-35s oval-shaped noise-danger zone to endure:
if you live, go to school, or work in that noise danger zone, the Air Force said you can expect permanent hearing damage from repeated exposure to the 115-decibel F-35.
If you are a child, the Air Force said, “chronic exposure to high aircraft noise levels can impair learning.” Especially damaged are “tasks involving central processing and language comprehension, such as reading, attention, problem solving and memory.”
The Air Force said that low income and minority populations would be disproportionately impacted by the F-35 training at BTV. No wealthy neighborhood is in the oval-shaped noise danger zone.
Recognizing the danger and damage to health and safety it would cause, Volume I of the US Air Force EIS disclosed how many acres, how many people, and how many families would be hurt in each of the 6 locations the Air Force was considering for basing the F-35.
The following chart shows the acreage, population, and number of households in the oval-shaped noise-danger zone at each of 6 locations. It also compares post-F-35 with the pre-existing baseline for each location. (Source: 2013 US Air Force Environmental Impact Statement).
Of the six, Burlington was the only place where the number of people hurt and the number of families hurt would increase with arrival of the F-35.
An Air Force noise contour map in Volume I shows that the oval-shaped noise-danger zone extends past the Chamberlin Elementary School, about 800 yards to the side of the runway at Burlington International Airport in South Burlington. It also extends about 2 miles from the ends of the runway, deep into Winooski and Williston and over the Chase Street neighborhood of Burlington. The Air Force said that 2,963 homes are in the noise danger zone where 6,663 people live, among them about 1,300 children.
Recent data shows even more injuries
More recent data shows that the injury to children and adults far exceeds that described in the US Air Force EIS in Volume II. A letter to the city council from Peter Bingham, MD, Chief of the Pediatric Neurology Division of the UVM Medical Center and Professor of Neurology states, “As a pediatric neurologist, I have been trying to draw leaders' attention to the health effects of noise due to the F-35. I feel strongly that the lease renewal should entail discontinuation of F-35 flights over our neighborhoods.”
Dr. Bingham’s letter explains “that noise pollution is far more than a nuisance--it is also a neurotoxin. Think of it as the equivalent of lead poisoning.”
He further wrote,
Please Listen: decades of research attest to this truth. To you, it drives up your blood pressure, it damages the walls of your arteries, it increases your risk of dementia, heart attack, and depression. To your children and your neighbor's children: it decreases their reading ability, it messes up their attention span, it increases their tendency to depression, suicide. How much "economic growth" could balance such costs?
The letter from Dr. Bingham concludes:
The city of Burlington rightly holds property owners responsible for the living conditions of people who sign their leases. If housing conditions threaten tenants' health, we know that's not OK. Please step up and follow through with this principle: if VTANG's lease is to continue, VTANG ought not continue F-35 flights in our skies.
A decision that violates the military’s own discipline
Department of Defense discipline prohibits deliberately targeting civilians. As it followed years of study by the US Air Force, a huge number of written comments opposing the decision, and a town meeting ballot in Burlington in which 55 percent voted to cancel the F-35 basing, nobody can argue that the decision to go through with the basing of the F-35 at Burlington airport was not deliberate. The F-35 training flights at BTV, and the continuation of those F-35 training flights in such a densely populated area for four years, is a most extreme violation of DoD discipline.
The City has the power in at least two ways
Unquestionably, the F-35 training at Burlington airport (and in any densely populated area) must stop immediately. Fortunately, as airport owner, the city has the power in at least two ways.
The City can adopt an ordinance establishing a noise standard for all aircraft regularly using the Burlington airport that is identical to the FAA noise standard. The Ordinance Committee should put review of this ordinance on its agenda.
In addition to that power, the city also has the power to refuse to extend the lease, as recommended by Dr. Bingham, unless the Air Force and VTANG first stop the F-35 training at Burlington airport and provide a mission for VTANG that is compatible with its location in a densely populated area. The city council should not hesitate to use this power by voting down the extension of the lease at its meeting on Monday, October 23.
Write or call your public servants and demand an immediate halt to F-35 training in cities.
Governor Phil Scott 802-828-3333 Chief of Staff <Jason.Gibbs@vermont.gov>
Submit your report & complaint to the online F-35 Report & Complaint Form: https://tinyurl.com/5d89ckj9
See all the graphs and in-your-own words statements on the F-35 Spring-Summer 2021 Report & Complaint Form (513 responses): https://tinyurl.com/3svacfvx.
See links to the graphs and in-your-own words statements on all four versions of the F-35 Report & Complaint Form since Spring 2020, with a total of 1670 responses from 658 different people plus 77 more so far on the form that remains active now.
Senator Bernie Sanders 800-339-9834 <Senator@sanders.senate.gov>
Senator Peter Welch 888-605-7270 Chief of Staff <patrick.satalin@mail.house.gov>
Rep. Becca Balint <RepBeccaBalint@mail.house.gov>
Burlington City Council <citycouncil@burlingtonvt.gov>
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger <mayor@burlingtonvt.gov>
Winooski Mayor Kristine Lott <klott@winooskivt.org>
S. Burlington City Council Chair Helen Riehle <hriehle@sburl.com>
Williston Selectboard Chair Terry Macaig <macaig@msn.com>
VT Senate President Philip Baruth <Philip.Baruth@uvm.edu>
VT House Speaker Jill Krowinski <jkrowinski@leg.state.vt.us>
Attorney General Charity Clark <Charity.Clark@vermont.gov>
States Attorney Sarah George <Sarah.fair.george@gmail.com>
Vermont’s Federal Prosecutor <usavt.contactus1@usdoj.gov>
Adjutant General Brig Gen Gregory C Knight <gregory.c.knight.mil@mail.mil>
Major J Scott Detweiler <john.s.detweiler.mil@mail.mil>
Wing Commander Col Dan Finnegan <daniel.finnegan@mail.mil>
Vermont National Guard Inspector General Lt. Col. Edward J Soychak <edward.soychak@us.af.mil>
US Air Force Inspector General Lt. Col. Pamela D. Koppelmann <pamela.d.koppelmann.mil@mail.mil>
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall <Frank.Kendall@us.af.mil>
Thank you always James for your dedicated advocacy for humane living conditions for the communities affected by the flights of F 35s~ and for our environment~