WESTFIELD — Starting next year, Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport will see a Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II stealth jet fighter land or take off from its runway, on average, once every one hour and 15 minutes for the next 50 years.
The decision to replace the F-15Cs used by the 104th Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard with 21 F-35As was announced at the end of December, and formalized by the Jan. 7 publication of a record of decision in the Federal Register. It marks, among other things, the conclusion of a nearly three year environmental review process required by the National Environmental Policy Act. It also marks the success of local officials’ campaigning to bring the much louder F-35s to Westfield — planes that have generated significant complaints of noise pollution where they’re also based in Vermont.
“I am beyond thrilled that the Secretary of the Air Force has finalized the assignment of the F-35As to the 104th Fighter Wing, ensuring that the 104th remains a critical piece of our country’s national defense strategy for decades to come,” state Sen. John Velis said in a statement.
The Department of Defense has spent in excess of $2 trillion on the F-35 project over the past several decades, making it the most expensive military project in history. Adjusted for inflation, the Manhattan Project cost $30 billion.
In order to ensure the Air Force has access to combat-ready pilots in the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world, and that the Air National Guard can fulfill its mission since September 11, 2001 of maintaining control over North American airspace, the new airplanes will scream over the Northeast for a combined 5,250 hours each year.
These flights will create 122,025 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, which is roughly equivalent to driving a 2006 H2 Hummer from Westfield, Massachusetts to the Darién Gap separating Central and South America, then back again, 15,000 times over.
Under a section of the Clean Air Act called the General Conformity Rule, federal agencies are required to ensure that their activities do not cause violations of National Ambient Air Quality Standards. The National Guard Bureau found that this rule was not applicable because the net increase in air pollution would not exceed thresholds established by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Emissions of volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide are expected to decrease compared to the F-15s, while nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, and particulate matter are all expected to increase.
The report did not analyze lead, which is also a criteria pollutant, but this is likely because jet engines do not burn leaded fuel. Westfield-Barnes airport sells leaded aviation gasoline which is used primarily in small piston engine planes and some helicopters.
The National Guard Bureau does consider the noise from their planes to be significant, and their analysis found that it would disproportionately affect children under 18 and the elderly in Westfield and surrounding communities under their flight path.
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In September, The Shoestring found that while some residents of Westfield embraced the roar from their DOD neighbors’ turbofan jet engines, referring to it as “the sound of freedom,” others found the daily interruptions “highly annoying,” which is the technical term used by both the Federal Aviation Administration and the Air Force.
Whatever term you prefer, when the day-night average sound level in an area exceeds 65 dB it becomes incompatible with residential communities, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The F-35s will triple the area exposed to these noise levels.
Under the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Noise Compatibility Program, also sometimes referred to as Part 150, the city of Westfield can apply for federal funding for noise abatement activities, including providing soundproofing for homes and in some cases purchasing homes on a voluntary basis.
Westfield has participated in this program since 2009, and noise abatement is still ongoing. As of 2022, there were 198 properties eligible for purchase under the Federal Aviation Administration program and 195 eligible for sound proofing. Westfield has purchased 24 eligible properties and provided sound proofing for 49, according to a memo from Boston architectural firm Jones Payne Group, Inc.
Airport Manager Christopher Willenborg said that the Federal Aviation Administration program does not allow for the use of the contour map from the National Guard Bureau’s environmental impact statement for the beddown of the new jets in Westfield. A new map will need to be drawn and approved by the Federal Aviation Administration before abatement activities can begin. He said he hopes that the city will be approved for a new grant so that work on the updated map can begin prior to the arrival of the new fighter jets.
Under Part 150, the Federal Aviation Administration must approve all proposed noise exposure maps and abatement measures.
Federal law prohibits the military from footing the bill for any improvements to land not directly under its control, and funding from the Federal Aviation Administration is not guaranteed either. In a letter submitted to the National Guard Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency asked for clarification about “whether renters, which comprise roughly half the low-income and minority population south of [Barnes], are less likely to receive benefit from available noise mitigation funding opportunities for sound insulation.”
“The approval of an airport noise compatibility program does not constitute decisions to implement the recommended measures and they do not constitute a commitment by the Federal Aviation Administration to provide federal financial assistance to the airport authority for the implementation of the recommended measures,” the agency responded. “FAA also does not provide financial assistance directly to individual property owners or their tenants.”
Public outcry often results when a military base replaces its old planes with new, louder ones. It happened locally in the late ’80s when Westover Air Reserve Base announced plans to replace their fleet of C-130s with sixteen C-5 Galaxy cargo jets, the military’s largest plane. Local residents loudly protested the change, leading to the formation of a “restoration advisory board” on which both private citizens and military officials discuss environmental restoration of current or former military installations.
There hasn’t been much uproar about the F-35s arriving, though. During the draft phase of the environmental impact statement there were a total of 42 comments submitted from the public during the official comment submittal period from Feb. 16 to April 5, 2024. This total accounts for all three locations under consideration: Westfield, Fresno, California and Belle Chasse, Louisiana. By contrast, a 2013 environmental impact statement released in preparation of an F-35A beddown four hours north, in Burlington, Vermont received thousands of public comments.
Westfield City Councilor Kristen Mello told The Shoestring she was frustrated by a lack of public engagement with the project.
“It can be frustrating when any government agency says that they’re asking for input, and that they’re asking for public comment, when a document that you get is several hundred pages long and doesn’t actually address any of the real issues,” said Mello.
“My thesis advisor back when I was in grad school used to call it specifically vague,” she said. “It means you address the issue, but you tell them nothing.”
Speaking about the impacts of the fighter jets’ arrival, Mello highlighted the plight of a mobile home community near the airport on Southampton Road. While the community is already located close to the airport, planned construction of runway safety aprons will also require cutting down a patch of very large trees located between the airport and the road, which have offered some dampening of the sound in the past.
A 2019 proposal to purchase the mobile home park and relocate its 60 households was rejected by the FAA because “owners are not interested in being acquired or relocated.”
“Homeowners have constructed illegal additions to the Mobil [sic] homes violating local codes,” the FAA wrote. “In most cases public transportation is a must. Costs are too high for families to relocate and afford other types of homes.”
“They are not officially designated as an EJ [environmental justice] community right this second,” said Mello. “But they have the right to be designated as an EJ community. And I’m going to do everything in my power to help them get that because that particular census block is very large.”
The 816-page Air National Guard F-15EX Eagle II & F-35A Lightning II Operational Beddowns Environmental Impact Statement Final, along with several hundred pages of appendices and supplementary materials, are available in PDF format: https://www.angf15ex-f35a-eis.com/media/d2kjkicp/f-15ex-and-f-35a-executive-summary.pdf
Responses to substantive public comments can be found in Appendix A-5 (50 pages): https://www.angf15ex-f35a-eis.com/media/y3ejepyt/appendix-a5.pdf
The Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport Noise Compatibility Program Report (418 pages) is available from the city’s website: https://www.cityofwestfield.org/DocumentCenter/View/14897/Noise-Compatibility-Study-Appendices