Foggy Bottom Association

If you have ques­tions about the noise air­craft from the air­port make as they fly over Foggy Bot­tom and the West End, you will soon be able to get answers.

Noise and air traf­fic con­trol offi­cials from Ronald Rea­gan Wash­ing­ton National Air­port will be speak­ing and tak­ing ques­tions at the Foggy Bot­tom Association’s May meet­ing. The meet­ing is Tues­day, May 22 at St. Stephen Mar­tyr Catholic Church 2436 Penn­syl­va­nia Ave., NW. at 25th (entrance on 25th). A half hour social begins at 7 p.m., with the meet­ing start­ing at 7:30 p.m.

Speak­ing at the meet­ing will be Russ Adams, who as a sup­port spe­cial­ist at the airport’s air traf­fic con­trol tower has been involved with air­craft noise mit­i­ga­tion for many years, and Mike Jeck, assis­tant man­ager of the Noise Office run by the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Wash­ing­ton Air­ports Author­ity (MWAA).

As pre­lude to the meet­ing, Foggy Bot­tom News (FBN) asked some ques­tions of Jeck regard­ing air­port noise.

FBN: What hours is National Air­port allowed to oper­ate?
Jeck: Twenty four hours per day.

FBN: What kinds of planes/ engines are allowed dur­ing what hours?
Jeck: Most air­line air­craft are able to use National Air­port. Due to the length and design of our run­ways, wide body and other very large air­craft are unable to use National Air­port. National Air­port is open for use 24 hours a day.

FBN: What sit­u­a­tions allow National Air­port to oper­ate for longer hours (for exam­ple, can planes land after the end­ing time, and under what cir­cum­stances)? (In a few infre­quent sit­u­a­tions, Foggy Bot­tom res­i­dents have noted planes land­ing very late at night–well after 12 p.m.)
Jeck: As noted on our web­site, mwaa.com/ reagan/1271.htm, if an air­craft engine meets the night­time noise stan­dard (which applies from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m.) that air­craft may oper­ate at any time at the Air­port. The air­line sched­ules and the mar­ket­place, how­ever, have not cre­ated a demand for late night flights so there are few of them.

FBN: Foggy Bot­tom res­i­dents are under the impres­sion that only planes with qui­eter engines can oper­ate dur­ing cer­tain hours. Is this cor­rect? If so, how does MWAA mon­i­tor the air­lines’ com­pli­ance with these rules?
Jeck: Air­craft are not pro­hib­ited from using the air­port overnight, but if they oper­ate in vio­la­tion of the night­time noise rule they are sub­ject to a fine. National Air­port has a night­time noise rule in effect from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. As explained on our website:

Night­time Noise Limitations

Ronald Rea­gan Wash­ing­ton National Air­port is one of the most strin­gently noisec­on­trolled air­ports in the United States. National’s night­time noise rules are among the most restric­tive in the coun­try. Under the Authority’s reg­u­la­tions, air­craft may be only oper­ated after 9:59 p.m. and before 7:00 a.m. if the noise level for the air­craft type and model meets National Airport’s strict noise stan­dards which are designed to min­i­mize sleep inter­fer­ence. If the noise lim­i­ta­tion is vio­lated, the air­craft oper­a­tor is sub­ject to a civil penalty up to $5,000 per violation.

Over the years, advance­ments in tech­nol­ogy and Fed­eral Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) reg­u­la­tions have led to qui­eter engines on air­line jet aircraft.

FBN : Does MWAA antic­i­pate any changes to these rules, espe­cially as newer, qui­eter engines are more com­mon on planes?
Jeck: No.

FBN: How and where does MWAA mon­i­tor noise lev­els? Are there mon­i­tors in the Foggy Bot­tom and West End neigh­bor­hoods? Where? How fre­quently are read­ings taken?
Jeck: MWAA has installed 36 noise mon­i­tors around the region. The clos­est noise mon­i­tors to Foggy Bot­tom are in George­town, Ross­lyn, and the Pal­isades. The noise mon­i­tors col­lect data every second.

FBN: If a res­i­dent thinks planes are landing/taking off out­side of the pre­scribed hours or planes with nois­ier engines are oper­at­ing, who should they con­tact?
Jeck: Me, Mike Jeck, at 703.417.1204 or mike.jeck@mwaa.com

FBN: What does MWAA do to fol­low up on cit­i­zen com­plaints?
Jeck: We inves­ti­gate the com­plaint and respond to the cit­i­zen with our findings. ~

In spite of the gray over­cast and damp day, the annual spring com­mu­nity park clean up was a great suc­cess again this year.

Thanks to neigh­bors Mon­ica Mar­tinez & Daniel Gage, Jill Criss­man, Mark Negus, Kris Hart (FoBoGro), Ray Ash­ton (GWU senior & FoBoGro employee), Jade Hart, Jackie & Ken Durham, Marina Streznewski & Alan Alpert, Greg Sny­der, Ellie Becker, Lisa Far­rell, David Hertzfeldt and our newest vol­un­teer Allison.

Spe­cial thanks to Tom Day of DPW Help­ing Hands Neigh­bor­hood Clean Up Pro­gram, who pro­vided equip­ment and leaf bag pick up. The over 32 bags of debris and 40 limbs and branches were hauled off before the day ended.

Within two hours, the 26th Street park which is reg­u­larly main­tained by the FBA Gar­den Com­mit­tee, was cleared of win­ter trash and trans­formed into spring mode. The morn­ing after, in the bright sun, dogs with their own­ers and chil­dren with their par­ents were out enjoy­ing the newly spruced up parks.

Artist Gun­nel Gyl­len­hoff (left) and gallery owner Dale John­son at the gal­leries 25th Anniver­sary Cel­e­bra­tion on Sat­ur­day evening, Feb. 11

Foggy Bot­tom res­i­dents already know her. Dale John­son has been in the area for over a quar­ter of a century.

But if you haven’t vis­ited her gallery, now is the time to go as the Gallery is closely involved with the bien­nial Out­door Sculp­ture Exhibit in his­toric Foggy Bottom.

On the lower level of the Water­gate Mall, the Water­gate Gallery fea­tures an awe inspir­ing array of paint­ings, sculp­tures, wood turn­ing, ceram­ics, and fiber art. New artists are dis­played monthly.

The gallery dou­bles as a fram­ing busi­ness. It offers high qual­ity preser­va­tion fram­ing using a wide vari­ety of acid free mate­ri­als and ultra­vi­o­let fil­ter­ing glaz­ing on vir­tu­ally all pieces to be framed. Archival papers and mat boards, UV glass or plex­i­glass assist in main­tain­ing the integrity of the framed item for the long term.

Ms. John­son has seen the neigh­bor­hood change over the years. Busi­ness for her has gone up and down. Lately, times have been tough for all artists. When the econ­omy tanks, peo­ple are less inter­ested in art-related purchases.

“Peo­ple are just not in a posi­tion to indulge them­selves,” she said, adding that busi­nesses, law firms, fed­eral agen­cies — vir­tu­ally every­one has become more reluc­tant to spend money get­ting things framed. More peo­ple are buy­ing online. The cost of sup­plies for Ms. John­son has also climbed, she said. read more »