Noise pollution complaints falling on deaf ears?

Even though the Montreal-Trudeau airport has been partly situated in St. Laurent since the 1940s, the real noise problems started a lot later than that. In 1996, Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) management modified its contracts with carriers, which allowed them to choose which airport – Mirabel or Dorval – they wanted to fly out of. All the regular users opted for Dorval, thereby leaving Mirabel with only intercontinental and international flights.

Consequently, air movements over the city are on the rise and have affected the tranquility of life of people living around the airport. That's how Citizens for Quality of Life was formed. A court battle followed.

"At the beginning we were winning, and then we lost. It was ridiculous and made no sense," said executive group member Jean-Guy Boutin.

At the beginning of 2000, ADM sent out a flyer explaining its schedule of flights. Planes, generally, were to be kept out of the skies over Montreal between midnight and 7 a.m. But since April, flights have been going out in the early hours of the morning.

"They're cheating by saying these flights are exceptions, but in fact, they consistently violate their own rule on runway use between midnight and 7 a.m.," Boutin said.

Citizens for Quality of Life took ADM to court, where they first lost. A subsequent appeal was launched and a decision was supposed to be rendered by October 2006.

"We are seeing about 40 more flights per week since Mirabel closed," said ADM public affairs vice-president Christiane Beaulieu. "Airline companies are filling their planes a bit more than they did in the past, and that's why we're seeing fewer (individual) flights than we planned," she said.

A modification to the preferred air paths last September has been a problem for residents in the northern part of St. Laurent. The trajectory of incoming flights was also changed, causing other inconveniences.

The point of that, Beaulieu said, was to actually ease the noise burden on the population of St. Laurent.

"By having the planes come in over top of Highway 13, the density of the affected population is much lower than it would otherwise be," she said.

In 1995, ADM tabbed the number of people affected by airplane noise at 107,300, while that number sunk to 29,992 – a 72-per-cent decline.

Despite that improvement, Christiane Beaulieu said "there will always be people that will be directly affected by airplane noise. All cities have to do to avoid it, is to not allow residential housing in the flight paths," she said. According to the ADM vice-president, new ways to curb noise pollution are being studied by ADM and its partners. The committee on noise pollution is considering any and all propositions to changes in noise-pollution criteria and methods of curbing that pollution. In addition, many planes are subject to noise and emissions standards a lot higher than their forebears.

(Translated by Marc Lalonde)

(Photo: Archives)