More flights somehow INCREASE the quiet.......

[hikeaz]

FLAGSTAFF, AZ - Officials at the Grand Canyon have released a proposal to increase the number of air tours over the park while making the environment quieter.

Acting superintendent Palma Wilson says that will be achieved by excluding most non-tour flights and requiring aircraft to convert to quiet technology over the next 10 years.

The draft environmental impact statement released Wednesday is a step toward meeting requirements under a 1987 law to reduce noise from
low-lying aircraft at the Grand Canyon.

Progress had been delayed for years because of lawsuits and other challenges.

The National Park Service has identified a range of options for managing flights at the canyon.

The agency is planning five public meetings to discuss those options.
The NPS will host five open-house style public meetings to present the Draft EIS, gather input, and answer questions. Meetings will be held in Flagstaff, Phoenix, and Grand Canyon, Arizona; and in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Las Vegas, Nevada. Additional details regarding public meetings will be announced soon.

The Draft EIS can be reviewed online at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/grca by clicking on the project name, and then scrolling to "Open for Public Comments."
Comments can be submitted online at the same Web address (the preferred method), mailed to Superintendent, Grand Canyon National Park, Attention: Office of Planning and Compliance, P.O. Box 129, Grand Canyon, Arizona 86023, or provided at one of the public meetings.


The public comment period runs through June 6.

Break out your logic-spin thesaurus and then read the following ....

Before they devised the plan, park officials said they had to define what they considered natural quiet. In bureaucratese, they came up with a formula of "50 percent or more of the park achieving no audible aircraft sound for 75 percent to 100 percent of the day".

In more lyrical language, Palma Wilson, the Grand Canyon's acting superintendent, offered this: "Without its natural soundscape — the descending trill of canyon wrens, wind rustling through tall pines,
the roar of the Colorado River and silence — Grand Canyon would still be amazing to look at. But it would lack something essential and vital to its remote and wild character."

As any of you who have camped at Nankoweap or Hermit can attest - it's sometimes hard to hear yourself think when the choppers are flying. Seems like more-and-more these days that the National Parks exist for the enrichment of the concessionaires. I think that the NP management should relearn how to protect the resource first and enrich the concessionaire second.

[kingsnake]

It's all about the Benjamin's and protecting resources, while a noble cause, puts a lot fewer Benjamin's in the appropriate pockets. Unfortunately. However ... Commercial flights over the White House are, for obvious reasons, banned. (And would probably get you shot down.) Find a good, or even emotional, appeal to "national security" and things can be made to magically happen.

[big_load]

It's a disappointing proposal. Every time I've been to the GC, the aircraft noise was enough to drive me nuts. That's saying a lot, because I live under the Newark/JFK/LaGuardia insanity, with the sky overhead always full of low-flying jets. When the passenger traffic dies down late at night, air freight picks up the slack. The noise in the canyon is obnoxious.

[hikeaz]

Although it may be futile, I'd suggest that anyone with an interest or opinion to take the park service up on their 'offer' for you to express your thoughts. Like they say re. the lotto... "You can't win if you don't play"

"Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead