Disappointing many, the East Hampton Town Board will not order the airport closed on Monday, as had been planned as a way to tame the decades-old noise problem. Instead, withering in response to lawsuits from pilots and the air-transportation industry, as well as a bizarre letter from the Federal Aviation Administration, the board decided to put off any changes until the middle of May. This only gives the town’s adversaries in this fight more time to organize and puts in jeopardy the chances of effective steps to change the way the facility is used and makes all of this look increasingly like a coordinated charade.
Already the signs of rapid backpedaling are obvious. While once the thought was to get out from under the F.A.A.’s onerous demands, town authorities are now working on a “new timeline which is acceptable to both parties,” as laid out in a town board resolution approved last week. Among the items to be worked out with the federal government are a control tower and instrument approach procedures. Though town officials have said that the “new” airport would be the equivalent of one that is privately owned, they have not provided details about how and if loud aircraft would be handled. Another unaddressed risk is if this could result in additional decades of delay, like those only recently ended with the expiration of the town’s obligations to the F.A.A. connected to long-ago funding. This has all the signs of capitulation and further diminishes hopes for changing the status quo.
Predictably, aviation interests were highly pleased when the town board blinked, issuing “all sides” statements and applauding the decision to delay. It remains possible that the refusal of the F.A.A. and helicopter advocacy groups to cooperate in a way that would lessen aircraft noise over the East End will backfire for them. As the public becomes more and more frustrated with their intransigence, pressure almost certainly will increase for the airport to be permanently closed. They need to remember, there was a time not that long ago when almost no one even spoke of shutting East Hampton Airport for good; now that seems a very real option.
If the aviation community still believes that it is playing an effective long game, it ought to think again and instead come to the table with proposals for real noise-control measures. Otherwise, the calls to shut the damn thing down will become too much for Town Hall to continue to ignore. After all, it would take only three board members to agree for it to be wheels up for good.