Our View: Questions Airport Com Must Answer

Not surprisingly, confusion surrounds the Chatham Town Meeting article seeking to adopt a new flight path map for Chatham Municipal Airport. As has been the case too often with the airport, the airport commission has not been as clear as it could have been in presenting the reasons for the new map, and airport opponents have done their best to obfuscate the issue with distractions and misinformation. Even we’re confused, and it’s our job to pay attention to these things.

On Tuesday, May 7, the select board will hold a public hearing on the article, a change in the town’s general bylaw that applies to the airport, substituting the new map for one adopted in 1958. Here are some questions for which we’d like to get straight, factual answers to related to the new map and other related airport issues:

How much additional area will the expanded flight path map cover, how many more parcels, and will all of those parcels be subject to having trees trimmed if they are too high?

If aircraft have been using this flight path for years, why has it taken so long to update the map? Is this an FAA mandate?

How many more or fewer parcels will be covered by the straight-in approach that is being proposed vs. the current circular pattern required during inclement weather?

The vegetation management plan for the airport states that there will be “selective” trimming and removal of trees within some 60-plus acres on and off the airport property. What is the criteria for removing or trimming trees — a specific height or diameter? Will there be clear cutting of any areas? Will there be “10,000” trees cut down, as some have alleged, or a few hundred? Are there trees that have now grown so tall that they are intruding into the flight path air space?

Finally, will any of these factors allow more or larger aircraft to use Chatham Airport?

We hope definitive answers — with documentation that backs them up — will be presented at next week’s public hearing, to clear the air once and for all.