Letter sent by Concerned Citizens of Agua Dulce stating their position re the Airport
Concerned Citizens of Agua Dulce, Inc.
33201 Agua Dulce Canyon Road, #4
Agua Dulce, CA 91390
January 9, 2005
Mr. James L. Hartl
Planning Director
County of Los Angeles, Regional Planning Department
320 West Temple Street, Room 1390
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Re: Agua Dulce Airpark – Modification/Revocation Hearing / Permit 1404-(5)
Background:
In 1958 a small group of Agua Dulce residents solicited their neighbors for permission to build a landing strip that would accommodate a few local pilots. As it turned out, this act of treachery by a few has echoed and expanded throughout the last 50 years primarily through the disinterest and accommodation of County Agencies to the uncontrolled chaos of today. The landing strip quickly became a public airport and major filming location. Subsequently, a substantial portion of the community was forced to live with the understanding that only relentless vigilance and aggressive advocacy prevents this tiny little town from being destroyed by the results of airport development.
It is important to note that community records show the first organized airport protest occurred in 1959 and the tenor of community input from that era clearly reveals the anguish of local homeowners who quickly realized that they had been betrayed by their airport neighbors. And so it goes, through thousands of pages of documentation- with each successive decade presenting new threats of airport expansion. Fortunately, there is a quality of life associated with Agua Dulce that elicits intense loyalty from its residents; Agua Dulce continues to produce new champions each generation, people who are willing to use all of their resources to protect the land and their rural lifestyle.
Today, we face unprecedented threats of expansion from airport owners who have consistently demonstrated an unwillingness to modify their behavior to conform to community standards and to comply with County and State regulations regarding land use and airport development. The community has endured the following:
all night film shoots in violation of EIDC permits
acrobatics, stunts, and other unsafe aircraft activity
enormous increases in itinerant air traffic
the introduction of helicopter activity
flight school training extending over the community
large commercial ‘events’
fireworks shows during the most dangerous fire season in memory
overuse/waste of groundwater in maintaining acres of new landscape grass
increases in airborne dust from helicopter traffic and filming activities
daily flights of aircraft over the local elementary school
huge increases in aircraft and other vehicle noise levels
These, and other activities have resulted in a decrease in quality of life and threaten property values for those living within the airport’s sphere. The concerned residents of the community have made literally hundreds of complaints to the FAA and various State and County Agencies. Concerns have also been referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Public Corruption Task Force in Los Angeles, the State Attorney General, the State Governor, and to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. Many hours of videotape and numerous photos have been forwarded to Los Angeles County representatives showing illegal building activities, permit violations, and unsafe aircraft operations at Agua Dulce Airport. The airport owners have consistently demonstrated a "build first, seek permits later" attitude towards development. Indeed, Concerned Citizens of Agua Dulce, Inc. was formed as a result of residents’ frustration with Los Angeles County’s apparent unwillingness or inability to enforce its own ordinances and protect community members from ongoing airport nuisance and safety issues.
Specific Issues of Concern
1. NOISE
It is very important that those who do not live here understand Agua Dulce’s very unique situation with respect to ambient noise . The center, and oldest portion, of Agua Dulce is surrounded by successive ranges of hills. Sounds quickly reverberate across the valley and, particularly during early morning and evening hours, even the normal low-level sounds made by ranch animals can be heard for miles. The town has very little commercial or industrial sources of noise. Automobile traffic is negligible during the day and extremely sparse after dark.
Residents hear every aircraft that lands and takes-off . Each operation is experienced as a single intrusive noise event by those who live here – a spike in the normal environmental sound level. Residents of Agua Dulce have experienced as many as one hundred plus flight operations a day! Aircraft often depart shortly after 5am and some fly out well after sunset. However, the majority of flights occur during the middle portion of the day on Saturdays and Sundays, with departures as close as mere seconds apart! Community annoyance turns to concerns of deliberate harassment when planes fly excessively low and frighten our family members, and livestock in fields and corrals. Daily activities such as telephone conversations, TV/radio viewing, sleeping, or just relaxing are impossible under these conditions. Outdoor entertaining, gardening, playing with children, horseback riding are all affected by the aircraft noise.
Past and present airport management has been repeatedly notified by residents of pilots who fly recklessly, who perform group maneuvers, and who fly too low over our homes and school. Yet, observers and videotape evidence show these same pilots welcomed at the airport again and again.
2. FILMING
Agua Dulce and its environs is a popular location for the television and film industry. Over the years, a great many films have featured Vasquez Rocks, Agua Dulce Airport, and various local properties. Residents have typically tolerated filming activity and do understand the importance of this valuable resource to the State’s film industry. However, this past year is notable for unbearable levels of filming activity, primarily at the airport. Specifically, the filming was problematic due to the non-enforcement of production company permit violations, lack of public notification, noisy, all night film shoots, brilliant night-time lighting directed at residents’ homes, excessive airborne dust, and traffic from filming and crew personnel. There was also stunt flying and the use of pyrotechnics in our zone four fire area. At one point, County Inspector, Nicole Gaudette, had to request assistance from the Sheriff’s Department before airport and film crew personnel would cease and desist illegal activities.
3. SPECIAL EVENTS
Airport operators have hosted a number of special events at the airport over the past two years that have presented numerous problems for residents. The geography of the area presents unique traffic issues which are not normally present in other communities.
There is just one main road through town, Agua Dulce Canyon Road. Agua Dulce Canyon Road has just two lanes and winds through narrow canyon walls and traverses the center of the community from the 14 Freeway to Sierra Highway. Most of the side roads are rough, poorly paved or unpaved, country roads that meander through low lying hills and end at widely scattered individual homesteads or small clusters of houses. Any increase in traffic is felt by all in terms of increased noise, congestion, and airborne dust.
In the past two years the airport has hosted events for profit that greatly increased both road and aircraft traffic. A typical example of the airport’s irresponsible practices is exemplified in the Fourth of July fireworks events. These events are advertised across the County and bring in hundreds of outside visitors who park across people’s gates, block single lane roads, frighten livestock, and leave trash littering the roadside . Many residents have complained to the County Fire Department, airport personnel, and other County Agencies due to fears of fire. Others have had to take elaborate precautions to ensure that horses and other ranch animals are not injured or lost due to panic over the fireworks noise and light. The airport has also hosted an illegal demolition derby, rock bands, and attempted to solicit huge motorcycle events. The airport owners and operators have no ‘feel’ for the community’s needs or values. They consistently err on the side of quick profit at the expense of Agua Dulce’s slower, quieter lifestyle.
4. WATER USE
Agua Dulce is, again, unique in that residents rely solely upon groundwater for all of their daily needs. In addition, each household has a septic system which provides the only means for sewage disposal and treatment. Given these circumstances, residents are very protective of their ground water resources and highly critical of any development that threatens contamination of that precious commodity. Agua Dulce Airport lies right in the middle of the local floodplain and is in the path of two blue line streams.
With respect to water use, Agua Dulce Airport owners have, again, demonstrated a complete disregard for community concerns. Residents have repeatedly expressed their fears regarding excessive water use to County and State Water Agencies. The airport owners chose to build an enormous lawn covered soccer field, without permits, and added additional acres of landscape grass. Over a period of two years, during the hottest days of summer, water runoff from over eleven acres of grass continued for as much as six hours each day - each and every day of the week. This, in the face of seven years of drought which left hundreds of residents with dry wells!
Furthermore, the airport regularly pumps out thousands of gallons of water from the overflow basin which is adjacent to its water storage tank. This practice has led to deep erosion of the surrounding hillside. Mr. Kirshner, one of the airport owners, responded to residents’ questions by saying that he has all the water he will ever need! Regretfully, on his part, there has been absolutely no understanding of this community’s unique situation and the need for his airport to be a good neighbor.
Of equal concern is the airport’s laissez faire approach to protecting the ground water from potential contamination. The addition of aircraft fueling and motor vehicle events, such as those involving trucks and motorcycles, greatly increases the potential for fuel contamination of groundwater. As does the fact that wasted irrigation water is seen washing directly across the aircraft fueling area into surrounding soil – on a daily basis. As noted previously, large events have lured hundreds of automobiles to the airport where they illegally park on dirt fields. Furthermore, non-permitted grading and building has repeatedly occurred. As a result, the aforementioned blue line streams have been shifted and the topography of the floodplain has been greatly altered without benefit of input from engineers or geological studies, as mandated by 1404-(5). Residents fear that their properties downstream of the airport will be damaged or destroyed by floodwaters when the rains return. This latter fear has been forcefully and repeatedly presented to various County Agencies with little response. In fact, the latest non-permitted grading and paving projects at the airport provide for an almost unbroken expanse of impermeable asphalt pavement across the center of the floodplain.
5. SAFETY
It is indisputable that an airport could never be built in Agua Dulce today! Agua Dulce Airport is lacking the many building and safety factors that are required in today’s airports. However, these significant flaws have been overlooked because of the age of the permit, the inadequacy of County oversight, and the crusading ruthlessness of various State and Federal Aviation Agencies.
Within the last three years, residents have accumulated numerous videotapes, radio transmission audiotapes, and photographs of aircraft engaged in dangerous and illegal activities. Audiotapes of radio transmissions between pilots and airport personnel reveal incidences when airport management actually encourages pilots’ acrobatics. Agua Dulce has been subject to loud, low and erratic take-offs and landings, planes circling endlessly outside of the approved pattern, planes performing acrobatic maneuvers, and aircraft flying extremely low over the elementary school. Also, wing walking by stuntmen, pyrotechnics, the introduction of helicopters, formation flying by up to six planes in unison, large turbojet take-offs and landings, a huge increase in aircraft and helicopter training, and the addition of many, many more itinerant aircraft to our skies.
Each additional aircraft adds to the danger of another fatal crash such as the one that did occur just two years ago, killing three people. Aircraft have landed during events when people are on or adjacent to the runway. Aircraft have landed in opposite directions at the same time. Aircraft have landed when there is little or no visibility. Aircraft have landed long after dark and take-off before the sun is up. There are several documents available in Regional Planning files that document one hundred plus operations a day on weekends.
This is an unlighted, uncontrolled, facility. Residents have literally begged the current airport management to actively manage this airport and to make some attempt to curtail unsafe flying practices. But, instead, the airport owners regularly lower gasoline prices to the lowest in the State, thus encouraging more itinerant aircraft and more pilots who are unfamiliar with the terrain, erratic wind conditions, and the hazards of this antiquated facility.
Recommendations;
Concerned Citizens of Agua Dulce strongly recommends that Conditional Use Permit 1404-(5) be revoked. It has far outlived its value as a means to control land use and growth at Agua Dulce Airport. As to aircraft operations, Federal Law under the auspices of the FAA prohibits local governments from interfering with use of airspace and operation of aircraft. If the airport owners honestly believe that their airport plan and operations can withstand public scrutiny, they should apply for a new and current permit.
With respect to land use, the various Los Angeles County Agencies that have, or should have, oversight of this permit have proved over the years to be unable or unwilling to enforce its own provisions. In three years, the airport owners have continuously and boldly built, graded, and demolished without permits and without penalty. The various County Agencies such as Regional Planning, Building and Safety, Environmental Health, and Fire Prevention would never have allowed the individual homeowner such latitude. Nor would the average Agua Dulce resident have been allowed to use buildings and roads which were developed through illegal practices. Given the history of this situation, it is clear that Los Angeles County is unable to fulfill its primary function of protecting the citizens of this community while CUP 1404-(5) is still active.
It is CCAD’s position that the people of Agua Dulce are best served by initiating a completely new permit process with all of its attendant safeguards such as a full environmental impact study, community input, and public scrutiny. Furthermore, no permit should ever again be issued that lacks review dates, expiration date, and a means for community involvement and oversight.
This facility should never be used at night for aircraft operations. Limiting the numbers and types of aircraft is the only way to ensure that the community does not suffer due to noise and pollution. Finally, only a private airport with a special use designation would provide the community with safeguards against jets and itinerant aircraft traffic.
A final word about business profits. Airport representatives and owners have stated on numerous occasions that they have to be allowed a number of concessions in order to make a profit. Many of these concessions, such as huge numbers of hangers and additional based aircraft are clearly destructive to the rural, small ranch character of the Agua Dulce community. Not only are the airport owners asking residents to acquiesce to their own downfall, they are requesting that community representatives and County Agencies endorse their use of illegally built facilities.
It is CCAD’s position that no one person or business is guaranteed a profit on any business venture. Furthermore, no one individual or group of individuals should be allowed to profit at the expense of a whole community’s lifestyle.
It is a fact that Mr. Kirshner met with community members, including members of the Civic Association, prior to his purchase of the airport. He was informed in great detail of the nature and history of the airport/community conflict. He was also informed of the numerous questions that had been brought up regarding the legitimacy of CUP 1404-(5). He, and his financial backers, made the choice to purchase the airport, despite knowing these potential difficulties.
The residents of Agua Dulce are not responsible for the airport’s financial success or failure. That responsibility lies in the hands of the various businessmen who, over the years, have tried, and failed, to make a profit from a public airport that was allowed to be built in the wrong place. It is both inappropriate and disingenuous of Mr. Kirshner and Mr. Spears, et al, to ask the people of this little town to take responsibility for their questionable business decisions.
In closing, thank you very much for this opportunity to provide you with input prior to the Public Hearing. We look forward to welcoming you to our little town and hope to participate in a productive dialogue between the Commission and community representatives.
Respectfully,
Executive Board, Concerned Citizens of Agua Dulce
Patrick Green, President, Drew Gurewitz, Vice President, Robert Owens Vice President and Ramona Hall, Secretary
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