provide for the regulations of air traffic in order to make sure that we have a safe air transportation system; this is a subject that I personally am quite familiar with. I used to be a legal adviser to a political body and we assumed that responsibility for the zoning and the land use planning to take care of this sort of thing. But, once you have the situation occur where it is built in around an airport, then you have a very difficult problem because as the mayor said here this morning, rezoning here in Inglewood is not going to solve the problem now.

There is no vacant land, at least that is what the mayor said. It is true that you could rezone in other areas, but once the residences are in there, you cannot remove them unless you are going to condemn the property or buy them out voluntarily.

There is your two methods.

Mr. FADEM. There are other alternatives.
Senator CANNON. What?

Mr. FADEM. You rezone to industrial and commercial and those people will convert their property without the kind of losses that they are suffering when the get condemned. There are alternatives. Senator CANNON. That is an alternative.

Mr. FADEM. Thank you.

Senator CANNON. Senator Tunney?

Senator TUNNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I do not have any questions other than just one for Ms. Mitcheltree. Ms. Mitcheltree, you indicated that you live near Los Angeles International and that you live between the runways?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. Yes.

Senator TUNNEY. I would like to know how long it took you to get your house condemned?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. I tried like hell to prevent it.

Senator TUNNEY. I am thinking that at one point or other it must have been a quiet area. When was it quiet?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. Well, roughly speaking about 10 years ago we had the south runway and we had one or two military jets off those south runways, perhaps, in a day, which made them a novelty.

The north runways were after that.

Senator TUNNEY. All right.

Ms. MITCHELTREE. You see, it is a very gradual thing.

Senator TUNNEY. I understand. I understand. Let me just get to the point that I was trying to make and that is two questions. There was a point in time when the noise became unbearable. Is that right?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. Yes.

Senator TUNNEY. When was that point in time?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. It was in, I believe, July of 1968, when we simultaneously discovered that the Department of Airports had planned to build giant maintenance hangars for 747's within 700 feet of our property, and that they had requested for rezoning to build a new north runway so that we would have not one, but two to the North of us.

That is when I blew my skull with the rest of the community.
Senator TUNNEY. O.K.

But, you could not stop it, you tried?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. We filed two separate actions. We won one and lost the other. The maintenance hangars are not being developed subsequently.

Senator TUNNEY. But, the fourth runway is there?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. It is there.

Senator TUNNEY. And it went into operation, what was it, 2 years ago 3 years ago?

Mr. FADEM. June 30, 1971.

Senator TUNNEY. And that was, I assume, the time that you decided you wanted out?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. No. No. I was being condemned personally in December of 1968.

Senator TUNNEY. You have been condemned since 1968 ?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. Since December of 1968.

Senator TUNNEY. When did you get your money?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. I have not been purchased, Senator. I have been condemned.

You only have one buyer, you understand. There is just one buyer and that buyer, fortunately, has stayed away from my door. I don't mean to say anything here to institute any other kind of action. They have left me alone, and I am very grateful because I don't know where I am going to move.

Senator TUNNEY. But, the thing that I am trying to find out, and I think I have found out, is that you have, over a period of years, seen the evolution of an airport complex. As that airport complex evolved, enlarging the facilities, building out more runways, and thereby sustaining more traffic, you have seen the value of your property and your own health and welfare deteriorate.

Ms. MITCHELTREE. Oh, yes.

Senator TUNNEY. And, at no point along the line was a conscious decision made by any regulatory agency that we are going to allow this to happen and that we are going to be prepared to pay this price for the homes in the neighborhood adjacent to the airport, which we know we will have to pay because of the deterioration of the health and welfare of the people living in the neighborhood. At the same time they open up the fourth runway they pay the money and get the people out of their homes.

Ms. MITCHELTREE. Senator Tunney, I could not have put it better. Senator TUNNEY. And that is what just infuriates me because I happen to have been over near the landing strip shortly after they were opened up.

As I mentioned this morning in my opening remarks, we saw a baby there that was 6 months old. He had cotton in his ears and not had the cotton taken out of his ears since he came home from the maternity ward. The mother told me that they did not have the money to move out. They wanted the money from the airport authority so that they could move out. The house, however, represented a substantial investment to them, most of their life's equity was tied up in it, and therefore they were cooked.

I just cannot understand that kind of evolutionary process taking place in a society that prides itself as being a highly developed tech

nological society. We are tool makers in the extreme, but apparently we don't seem to know how to regulate our tools to the point that we can provide for the happiness of our citizens, particularly in this

area.

Mr. Chairman, you were having a colloquy with Mr. Fadem and one of the things that occurred to me was that sometime ago the decision could have been made by the powers that be, that instead of having air commerce develop at Los Angeles International Airport, where there are some people living in the vicinity, that it could have been built up, say, in Ontario where you would be flying over great vineyards for the most part, rather than over the people.

Senator CANNON. Are you suggesting that the problem be moved out to Ontario?

Senator TUNNEY. No, it is too late now. It is too late now.

It is too late. The development is here. The development is here and it is going to stay here and one of the things that I am most concerned about is that with the lawsuits we might find that LA International is closed down. That is something that I do not want to see happen because it would have a dramatic and adverse impact on the total community.

What I am saying is that there are an awful lot of people that have been subjected to very serious and adverse environmental impacts.

Senator CANNON. Let me ask you this.

Are you suggesting, as some of the witnesses seem to be suggesting, that this was the FAA's responsibility, or was that a decision for the Los Angeles Airport Authority to make? It seems to me that, if the Federal Government is going to tell the local airport authorities where they can put their airports, we are indeed going to have some Federal intrusion into the lives of all of the persons.

As one Federal officer, I would not want to see the Federal Government assume that responsibility. I think that the local airport authorities should really be the people to make the decisions and certainly they should be responsive to the people they represent just like you

Ms. MITCHELTREE. Mr. Chairman, may I just interject a thought in answer to what you are saying and that is that all along and as far back as I can think, when you talk to city authorities who are the zoning authority, with anything that even neighbors on the complaint of noise, you are told to go to the FAA.

It is not the local jurisdiction. Now, you know, as long as they are going to have the authority, they have got to exercise it. Someone has got to exercise the authority.

Senator CANNON. Are you suggesting that the FAA ought to have the authority to determine whether they let them develop additional runways, and whether they let them take additional land? Wasn't that the decision of the Los Angeles Authority and weren't they the people that condemned the authority? This wasn't the FAA?

Ms. MITCHELTREE. No. The Department of Airports is the condemning member.

Mr. FADEM. But, FAA provided the funds and gave its approval,

and if the FAA would say you cannot put in any runways, where you are going to subject residences to noise in excess of this level, whatever level you choose to set, then LAX would not have opened those two north runways.

Ms. MITCHELTREE. Or they would have purchased all of the affected property first, and then constructed it.

Senator TUNNEY. Well, that is the point. That is the point that is so clear. I mean here you have a decision to open up a runway and you are bringing aircraft into close proximity with people who are living there and you condemn their land. You don't, however, put up any money so that they can move out. I don't know how those people feel, but I can rest assured that if the people who are making the decisions to bring those aircrafts onto that fourth runway, that north runway, had to live in that community, by golly the decision would have been made to postpone the airplanes going in and out until the money had been provided so that the people could leave.

And that is what I think it is all about. Mr. Chairman, I don't blame the FAA completely. I think it is partially their fault. I think the fault goes up and down the line. I think that there are many people at fault. probably Congress is partially at fault, probably the city councils are at fault, the airport authorities are at fault. There is, unfortunately, such a blurred level, or blurred chain of command of decisionmaking and such a shared responsibility that these things evolved without any clear decisions being made by anybody and without weighing alternatives or developing strategies so that you can provide for health and welfare and at the same time protect air commerce.

We need a big airport in the Los Angeles area. They recognize that, and if they don't then they are not wise. You are providing for air commerce, but at the same time you have got to protect the citi

zens.

Senator CANNON. Well, I am very surprised to learn that California law permits an airport authority or any government agency to condemn property without providing for the funds to pay for it. That is a little different from the law of the State that I happen to represent. Because a condemnation procedure cannot be accomplished until there is money available and appropriated for that purpose, to pay for it.

So, this, it seems to me-if that is indeed the California law, is very unfortunate because I do not see how a government, or any government body, agency of local government could be given condemnation rights without having the funds to pay for the property, or else they might condemn the property and leave you sitting there forever without making payment.

Ms. MITCHELTREE. I am not sitting there because they didn't have the money to pay me.

Senator CANNON. Well, I thought that Senator Tunney was implying that they condemned the property and didn't make any provision for payment of the property.

Mr. FADEM. It lies in between, if you are interested. The law of California is that when the condemnation case goes to trial and the final amount of compensation is determined, then after a reasonable period of time, and it can vary a little here and there, then they have to pay. But, if there is a decision to condemn today, that case may not go to trial for a long time in the future, and LAX is un

willing to take possession and pay what it estimates is just compensation in advance of trial and that is sort of in between the two understandings that have been discussed here.

Senator TUNNEY. How long a period of time is average for one of these cases?

Mr. FADEM. The airport average, unfortunately, is probably one of the longest of any of our local condemning agencies. I have many airport cases now that are 5 years old.

Senator TUNNEY. Five years old?

Senator CANNON. If it be the case that the reason for the delay is that the people are not willing to accept what the offer has been, and the airport authority is not willing to pay, then, until the court has made a decision

Mr. FADEM. That is exactly so, Mr. Chairman. But, you see, with highways they do it the other way. They offer to pay right at the beginning the amount of the government evaluation of the property and then leave for the later trial time the argument over who is right on the value.

Senator CANNON. Well, that is a political decision that we cannot help you with.

Mr. FADEM. Certainly.

Senator CANNON. Not at the Federal level.

Senator TUNNEY. Thank you.

Senator CANNON. Thank you very much.

Mr. FADEM. Our pleasure.

Senator CANNON. The next witness is A. L. McPike, of Douglas Aircraft Co., McDonnell-Douglas.

STATEMENT OF A. L. McPIKE, DIRECTOR OF INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION ACTIVITIES, DOUGLAS AIRCRAFT CO., MCDONNELL-DOUGLAS CORP., LONG BEACH, CALIF.

Mr. McPIKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Tunney.

My name is A. L. McPike. I am director of industry association activities for the Douglas Aircraft Co. of the McDonnell Douglas Corp. We appreciate the opportunity to present our views at this hearing.

Our assessment of the airport neighborhood noise situation shows that the long-range outlook for the airport neighbor is good. New wide-bodied aircraft powered by the new technology high-bypass ratio turbofan engines are substantially quieter than earlier jet transport aircraft. It is fairly easy to substantiate, for example, that our new DC-10 wide-bodied trijet produces less than half the noise exposure of any earlier narrow-bodied aircraft types when providing any given transportation service to an airport. In many cases it produces much less than half the noise exposure. That the aircraft is much quieter is easily recognizable by airport neighbors and the aircraft has been widely acclaimed for its low noise levels as well as its smoke-free operations.

This, of course, did not just happen. It was made possible by the availability of the new high-bypass ratio engines and by the incorporation of many design features into both the engine and its installation on the aircraft.

Future aircraft types should be at least as quiet as the DC-10.