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STATEMENT OF HON. MERLE MERGELL, MAYOR, CITY OF
INGLEWOOD, CALIF

Mayor MERGELL. Welcome to our city of Inglewood. We are happy to have you here.

Senator CANNON. Thank you.

Mayor MERGELL. As a matter of fact, I have a prepared text that I will not get into. It is technical and I will see that you get a copy of it.

Senator CANNON. We will have your text made a part of the record in full and you may summarize from it as you see fit.

Mayor MERGELL. Thank you.

I welcome you here, and, believe it or not, we have solved the aircraft noise problem and I would like to have you gentlemen be here 24 hours a day because, you see, they have diverted all flights off the north runway, which we are under right at this time.

So, perhaps, Senator Tunney, Senator Cannon, we have seven runways also, and if you would split your time one at each location, I think we can solve the problem.

Senator CANNON. It might be cheaper than condemnation.

Mayor MERGELL. I think it would have to be a 24-hour proposition, but we would love to have you in the city of Inglewood continually.

Gentlemen, I used that in a joking manner, but still, there is our hopelessness on the local level to do anything about aircraft noise. We are completely without power. We continually have citizens groups that come before us and they are good people that think that we can do something about it, and we can't. I know that Pat Russell who was here before you, she has, of course, problems and in her area, in Westchester-Inglewood, is a community, of course, a separate community, that is unfortunately directly under the flight path. There are four runways and, as far as asking-approximately 95,000the entire city is disturbed by the aircraft.

I want to make it clear that we are not antiaircraft, antijet, antiairport.

Our economy flourishes because of the airport. We are aware of this. We are also aware that something can be done about the aircraft.

Just as so many years ago you could drive a car without a muffler until it became disturbing to everyone, so you had to put a muffler on your vehicle. Now, without a muffler on a car, you get better gas mileage, your car can go faster, have more power.

But, unfortunately, it disturbs people so that the automobiles have to be muffled. The aircraft industry

A VOICE. We cannot hear back here.

Mayor MERGELL. Excuse me.

That is the problems with microphones being too low.

We can the noise pollution problem can be solved, but it cannot be solved on a local level, or a State level. It is going to have to be up to you gentlemen, our Federal Representatives, to take care of this hideous problem that we face.

I quite agree with Senator Tunney that those that moved in after the fact, perhaps, should be aware of what they are getting into, buyer beware, or whatever the case may be. But, Inglewood has been here a lot longer than anyone in this room, I am sure.

Prior to the miracle of jet aircraft, it was tolerable in our city and sometime in 1957 and 1958 the jet aircraft came in and I think it is a responsibility that-it is impossible to pin down whose responsibility it is. Is it the airports responsibility, which, of course, is an entity of the city of Los Angeles, I don't know. Is it the FAA; I am not sure that that is where it is.

Is it the aircraft manufacturers-whose responsibility it is I don't know.

In many instances we are powerless. We have probably spent over half a million dollars in an attempt to do something in the city of Inglewood about aircraft noise.

We had an aircraft come over the city one time dangerously low and very very loud. I said dangerously low; I am a jet-rated pilot. We attempted to cite the aircraft so the FAA advised us that it is none of our business and perhaps rightly so. We have had instances in the city of Inglewood documented. We monitor all of the stations that transmit. We had a pilot takeoff the wrong way, in other words, heading east over the city and over the radio we have this documented that he wished to break the speed record to Milwaukee and what we commonly call race the city of Inglewood quite badly. This was done on Christmas Eve and we attempted to do something about it, but there was nothing we could do about it.

It is a problem and without getting the facts and statistics, gentlemen, you have to do something for us. We cannot do anything. The State cannot do anything. As you are well aware, virtually all of the airlines are federally regulated.

I thank you, Senator Tunney, for the effort you have had in the past. I think it might be a start toward what I hope is the conclusion of this jet noise pollution problem. I, once again, in a joking manner, emphasize that we are helpless, but you have, for this morning, solved the pollution problem, at least for this morning.

If there are any questions about anything concerning, as far as the city goes, technical or otherwise, as far as monetary value, what the price there is, I give you 50,000 homes, whatever that amounts to as far as the actual destruction of property values and certainly as far as schools, we have five schools directly under the flight path, high schools, grammar schools, junior high schools, and it is intolerable. They cannot learn anything in school with the aircraft flying

over.

Senator CANNON. Have you taken any zoning action, now, to rezone your properties within the areas that are directly affected?

Mayor MERGELL. Well, Senator Cannon, there are four runways at LAX, Los Angeles International Airport. The zoning would be virtually rezoning 60 percent of our city and I do not see that there is

any particular-we cannot suddenly zone a residence to commercial. I know what you are getting at.

Senator CANNON. I understand that.

I am concerned about whether or not if I came in here now, as a person desiring to build a home, could I go out in any one of these high noise impacted areas and buy a lot and go ahead and build a residence on it today?

Mayor MERGELL. Well, as far as Inglewood is concerned, we have no vacant property. If we had vacant land, we certainly would. In our commercial area we are involved even in incentive zoning as far as apartment areas that if they will soundproof them, they can have more units per square foot.

It is almost after the fact, and as you are well aware of, I am sure, zoning will not solve our problem, at least here in the city of Inglewood.

Senator CANNON. Have you noticed any difference in the noise impact since the wide-bodied jets came in? They have a considerably lower noise level than the older jets.

Mayor MERGELL. Yes.

The 10 is a-puts off less noise pollution. That is without question. Of course, we are looking at a very very long time before any type of all aircraft that come into LAX are emitting noise.

I might say that yes it is an improvement, but only the fact that it is a little better. It is not satisfactory.

Senator CANNON. But, it has been noticeable, at least.

Mayor MERGELL. Well, we monitor all aircraft in the city of Inglewood and I can give you-I cannot give you an exact decibel reading but the 10 puts off less noise pollution than the 47.

Senator CANNON. Yes, I know that. But I mean the wide-body jets altogether have a lesser noise level than the older jets, the DCMayor MERGELL. Yes, without question.

Senator CANNON. The 707's and the DC-8's.

Mayor MERGELL. Without question.

Senator CANNON. And their share of the market is becoming increasingly greater because there are more of them in relation to the total jet fleet.

So, I was wondering if the whole accumulation of noise effect is reducing somewhat now enough to be really noticeable in light of this situation.

Mayor MERGELL. Well, of course, as we are aware, the wide bodied jets give off less noise, but perhaps it is whether your six-cylinder car or eight-cylinder car is running without a muffler, the noise is still intolerable. It is not a solution to the problem because a few decibels are dropped from a particular kind of aircraft.

The other thing that you must realize is that although the aircraft may give off a little less noise pollution, a drop of 100 feet would put it way over, let's say a 747, a hundred feet higher as it goes over our city. It emits noise and the distance naturally makes the differ

ence.

This, again, is one of the situations. We seem to kind of have a ring-around-the-rosy type of thing. The airport says we only control 1. The FAA says we only set the safety regulations, which

the

is very wide and finally everything is up to the pilot's discretion, understandably.

As I say, I am a pilot and he is the captain of the ship. If the plane comes in low, or lower than recommended, the pilot says he was operating the plane to the best of his ability for the safety of his passengers. The glide slope can certainly be raised here, but they resist that. There are other airports, San Diego, for example, where the glide slope is higher than it is here.

When I say glide slope, I mean the angle of approach. That is because they have to land over the city and there are some tall buildings there. They say the glide slope would be unsafe here if you raise it to that particular height, which, perhaps, a higher glide slope would be unsafe. Everything is relative. There are buildings underneath them in San Diego so they come in at a higher approach.

Here there are no tall buildings, they do not fly over the city, and so maybe it is safer dragging the aircraft in with gearflaps and other things hung.

But, safety, I guess is relative. My personal opinion is that they should take off and land over the ocean. I assure you that as far as the safety factor, both for those, our schools underneath, should a plane come in and crash, unfortunately, I would not want to be under it and if I were in the aircraft I had rather go in over the ocean rather than buildings in a populated area.

Senator CANNON. Are you aware of the fact that there is such a rule going into effect in the month of April to require, at night, the take off and landing over the ocean, which means, of course, that if they do have a westerly wind in excess of 10 miles per hour, the aircraft will have to be diverted to some other airport?

Mayor MERGELL. Yes, sir. April 27. We are looking forward wholeheartedly to that. However, the resistance to that action was always a safety factor and I ask you, sir, why they do it at night and not during the day. I would feel much safer coming in during the day than I would at night.

Senator CANNON. Well, I can appreciate the folk's interest, but I may say that you are also aware of the fact that the traffic is much heavier during the daytime so the hazards of that type of approach would certainly increase.

Mayor MERGELL. Yes, sir. I know that one of our big stumbling blocks in dealing with the aircraft noise is this safety thing that none of us can really judge.

In my personal opinion it has been a coverup that has been used everytime we almost get close to a solution it is unsafe. Well, who can say it is unsafe. I won't want and neither does anyone else want unsafe operation of an aircraft.

I don't really know what is safe and what is unsafe, and neither does anyone else except the man that is holding the wheel on the aircraft. If he says it is unsafe, it is unsafe.

Believe me, if I were flying with him and he said it was unsafe, I would do what he thought best.

Our resistance, primarily, I think, is just to change. They don't want to change anything. Everything is going along fine except we

have virtually a hundred thousand people under the flight path and they have changed our lifestyle.

Once again, I would just like to emphasize that on the local level we can do nothing. I am convinced that the money, taxpayer's money, spent in the city of Inglewood has not been wasted only because we finally got to the situation that we know who has to help us now, and that is you gentlemen. We can do nothing about it. It has to be a Federal oriented type of control over aircraft pollution in our community.

Senator CANNON. Senator Tunney?

Senator TUNNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Mayor, you and Councilwomen Pat Russell have been leaders among local government officials trying to do something about this noise pollution problem and I know of the active interest that you have demonstrated not only here in your community, but making your views known at the national level in Washington.

I think that you know as well as anyone that basically we are faced with a question of economics, cost. You have estimated that there are 50,000 homes in Inglewood that are directly impacted. We are talking about hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars when we talk about 50,000 homes. It is inconceivable to me that any agency would be able to condemn 50,000 homes and make this a desert area.

Mayor MERGELL. We certainly would not want that to happen.
Senator TUNNEY. Right.

What we are talking about, then, is various procedures to reduce the level of noise in aircraft and the impact that that noise has on the surrounding community.

The Noise Control Act requires the EPA to study the four aspects of the aircraft-airport noise problem and report to the Congress on each of them by July 27 of this year.

One of the four aspects of the noise study is the additional measures available to airport operators and local governments to control aircraft noise.

I would like to know what your study has indicated needs to be done.

Mayor MERGELL. Well, you are certainly very correct, Senator Tunney, in the cost. My figures indicate not millions, but about one and a half billion dollars would solve the aircraft noise problem, and that is a great deal of money even for the Federal Government. But, $12 billion could be raised by 1 percent of all airline fares for 7 years and the problem is solved.

That is 1 percent. Mind you, if the flight from here to New York is $250 it would be $2.50 more.

Senator TUNNEY. How would that money solve the problem, by condemning

Mayor MERGELL. By retrofitting aircraft.

Senator TUNNEY. Retrofitting?

Mayor MERGELL. Yes.

Senator TUNNEY. I see.

Mayor MERGELL. Muflling, just like your car and my car must be muffled.

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