Boulder – Listening to the drone of planes and helicopters all day can make someone nuts.
Just ask Greg Camalier.
In March, according to Boulder police, Camalier became so upset with the noise from a hovering helicopter at Boulder Municipal Airport, across the street from his house, that he hopped a fence and confronted the helicopter on the runway – as the chopper’s blades spun just feet from his head.
“He was kicking and screaming and shouting,” said Andrew Kula, a student pilot in the helicopter. “He flipped us off too.”
Camalier, 39, was issued a summons for trespassing and for obstructing the runway. He did not return requests for comment.
He is hardly alone, though, in being annoyed at airport noise. Last year, Boulder Municipal Airport received 218 noise complaints. Centennial Airport, in Arapahoe and Douglas counties, received nearly 11,000.
Most airports have some type of noise-abatement program to deal with these complaints. Denver International Airport’s program – one of the strictest in the country, involving hefty fines that in some cases are used to help people sound-proof their homes – receives the most attention. But at the smaller regional and local airports around the metro area, the noise-abatement programs mostly involve managing flight paths and telling pilots to try to keep it down.
“We know this is a real concern to people,” said Robert Olislagers, Centennial Airport’s executive director. “The biggest problem is not having any easy answers and solutions to noise.”
A survey of noise complaints at metro-area airports shows there is no strong connection between the number of noise complaints an airport receives and the amount of traffic it handles.
Boulder’s 218 complaints were 37 more than the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport received, even though that airport – formerly known as the Jefferson County Airport – has three times the traffic.
Two airports reported receiving no noise complaints, even though one of those airports, Front Range Airport, is only 6 miles southeast of DIA, which received 713 complaints.
Unlike most other metro-area airports, Front Range has a 4,000-acre buffer zone around it in which uses incompatible with an airport are prohibited.
For airports with development already nearby, options are limited. Kenny Maenpa, the airport manager at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, said it is important homebuyers educate themselves about airport noise before they purchase a home close by.
“We’re sort of behind the 8-ball right away when someone buys a house and doesn’t realize how busy the airport is,” he said.
Smaller airports also try to set flight plans to avoid residential neighborhoods, try to limit when certain types of planes take off or land and encourage pilots to back off on the throttle, as long as it’s safe.
Since the March incident, Boulder Municipal Airport manager Tim Head said, the airport has asked helicopters to do hovering practice on the far east end of the runway, farthest from any houses. But Head said he doesn’t plan to make any other changes because the helicopter wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“The real message is you can’t have residents running out onto the runway because they’re unhappy about noise,” Head said. “It’s just so unsafe.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
